[269] Nectanebus, sometimes spelt Neptanebus, is perhaps the ‘Naptium’ of the _Picatrix_ (iii. 8). See also on this curious subject the _Pancrates_ of Lucian, the verses of Adalberone or Ascelin (A.D. 1006) in the _Recueil des Hist. des Gaules_ (Bouquet x. 67), the English romance of _Alisaundre_ (Early English Text Soc. 1867) and the _Alexander_ of Juan Lorenzo Segura de Astorga. In this last poem, which belongs to the thirteenth century, the hero’s arms are said to have been forged by the fairies. There is an article on ‘Nectanebo’ by D. G. Hogarth in the _Eng. Hist. Review_, Jan. 1896. The same mystic fame attached itself to Pythagoras. [270] In the poem of Albéric de Besançon. [271] St. Chrysostom (A.D. 398) speaks of the custom of using brass coins of Alexander as amulets. [272] It is a curious fact that under the historic Nekhtneb (362-45 B.C.) the Greek philosophers Eudoxus and Chrysippus spent eleven years in Egypt to learn the astronomical secrets of the priests. [273] A _Geomancy_, said to be the work of Scot, is preserved in the Munich Library, No. 489 in 4to, saec. xvi. See the _Thousand Nights_ for instances of the prevalence of this art. [274] This MS. reached me from Germany. It is unbound and contained in an envelope made from the leaf of an old choir-book covered with manuscript music. This cover is secured by three large seals bearing the arms of Dunkelsphuhl, to which family it seems to have belonged. The preface is dated at Prague. It is possible the MS. may have had something to do with the magical studies of Dr. John Dee, who spent some time in Prague at the beginning of the seventeenth century. See Appendix IV. [275] Leonardo Pisano uses this word in the _Liber Abbaci_. See p. 187vo of the Florence MS. Bibl. Naz. i. 2616, where the following passage occurs: ‘Secundum modum algebrae et almuchabalae, scilicet ad proportionem et restaurationem.’ In an ancient list of works by Gerard of Cremona (? the younger) found in the Vatican (No. 2392) we have this title: ‘Liber alcoarismi de iebra et almucabala tractatus.’ See Boncompagni’s _Life of Gerard_, Rome 1851. Works on almuchabola are found also under the names of Al Deinouri, Al Sarakhsi, Al Khouaresmi, Khamel Schagia ben Aslam, and Al Thoussi. See D’Herbelot. [276] They show a distinct likeness to the Magreb or West African writing. [277] This resemblance should be studied in the remarkably beautiful MS. of the _Liber Abbaci_, numbered xi. 21 in the Bibl. Naz. Florence. [278] _Epistola de Secretis_, ed. Master of the Rolls, Longmans, 1859, pp. 531, 544. [279] _Explanatio in Prophetias Merlini_, iii. 26. [280] See the interesting work by Graf, _Miti, Leggendi e Superstizioni del Medio Evo_, Torino, Loescher, 1893. [281] ‘Otia Imperialia’ in Leibnitz _Scriptores Rerum Brunsvicensium_, i. 921.