Pliny does not even object to the marvelous results which the _magi_ think can be gained by use of herbs until towards the close of his twenty-fourth book, although already in his twentieth and twenty-first books such powers have been claimed for herbs as to make one well-favored and enable one to attain one’s desires,[219] or to give one grace and glory.[220] At the end of his twenty-fourth book[221] he states that Pythagoras and Democritus, following the _magi_, ascribe to herbs unusually marvelous virtues such as to freeze water, invoke spirits, force the guilty to confess by frightening them with apparitions, and impart the gift of divination. Early in his twenty-fifth book[222] Pliny suggests that some incredible effects have been attributed to herbs by the _magi_ and their disciples, and in a later chapter[223] he describes the _magi_ as so mad about vervain that they think that if they are anointed with it, they can gain their wishes, drive away fevers and other diseases, and make friendships. The herb should be plucked about the rising of the dog-star when there is neither sun nor moon. Honey and honeycomb should be offered to appease the earth; then the plant should be dug around with iron with the left hand and raised aloft. By the time he reaches his twenty-sixth book Pliny’s courage has risen, so to speak, enough to cause him at last to enter upon quite a tirade against “magical vanities which have been carried so far that they might destroy faith in herbs entirely.”[224] As examples he mentions herbs supposed to dry up rivers and swamps, open barred doors at their touch, turn hostile armies to flight, and supply all the needs of the ambassadors of the Persian kings. He wonders why such herbs have never been employed in Roman warfare or Italian drainage. Pliny’s only objection to magic herbs therefore seems to be the excessive powers which are claimed for some of them. He adds that it would be strange that the credulity which arose from such wholesome beginnings had reached such a pitch, if human ingenuity observed moderation in anything and if the much more recent system of medicine which Asclepiades founded could not be shown to have been carried even beyond the magicians. Here again we see Pliny failing to recognize magic as a primitive social product and regarding it as a degeneration from ancient science rather than science as a comparatively modern development from it. But he may well be right in thinking that many particular far-fetched recipes and rites were the late, artificial product of over-scholarly magicians. Thus he brands as false and magical the assertion of a recent grammarian, Apion, that the herb cynocephalia is divine and a safeguard against poison, but kills the man who uproots it entirely.[225] [Sidenote: Animals and parts of animals.]