ror that the
necromancers inspired was due, to a considerable extent, to the use they
made of the old belief in ghosts. They exploited the superstitious belief
in ghost-power and slipped metal tablets covered with execrations into
graves, to bring misfortune or death to some enemy. But neither in Greece
nor in Italy is there any trace of a coherent system of doctrines, of an
occult and learned discipline, nor of any sacerdotal instruction.

Originally the adepts in this dubious art were {187} despised. As late as
the period of Augustus they were generally equivocal beggar-women who plied
their miserable trade in the lowest quarters of the slums. But with the
invasion of the Oriental religions the magician began to receive more
consideration, and his condition improved.[62] He was honored, and feared
even more. During the second century scarcely anybody would have doubted
his power to call up divine apparitions, converse with the superior spirits
and even translate himself bodily into the heavens.[63]

Here the victorious progress of the Oriental religions shows itself. The
Egyptian ritual[64] originally was nothing but a collection of magical
practices, properly speaking. The religious community imposed its will upon
the gods by means of prayers or even threats. The gods were compelled to
obey the officiating priest, if the liturgy was correctly performed, and if
the incantations and the magic words were pronounced with the right
intonation. The well-informed priest had an almost unlimited power over all
supernatural beings on land, in the water, in the air, in heaven and in
hell. Nowhere was the gulf between things human and things divine smaller,
nowhere was the increasing differentiation that separated magic from
religion less advanced. Until the end of paganism they remained so closely
associated that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the texts of one
from those of the other.

The Chaldeans[65] also were past masters of sorcery, well versed in the
knowledge of presages and experts in conjuring the evils which the presages
foretold. In Mesopotamia, where they were confidential advisers of the
kings, the magicians belonged to the official {188} clergy; they invoked
the aid of the state gods in their incantations, and their sacred science
was as highly esteemed as haruspicy in Etruria. The immense prestige that
continued to surround it, assured its persistence after the fall of Nineveh
and Babylon. Its traditio