It is believed that the higher orders of magi went further, and pretended to hold intercourse with, and cause to appear, the very [Greek: eidolon] of the dead. In the days of Moses it was practised. "There shall not be found among you ... a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer."[32] {36} Diodorus Siculus mentions an oracle near Lake Avernus, where the dead were raised, as having been in existence before the age of Hercules.[33] Plutarch, in his life of Cimon, relates that Pausanias, in his distress, applied to the Psychagogi, or dead-evokers, at Heraclea, to call up the spirit of Cleonice (whose injured apparition haunted him incessantly), in order that he might entreat her forgiveness. She appeared accordingly, and informed him that, on his return to Sparta, he would be delivered from all his sorrows--meaning, by death. This was five hundred years before Christ. The story resembles that of the apparition of Samuel before Saul: "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me."[34] The appearance of Samuel was regarded as a real transaction by the writer of Ecclesiasticus, for he says: "By his faithfulness he was found a true prophet, and by his word he was known to be faithful in vision; for after his death he showed the king his end, and lift up his voice from the earth in prophecy."[35] The rabbins say that the woman was the mother of Abner; she is said to have had the spirit of _Ob_, which Dean Milman has remarked is singularly similar in sound to the name of the _Obeah_ women in Africa and the West Indies. Herodotus also mentions _Thesprotia_, in Epirus, as the place where Periander evoked the spirit of his wife Melissa, whom he had murdered.[36] {37} It was a very general opinion, in later days, that demons had power over the souls of the dead, until Christ descended into Hades and delivered them from the thrall of the "Prince of Darkness." The dead were sometimes raised by those who did not possess a familiar spirit. These consulters repaired to the grave at night, and there lying down, repeated certain words in a low, muttering tone, and the spirit thus summoned appeared. "And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust."[37] Euripides also refers to necromancy.[38] ADMETUS. [Greek: hora ge me ti phasma nerteron tod e]? HERCULES. [Greek: ou psuchagogon tond' epoieso xenon]. ADM. See! is not this some spectre from the dead? HER. No dead-invoker for thy guest hast thou.