Solomon as a magician--Magic books ascribed to Solomon--Manuscripts of them--Notory art of Solomon and Apollonius--Other works ascribed to Solomon and Apollonius--_Liber sacratus_; preface--_Incipit_ and _Explicit_--A work of theurgy or the notory art--Character of its contents--The third “work”--The fourth and fifth “works”--How to operate with spirits--The seal of the living God--Spirits of Saturn. [Sidenote: Solomon as a magician.] It was only natural that Solomon, regarded as the wisest man in the history of the world, should be represented in oriental tradition as the worker of many marvels and that in the course of time books of magic should be attributed to him, just as treatises on the interpretation of dreams were ascribed to Joseph and Daniel. Roger Bacon speaks of the magic books in a grand-sounding style which were falsely ascribed to Solomon and which “ought all to be prohibited by law.”[876] Solomon’s reputation as a magician, even in the western Latin-speaking world, was much older than the thirteenth century, however. In 1918 Roman archaeologists excavated at Ostia a bronze disc, on one side of which was depicted Solomon as a magician, stirring with a long ladle some mess in a large cauldron. On the other side of the disc was a figure of the triple Hecate, who, like Solomon, was surrounded by mystic signs and magic characters.[877] [Sidenote: Magic books ascribed to Solomon.] But to return to the medieval period. In the first half of the thirteenth century William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, in his treatise on laws declares that there is no divinity in the angles of Solomon’s pentagon, that the rings of Solomon and the seals of Solomon and the nine candles (_candariae_) are a form of idolatry, and involve execrable consecrations and detestable invocations and images. “As for that horrible image called the _Idea Salomonis et entocta_, let it never be mentioned among Christians.” In the same class are the book called _Sacratus_ and the figure _Mandel_ or _Amandel_.[878] Some years later Albertus Magnus, listing evil books of necromantic images in his _Speculum astronomiae_,[879] includes five treatises current under the name of Solomon, and seems to have in mind about the same works as William. One is _De figura Almandel_, another _De novem candariis_, and a third on the four rings (_De quatuor annulis_) opens with the words “_De arte eutonica et ideica_,” which remind one of William’s “_Idea Salomonis et entocta_,” and is perhaps also identical with a _Liber de umbris idearum_ cited under the name of Solomon by Cecco d’Ascoli in his necromantic commentary upon the _Sphere_ of Sacrobosco,[880] written in the early fourteenth century. [Sidenote: Manuscripts of them.]