return.[1] Beside the name of Hippocrates in the field of medicine he set that of Democritus in the domain of magic.[2] Elsewhere he said that Pythagoras and Democritus, having embraced the doctrine of the magi, first expounded the properties of magic plants in the Western world.[3] In Cicero's De Divinatione, Epicurus is alone of the Greek philosophers declared free from trust in divination, and Panaetius is said to have been the only Stoic to reject astrology.[4]
Fortunately we are not here concerned to measure either relatively or absolutely with any attempt at exactness the amount of magic in the learning of the closing centuries of Greek national life, but only to investigate whether in the philosophy of the Greeks there were not theories at least liable to encourage a later age to belief in magic. There
- ↑ Nat. Hist., bk xxx, ch. 2. "Certe Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato ad banc discendam navigavere exsiliis verius quam peregrinationibus susceptis. Hanc reversi praedicavere, banc in arcanis habuere." Pbilostratiis, as we shall see, mentioned the same men as associating with the magi, although he denied that they embraced the magic art. (See infra, p. 66.)
- ↑ Bk. xxx, ch. 2. "Plenumque miraculi et hoc, pariter utrasque artis effloruisse, medicinam dico et magicenque, eadem aetate illam Hippocrate, hanc Democrito inlus.tran.tibus." Pliny may have got a false idea of the teachings of Democritus by accepting as genuine works which were not. He tells us (bk. xxx, ch. 2) that some persons have vainly tried to save Democritus' reputation by denying that certain works are his. "Democritus Apellobechen Copititen et Dardanum et Phoenicem inlustravit voluminibus Dardani in sepulchrum eius petitis, suis vero ex disciplina eorum editis, quae recepta ab ullis hominum atque transisse per memoriam aeque ac nihil in vita mirandum est. In tantum fides istis fasque omne deest, adeo ut qui cetera in viro probant, haec opera eius esse inficientur. Sed frustra. Hunc enim maxume adfixisse animis eam dulcedinem constat."
- ↑ Bk. xxiv, ch. 9. "In promisso herbarum mirabilium occurrit aliqua dicere et de Magicis. Quae enim mirabiliores? Primi eas in nostro orbe celebravere Pythagoras atque Democritus, consectati Magos."
- ↑ De Divinatione, bk. i, ch, 39, and bk. ii, ch. 42.
