Chapter VIII-aj

407; the Introduction to my translation of Aristotle on the Soul; and the long extract from Synesius on Dreams, in vol. ii. of my Proclus on Euclid. 70 . i. e. The discursive energy of reason. 71 . Proclus in Plat. Polit. having observed that Socrates in the Phædrus, when he speaks in a divinely inspired manner, and poetically adopts such names as are employed by the poets, and says that it is not possible for one who speaks with an insane [ i. e. with an inspired] mouth to abstain from them, adds “that an alliance to the dæmoniacal genus, preparing the soul for the reception of divine light, excites the phantasy to symbolic narration.” Η προς δαιμονιον γενος οικειοτης, η προευτρεπιζουσα την του θειου φωτος παρουσιαν, ανακινει την φαντασιαν εις την συμβολικην απαγγελιαν. p. 396. 72 . These words of Heraclitus are also quoted by Plutarch in his treatise De Defectu Oraculorum. 73 . For εικονων here, I read ειδων . 74 . Herodian, lib. viii. observes, that the Italians very much believed in the indications of future events through the viscera: and Strabo, lib. xvii. asserts the same thing. 75 . The auspices were said to be pestiferous when there was no heart in the entrails, or when the head was wanting in the liver. This was the case with the animals that were sacrificed by Cæsar on the day in which he was slain. The same thing also happened to Caius Marius, when he was sacrificing at Utica. But when Pertinax was sacrificing, both the heart and the liver of the victim were wanting, whence his death was predicted, which happened shortly after. In the sacrifices, likewise, which Marcellus performed prior to the unfortunate battle with the Carthaginians, the liver was found to be without a head, as Plutarch and Livy, Pliny and Valerius Maximus relate. 76 . Gale observes that this appears to have been a very ancient mode of divination, and does not differ from that which is comprehended under the term wood . Hence the Scholiast, in Nicandri Theriaca, says, “that the Magi and Scythians predicted from the wood of the tamarisk.” For in many places they predict from rods. And that Dinon, in the first book of his third Syntaxis, observes, “that the Median diviners predict from rods.” The Scholiast likewise adds the testimony of Metrodorus, who says, “that the tamarisk is a most ancient plant, and that the Egyptians, in the solemnity of Jupiter, were crowned with the tamarisk, and also the Magi among the Medes.” He adds, “that Apollo also ordained that prophets should predict from this plant, and that in Lesbos he wears a tamarisk crown, has often been seen thus adorned, and that in consequence of this he was called by the Lesbians μυρικαιον , Muricaion , [from μυρικη , the tamarisk].” What the Scholiast here says, is confirmed by Herodotus, in lib. iv. and elsewhere.