Africa, that of a hyæna, were often selected in preference. A mere matter of taste! According to Marcellus Sidetes, of whose poem περὶ λυκανθρώπου a fragment exists, men are attacked with this madness chiefly in the beginning of the year, and become most furious in February; retiring for the night to lone cemeteries, and living precisely in the manner of dogs and wolves.
Virgil writes in his eighth Eclogue:—
Has herbas, atque hæe Ponto mihi lecta venena
Ipse dedit Mœris; nascuntur plurima Ponto.
His ego sæpe lupum fieri, et se conducere sylvis
Mœrim, sæpe animas imis excire sepulchris,
Atque satas alio vidi traducere messes.
And Herodotus:—"It seems that the Neuri are sorcerers, if one is to believe the Scythians and the Greeks established in Scythia; for each Neurian changes himself, once in the year, into the form of a wolf, and he continues in that form for several days, after which he resumes his former shape."—(Lib. iv. C. 105.):
See also Pomponius Mela (lib. ii. c. 1): "There is a fixed time for each Neurian, at which they change, if they like, into wolves, and back again into their former condition."
