apostate Julian of having
had recourse--not to much purpose--to many magical or necromantic
rites; of cutting up the dead bodies of boys and virgins in the
prescribed method; and of raising the dead to ascertain the event
of his Eastern expedition against the Persians.

Not many years after the death of Julian the Christian Empire
witnessed a persecution for witchcraft that for its ferocity, if
not for its folly, can be paralleled only by similar scenes in
the fifteenth or seventeenth century. It began shortly after the
final division of the East and West in the reigns of Valentinian
and Valens, A.D. 373. The unfortunate accused were pursued with
equal fury in the Eastern and Western Empires; and Rome and
Antioch were the principal arenas on which the bloody tragedy was
consummated. Gibbon informs us that it was occasioned by a
criminal consultation, when the twenty-four letters of the
alphabet were ranged round a magic tripod; a dancing ring placed
in the centre pointed to the first four letters in the name of
the future prince. 'The deadly and incoherent mixture of treason
and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded infinite gradations
of guilt and innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these
proceedings appear to have been confounded by the angry or
corrupt passions of the judges. They easily discovered that the
degree of their industry and discernment was estimated by the
imperial court according to the number of executions that were
furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not without
extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal;
but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained with
perjury or procured by torture to prove the most improbable
charges against the most respectable characters. The progress of
the inquiry continually opened new subjects of criminal
prosecution; the audacious informers whose falsehood was detected
retired with impunity: but the wretched victim who discovered his
real or pretended accomplices was seldom permitted to receive the
price of his infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia the
young and the aged were dragged in chains to the tribunals of
Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers expired in
ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers who were appointed
to guard the prisons declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the
flight or resistance of the multitude of captives