Snake-charming.
His protests, however, merely lead Ion the Platonist to recount how a Magus, a Chaldean of Babylonia, cured his father’s gardener who had been stung by an adder on the great toe and was already all swollen up and nearly dead. The magician’s method was to apply a splinter of stone from the statue of a virgin to the toe, uttering at the same time an incantation. He then led the way to the field where the gardener had been stung; pronounced seven sacred names from an ancient volume, and fumigated the place thrice with torches and sulphur. All the snakes in the field then came forth from their holes with the exception of one very aged and decrepit serpent, whom the magician sent a young snake back to fetch. Having thus assembled every last serpent, he blew upon them, and they all vanished into thin air.
A Hyperborean magician.
This tale reminds the Stoic of another magician, a barbarian and Hyperborean, who could walk through fire or upon water and even fly through the air. He could also “make people fall in love, call up spirits, resuscitate corpses, bring down the moon, and show you Hecate herself as large as life.”[1281] More specific illustration of the exercise of these powers is given in an account of a love spell which he performed for a young man for a big fee. Digging a trench, he raised the ghost of the youth’s father and also summoned Hecate, Cerberus, and the Moon. The last named appeared in three successive forms of a woman, an ox, and a puppy. The sorcerer then constructed a clay image of the god of love and sent it to fetch the girl, who came and stayed until cock-crow, when all the apparitions vanished with her. In vain the sceptic argues that the girl in question would have come willingly enough without any magic. The Platonist matches the previous story with one of a Syrian from Palestine who cast out demons.
Some ghost stories.
The discussion then further degenerates into ghost stories and tales of statuettes that leave their pedestals after the household has retired for the night. One speaker says that he no longer has any fear of ghosts since an Arab gave him a magic ring made of nails from crosses and taught him an incantation to use against spooks. At this juncture a Pythagorean philosopher of great repute enters and adds his testimony in the form of an account of how he laid a ghost at Corinth by employing an Egyptian incantation.
Pancrates, the magician.
Eucrates, the host, then tells of Pancrates, whom he had met in Egypt and who “had spent twenty-three years underground learning magic from Isis,” and whom crocodiles would allow to ride on their backs. They traveled a time together without a servant, since Pancrates was able to dress up the door-bar or a broom or pestle, turn it into human form, and make it wait upon them. There follows the familiar story of Eucrates’ overhearing the incantation of three syllables which Pancrates employed and of trying it out himself when the magician was absent. The pestle turned into human form all right enough and obeyed his order to bring in water, but then he discovered that he could not make it stop, and when he seized an axe and chopped it in two, the only effect was to produce two water-carriers in place of one.
Credulity and scepticism.
The conversation is turning to the subject of oracles when the sceptic can stand it no longer and retires in disgust. As he tells what he has heard to a friend, he remarks upon the childish credulity of “these admired teachers from whom our youth are to learn wisdom.” At the same time, the stories seem to have made a considerable impression even upon him, and he wishes that he had some lethal drug to make him forget all these monsters, demons, and Hecates that he seems still to see before him. His friend, too, declares that he has filled him with demons. Their dialogue then concludes with the consoling reflection that truth and sound reason are the best drugs for the cure of such empty lies.