The Thessalian women had an especially great reputation in the art of enchantments. All the poets rival one another in declaring how they are able, by their magical hymns, to bring down the moon. Menander, in his comedy entitled _The Thessalian_, represents the mysterious ceremonies by the aid of which these sorcerers force the moon to leave the heavens, a prodigy which so completely became the type of enchantments that Nonnus tells us it is done by the Brahmins. There was, in addition, another _cultus_ in Greece, namely, that of Hecate with mysterious rays, the patron of sorcerers. Lucian of Samosate--if the work on astrology which is ascribed to him be really his--justifies his belief in the influence of the stars in the following terms:--"The stars follow their orbit in the heaven; but independently of their motion, they act upon what passes here below. If you admit that a horse in a gallop, that birds in flying, and men in walking, make the stones jump or drive the little floating particles of dust by the wind of their course, why should you deny that the stars have any effect? The smallest fire sends us its emanations, and although it is not for us that the stars burn, and they care very little about warming us, why should we not receive any emanations from them? Astrology, it is true, cannot make that good which is evil. It can effect no change in the course of events; but it renders a service to those who cultivate it by announcing to them good things to come; it procures joy by anticipation at the same time that it fortifies them against the evil. Misfortune, in fact, does not take them by surprise, the foreknowledge of it renders it easier and lighter. That is my way of looking at astrology." Very different is the opinion of the satirist Juvenal, who says that women are the chief cultivators of it. "All that an astrologer predicts to them," he says, "they think to come from the temple of Jupiter. Avoid meeting with a lady who is always casting up her _ephemerides_, who is so good an astrologer that she has ceased to consult, and is already beginning to be consulted; such a one on the inspection of the stars will refuse to accompany her husband to the army or to his native land. If she only wishes to drive a mile, the hour of departure is taken from her book of astrology. If her eye itches and wants rubbing, she will do nothing till she has run through her conjuring book. If she is ill in bed, she will take her food only at the times fixed in her _Petosiris_. Women of second-rate condition," he adds, "go round the circus before consulting their destiny, after which they show their hands and face to the diviner." When Octavius came into the world a senator versed in astrology, Nigidius Figulus, predicted the glorious destiny of the future emperor. Livia, the wife of Tiberius, asked another astrologer, Scribius, what would be the destiny of her infant; his reply was, they say, like the other's.