Other marvels.
When Apollonius was brought before Tigellinus, the scroll on which the charges against him had been written was found to have become quite blank when Tigellinus unrolled it.[1239] Upon that occasion and again before Domitian he intimated that his body could not be bound or slain against his will.[1240] The former contention he proved to the satisfaction of Damis, who visited him in prison, by suddenly removing his leg from the fetters and then inserting it again.[1241] Damis regarded this exhibition as a divine miracle, since Apollonius performed it without magical ceremony or incantations. He is also represented as escaping from his bonds at about midnight when imprisoned later in life in Crete.[1242] Philostratus, too, implies that he vanished miraculously from the courtroom of Domitian and that he sometimes passed from one place to another in an incredibly short time, and is somewhat doubtful whether he ever died. But we have seen that even on the testimony of Damis and Philostratus themselves many of the marvels and predictions of Apollonius were not “artless” but involved a knowledge of contemporary natural science and medicine, or of arts of divination, or the employment, in a way not unlike the procedure of magic, of forces and materials outside himself, namely, the occult virtues of things in nature or incantations, rites, and ceremonies.
Golden wrynecks and the iunx.
So much for Apollonius and his magic, but the Life contains some interesting allusions to the ἴυγξ or wryneck, which throw light upon the use of that bird in Greek magic, but which have seldom been noted and then not correctly interpreted.[1243] The wryneck was so much employed in Greek magic, as references to it from Pindar to Theocritus show, that the word iunx was sometimes used as a synonym or figurative expression for spells or charms in general. Philostratus, too, employs it in this sense, representing the Gymnosophists as accusing the Brahmans of “appealing to the crowd with varied enchantments (or iunges).”[1244] But in other passages he makes it clear that the wryneck is still employed as a magic bird. Describing the royal palace at Babylon[1245] he states that the Magi have hung four golden wrynecks, which they themselves attune and which they call the tongues of the gods, from the ceiling of the judgment hall to remind the king of divine judgment and not to set himself above mankind. Golden wrynecks were also suspended in the Pythian temple at Delphi, and in this connection they are said to possess some of the virtue of the Sirens,[1246] or, as Mr. Cook translates it, “to echo the persuasive note of siren voices.” These two passages seem to point clearly to the employment of mechanical metal birds which sang and moved as if by magic. The Greek mathematician Hero in his explanation of mechanical devices employed in temples tells how to make a bird turn itself about and whistle by turning a wheel.[1247]
Why named iunx?
Now this is precisely what the wryneck does in its “wonderful way of writhing its head and neck” and emitting hissing sounds. The bird’s “unmistakable note” is “que, que, que, repeated many times in succession, at first rapidly, but gradually slowing and in a continually falling key.”[1248] I would therefore suggest that as the English name for the bird is derived from its writhing its neck, so the Greek name comes from its cry, for “que” and the root ἰυγ, if repeated rapidly many times in succession, sound much alike.[1249]
Apollonius in the middle ages.
The name, Apollonius, continued to be associated with magic in the middle ages, when the Golden Flowers of Apollonius, a work on the notory art or theurgy,[1250] is found in the manuscripts. And we shall find Cecco d’Ascoli[1251] in the early fourteenth century citing a “book of magic art” by Apollonius and also a treatise on spirits, De angelica factione. In 1412 Amplonius listed in the catalogue of his manuscripts a “book of Apollonius the magician or philosopher which is called Elizinus.”[1252] Works on the causes and properties of things are also ascribed to Apollonius in medieval manuscripts,[1253] and a Balenus or Belenus to whom works on astrological images and seals are ascribed in the manuscripts[1254] is perhaps a corruption for Apollonius.[1255]
CHAPTER IX
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ATTACKS UPON SUPERSTITION: CICERO, FAVORINUS, SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, AND LUCIAN
Authors to be considered—Their standpoint—De divinatione; argument of Quintus—Cicero attacks past authority—Divination distinct from natural science—Unreasonable in method—Requires violation of natural law—Cicero and astrology—His crude historical criticism—Favorinus against astrologers—Sextus Empiricus—Lucius, or The Ass: is it by Lucian?—Career of Lucian—Alexander the pseudo-prophet—Magical procedure in medicine satirized—Snake-charming—A Hyperborean magician—Some ghost stories—Pancrates, the magician—Credulity and scepticism—Menippus, or Necromancy—Astrological interpretation of Greek myth—History and defense of astrology—Lucian not always sceptical—Lucian and medicine—Inevitable intermingling of scepticism and superstition—Lucian on writing history.