What clearer example of magic could one ask than the conclusion that the odor of the burning horn of a stag has the power of dispelling serpents, because enmity exists between stags and snakes, and the former track the latter to their holes and extract the snakes thence, despite all resistance, by the power of their breath? Or that on this same account the sovereign remedy for snake-bite comes “ex coagulo hinnulei matris in utero occisi?” Or that, since the stag is not subject to fever, the eating of its flesh will prevent that disease, especially if the animal has died of a single wound? What more magical than to fancy that the longest tooth of a fish could have any efficacy in the cure of fever? Or that excluding the person who had tied it on from the sight of the patient for five days would complete a perfect charm? Or that wearing as an amulet the carcass of a frog, minus the claws and wrapped in a piece of russet-colored cloth, would be of any aid against disease?[[77]] Yet the Natural History is full of such things.
To plants, for example, Pliny assigns powers no less marvelous than those which he has attributed to animals. There is one plant which, held in the hand, has a beneficial effect upon the groin;[[78]] another overcomes the asp with torpor, and hence, beaten up with oil, is a remedy for the sting of that snake.[[79]] Fern, he says, if mowed down with the edge of a reed or uprooted by a ploughshare on which a reed has been placed, will not spring up again.[[80]] Moreover, in his twenty-fourth book, immediately after having announced that he has sufficiently discussed for the present the marvelous properties attributed to herbs by the magi,[[81]] he proceeds to mention the following remedies. One is a quick cure for headache, and consists in gathering a plant growing on the head of a statue and attaching it to your neck with a red string. Another is a cure for tertian fever, and consists in plucking a certain herb before sunrise on the banks of a stream and in fastening it to the patient’s left arm without his knowledge. A third recipe instructs us that plants which have taken root in a sieve that has been thrown into a hedge-row “decerptae adalligataeque gravidis partus adcelerant.” A fourth would have herbs growing on dunghills a cure for quinzy, and a fifth assures us that sprains may be speedily cured by the application of a plant “iuxta quam canes urinam fundunt,” torn up by the roots and not allowed to touch iron.[[82]]
Coming to minerals we find Pliny rather more reticent in regard to strange qualities. His account of gems is written mainly from the jeweler’s point of view. When marvelous powers are mentioned, the magi are usually made responsible, and such powers are frequently rejected as absurd. Pliny, however, grants some magic properties in certain stones. Molochitis, by some medicinal power which it possesses, guards infants against dangers;[[83]] and eumecas, placed beneath the head at night, causes oracular visions.[[84]] To water Pliny allows powers which we must regard as magical, for according to him certain rivers pass under the sea because of their hatred of it.[[85]]
In man, moreover, as well as in other creatures upon earth, there is magic power. Pliny mentions men whose eyes are able to exert strong fascination,[[86]] others who fill serpents with terror and can cure snake-bite by merely touching the wound, and others who by their presence addle eggs in the vicinity.[[87]] Pliny takes up the power of words and incantations in connection with man. Whether they have potency beyond what we expect ordinary speech to possess is a great and unanswered question. Our ancestors, Pliny says, always believed so, and in every-day life we often unconsciously accept such a view ourselves. If, for instance, we believe that the Vestal virgins can, by an imprecation, stop runaway slaves who are still within the city limits, we must accept the whole theory of the power of words. But, taken as individuals, the wisest men lack faith in the doctrine.[[88]]
Pliny, then, believed in the possession of magic properties by well-nigh all varieties of terrestrial substances, nay even by colors and numbers, and in strange relations of occult sympathy, love and hatred between different things in the realm of nature. His acceptance of ceremony as efficacious has also been brought out to some extent. We have seen him attributing importance to death from a single wound, to suspension by a single hair, to fastening an amulet without the patient’s knowledge, or to the absence for a time from the patient’s sight of the person who attached it. We will consider one or two more such instances among the many which exist in his pages.
He who gathers the iris should be in a state of chastity. Three months beforehand let him soak the ground around the plant with hydromel—as a sort of atonement to appease the earth. When he comes to pluck it, he should first trace three circles about it with the point of a sword, and, the moment he plucks it, raise it aloft towards the heavens.[[89]] In another passage, in connection with the application of a mixture to an inflammatory tumor, Pliny says that persons of experience regard it as very important that the poultice be applied by a naked virgin and that both she and the patient be fasting. Touching the sufferer with the back of her hand, she is to say, “Apollo forbids a disease to increase which a naked virgin restrains.” Then, withdrawing her hand, she is to repeat the same words thrice and to join with the patient in spitting on the ground each time.[[90]]
Pliny occasionally prefaces his marvelous remedies by some such expression as “it is said.” This circumstance is scarcely to be taken as a sign of mental reservation, however, as the following absurd statement, which he makes upon his own authority and declares is easily tested by experiment, will indicate. “If a person repents of a blow given to another, either by hand or with a missile, let him spit at once into the palm of the hand which inflicted the blow, and all resentment in the person struck will instantly vanish.” This is often proved, according to Pliny, in the case of beasts of burden, which can be induced to increase their speed by this method after the use of the whip has failed.[[91]]
One can, perhaps, make some distinction between the strange influences which Pliny credited and the statements of the magi which he rejected. I believe that he did not go to the length of affirming that plants or parts of animals could cause panics, procure provisions, win you royal favor, gain for you vengeance on your enemies, or make you invisible. But he was inconsistent enough. After asserting that a single fish but a few inches long could immediately arrest the progress of the largest vessel by attaching itself to the keel of the ship,[[92]] was it for him to declare false the notion that a stone can calm winds or ward off hail and swarms of locusts? He characterized as “idle talk” the assertion of the magi that the stone “gorgonia” counteracted fascination,[[93]] but he had already written: “Id quoque convenit, quo nihil equidem libentius crediderim, tactis omnino menstruo postibus inritas fieri magorum artes, generis vanissimi, ut aestimare licet.”[[94]] Apparently, then, the only charge which he could bring against magicians without reflecting upon himself was that of malicious and criminal practices. His beliefs were much like theirs.
Indeed, the varieties of magic in the Natural History have not yet been exhausted. For one thing, we must consider Pliny’s position in regard to magic properties of the stars as well as of terrestrial matter. He believed in astrology, at least to some extent, although one might not think it if one read only the passage in which he speaks of the debt of gratitude mankind owe to the great geniuses who have freed them from superstitious fear of eclipses.[[95]] He could, nevertheless, in naming some prominent personage in each of the primary arts and sciences, mention Berosus, to whom a public statue has been erected by the Athenians in honor of his skill in prognostication, in connection with astrology.[[96]]
Pliny himself holds that the universe is a divinity, “holy eternal, vast, all in all—nay, in truth is itself all,” a proposition rather favorable to astrological theory.[[97]] The sun is the mind and soul of the whole world and the chief governor of nature.[[98]] The planets affect each other. A cold star renders another approaching it pale; a hot star causes its neighbor to redden; a windy planet gives those near it a lowering aspect.[[99]] Saturn is cold and rigid; Mars a flaming fire; Jupiter, located between them, is temperate and salubrious.[[100]] When the planets reach a certain point in their orbits, they are deflected from their regular course by the rays of the sun.[[101]]