[Footnote 125: Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, VIII, c. 75, says the sheep is compelled when it feeds to turn away from the sun by reason of the weakness of its head. This is probably the story which Hippolytus or the author has exaggerated. Something is omitted from the text.] [Footnote 126: Seal or porpoise oil?] [Footnote 127: Hymns like these are to be found in the two collections of magic papyri quoted in n. on p. 93 _supra_.] [Footnote 128: He tells us how this trick is performed on p. 100 _infra_. Lecanomancy or divination by the bowl was generally performed by means of a hypnotized boy, as described in Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_. This, however, is a more elaborate process dependent on fraud.] [Footnote 129: Reading νάτρον for νίτρον. It was common in Egypt, and saltpetre would not have the same effect, which seems to depend on the expulsion of carbonic acid.] [Footnote 130: μυρσίνη. Cruice suggests μάλφη, a mixture of wax and pitch, which hardly seems indicated. Storax is the ointment recommended by eighteenth-century conjurers. Water is all that is needful.] [Footnote 131: ἰχθυοκόλλα. Presumably fish-glue. Macmahon suggests isinglass. The salamander, the use of which is to be sought in sympathetic magic, was no doubt calcined and used in powder. σκολοπένδριον, “millipede” and σκολόπενδρον, “hart’s tongue fern” are the alternative readings suggested. Fern-oil is said to be good for burns.] [Footnote 132: Probably chalk or gypsum.] [Footnote 133: αὐτορρύτων κηκίδων τε κενῶν. Κήκις here evidently means any sort of nut-shell. But how can it be “self-flowing”? Miller’s suggested φορυτὸν makes no better sense.] [Footnote 134: The lion-headed figure of the Mithraic worship is shown thus setting light to an altar in Cumont’s _Textes et Monuments de Mithra_, II, p. 196, fig. 22. A similar figure with an opening at the back of the head to admit the “wind-pipe” described in the text shows how this was effected. See the same author’s _Les Mystères de Mithra_, Brussels, 1913, p. 235, figs. 26, 27.] [Footnote 135: The solution of alum would be effective without any other ingredients.] [Footnote 136: That is, not by guesswork. Another pun.] [Footnote 137: The letter was of course in the form of a writing-tablet bound about with silk or cord, to which the seal was attached.] [Footnote 138: This would make something like plaster of Paris.] [Footnote 139: This book or the former one. Lucian describes the same process in his _Alexander_, which he dedicates to Celsus; _v._ n. on p. 92 _supra_.] [Footnote 140: ἀφορμὰς λαβών, “taking them as starting-points.”] [Footnote 141: Cruice suggests that this sentence has either got out of place or is an addition by an annotator. Probably an afterthought of Hippolytus’.] [Footnote 142: See n. on p. 97 _supra_.] [Footnote 143: κύανος. A dark-blue substance which some think steel, others lapis lazuli.] [Footnote 144: συμπαῖκται, “playfellows.” Here, as elsewhere in the text, accomplices or confederates.]