II. _Pliny’s discussion of magic._—Before illustrating Pliny’s combination of magical lore with true and sane statements about nature, we should consider his discussion of what he was pleased to call magic; for just as he prided himself upon his freedom from excessive credulity in the abstract, so in regard to magic in particular he seems to have flattered himself that his position was quite different from what it actually was. Pliny did have, however, a fairly clear idea of the extensive scope of magic as well as of its great age and currency. Not only did he declare that of all known arts it had exerted the greatest influence in every land and in almost every age, but “no one,” he said, “should wonder that its authority has been very great, since it alone has embraced and combined into one the three other subjects which appeal most powerfully to man’s mind.”[62] For magic had invaded the domain of religion and had also made astrology a part of itself,[63] while “no one doubts that it originally sprang from medicine and crept in under the show of promoting health as a loftier and more holy medicine.”[64] Indeed, he thinks that the development of magic and of medicine have been parallel[65] and that the latter is now in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by the follies of magic which have made men doubt whether plants possess any medicinal properties at all.[66] Pliny, moreover, sees the connection of magic with the lore of the magi of Persia. Indeed, “magus” is his only word for a magician. But this does not lead him to admit what some persons—the philosopher Eudoxus, for instance—have asserted, that magic is the most splendid and useful branch of philosophy.[67] For Pliny, magic is always something reprehensible. The magi are either fools or imposters. They are a _genus vanissimum_.[68] They believe such absurdities as that herbs can dry up swamps and rivers, open all barriers, turn hostile battle-lines in flight, and insure their possessor, wherever he may be, abundant provision for every need.[69] They make statements which Pliny thinks must have been dictated by a feeling of contempt and derision for the human race. They affirm that gems carved with the names of sun and moon and attached to the neck by hairs of the cynocephalus and feathers of the swallow will neutralize the effect of potions, win audience with kings, and, with the aid of some additional ceremony, ward off hail and locusts.[70] They have the impudence to assert that the stone “heliotropium,” combined with the plant of the same name and with due incantations, renders its bearer invisible.[71] “Vanitas” is Pliny’s stock-word for their statements. Nero proved how hollow are their pretenses by the fact that, although he was most eagerly devoted to the pursuit of magic arts and had every opportunity to acquire skill in them, he was unable to effect any marvels through their agency and abandoned the study of them.[72]