the gods is in effect a postscript to the magical rite. So, too, in Ovid (_Fasti_ ii. 575) a ceremony of this kind, which is performed as part of the worship of the Dea Muta, ends up with the declaration that we--viz. the old woman who has performed the rite--we, ‘hostiles linguas inimicaque vinximus ora’; she has used an iron nail and driven it through the head of a _maena_. But the tendency which manifests itself in the evolution of the Attic tablets is for the postscript to grow in importance and size, until the magic dwindles and almost disappears. For instance, 98 does indeed begin by saying formally Εὑρυπτόλεμον καταδῶ, but the whole of the rest of the inscription is a genuine prayer, φίλη Γῆ κάτεχε, φίλη Γῆ βοήθει μοι. While recognizing however, that this is the tendency in the genuine Attic tablets, it is desirable to notice that in the Roman empire generally the magical element swells until it entirely drives out the religious. All kinds of deity, from religions of every sort, are indeed invoked in these later inscriptions, both Greek and Latin. But they are invoked only to receive commands from the magician and to do his will: in the Hadrumetan tablet of the third century A.D. the deity adjured is just told to go off and fetch Urbanus, ἄπελθε πρὸς τὸν Οὑρβανὸν καὶ ἅξον αὑτόν (_Wuensch_, p. xvii), and the lady who thus addresses him has the power to order him about because she knows--and bids him hearken to--an ὀνόματος ἑντείμου καὶ φοβεροῦ καὶ μεγάλοῦ. And he is to lose no time about it: the inscription ends, ἥδη ἥδη ταχὺ ταχύ.