The other three books contain “doctrinam de praedictione singularium.” The second book, however, deals in the main with four points of general though subordinate bearing: under what stars different regions belong, how the effects of the stars vary according to time as well as place, how the heavenly bodies influence the nature of events, and finally how they determine their quality, good or bad. The third and fourth books, besides taking up separately the particular effects of each planet as it enters into conjunction with each of the others, comprise chapters with such headings as the following: “_de parentibus_,” “_de fratribus_,” “_de masculis et femellis_,” “_de geminis_,” “_de natis qui nutrire non possunt sed mox extinguuntur_,” “_de dignitate_,” “_de magisterio_,” “_de coniugiis_,” “_de liberis_,” “_de amicis et inimicis_,” “_de servis_,” “_de perigrinatione_,” “_de genere mortis_.” These two books discuss how length of years, fortune, diseases, and various qualities of body and mind may be predicted from the stars; in short, how man’s entire life is ordered by the constellations. Such is the book which Bouché-Leclercq calls “science’s surrender.”[184] V. _The hermetic books and occultism._—An account of belief in magic in the Roman Empire would be incomplete without some reference to the famous hermetic books. Hermes Trismegistus might, as deservedly as any other man—had he only been a man and not a myth—be called the father of magic, just as he used to be known as the father of Egyptian science and just as he was regarded by many as the inventor of all philosophy.[185] In the time of Plato the Egyptian god Thoth acquired the name of Hermes from the similarity of his functions to those of the Greek god. He also came to be considered as the author of pretty much all knowledge and was given the epithet of “Thrice Great.” The entire body of Egyptian occult lore was attributed to him, and Manetho, who pictured him as reigning over the ancient Egyptians, declared that in addition to his royal duties he succeeded in turning off some 36,000 volumes. Clement of Alexandria, however, speaks of but forty-two books as “indispensably necessary,” and says that the priests having charge of the hermetic books, by memorizing these forty-two, cover the entire philosophy of the Egyptians.[186] Diocletian is said to have dispersed the priests and burned their books, because he came to the conclusion that the frequent revolts in the locality received pecuniary aid by means of gold artificially manufactured in the temples.[187] Before that, however, lore supposed to be similar to that contained within the books had become disseminated. In the days of Hadrian and the Antonines, Jews and other Orientals at Rome offered to initiate persons into those occult sciences previously the monopoly of the Egyptian priesthood. Marcus Aurelius, in his later years, was thus instructed by an Egyptian diviner, who followed him in all his campaigns.[188] Also the custom