APPENDIX I
SOME WORKS ON MAGIC, RELIGION, AND ASTRONOMY IN
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
The following books deal expressly with the magic of Assyria and Babylonia:
Fossey, C. La magie assyrienne; étude suivie de textes magiques, Paris, 1902.
King, L. W. Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, being “The Prayers of the Lifting of the Hand,” London, 1896.
Laurent, A. La magie et la divination chez les Chaldéo-Assyriens, Paris, 1894.
Lenormant, F. Chaldean Magic and Sorcery, English translation, London, 1878.
Schwab, M., in Proc. Bibl. Archæology (1890), pp. 292-342, on magic bowls from Assyria and Babylonia.
Tallquist, K. L. Die Assyrische Beschwörungsserie Maqlû, Leipzig, 1895.
Thompson, R. C. The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers
of Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, London, 1900.
Texts and translations—all but three are astrological.
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, London, 1904.
Semitic Magic, London, 1908.
Weber, O. Dämonenbeschwörung bei den Babyloniern und Assyrern, 1906. Eine Skizze (37 pp.), in Der Alte Orient.
Zimmern. Die Beschwörungstafeln Surpu.
Much concerning magic will also be found in works on Babylonian and Assyrian religion.
Craig, J. A. Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts, Leipzig, 1895-7.
Curtiss, S. I. Primitive Semitic Religion Today, 1902.
Dhorme, P. Choix des textes religieux Assyriens Babyloniens,
1907.
La religion Assyro-Babylonienne, Paris, 1910.
Gray, C. D. The Samas Religious Texts.
Jastrow, Morris. The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898. Revised and enlarged as Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, Giessen, 1904.
Jeremias. Babylon. Assyr. Vorstellungen von dem Leben nach
Tode, Leipzig, 1887.
Hölle und Paradies, and other works.
Knudtzon, J. A. Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott, Leipzig, 1893.
Lagrange, M. J. Études sur les religions sémitiques, Paris, 1905.
Langdon, S. Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, Paris, 1909.
Reisner, G. A. Sumerisch-Babylonische Hymnen, Berlin, 1896.
Robertson Smith, W. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, London, 1907.
Roscher, Lexicon, for various articles.
Zimmern. Babylonische Hymnen und Gebete in Auswahl, 32 pp.,
1905 (Der Alte Orient).
Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Babyl. Religion, Leipzig, 1901.
On the astronomy and astrology of the Babylonians one may consult:
Bezold, C. Astronomie, Himmelschau und Astrallehre bei den Babyloniern. (Sitzb. Akad. Heidelberg, 1911, Abh. 2).
Boissier, A. Documents assyriens relatifs aux présages, Paris,
1894-1897.
Choix de textes relatifs à la divination assyro-babylonienne,
Geneva, 1905-1906.
Craig, J. A. Astrological-Astronomical Texts, Leipzig, 1892.
Cumont, F. Babylon und die griechische Astrologie. (Neue Jahrb. für das klass. Altertum, XXVII, 1911).
Epping, J., and Strassmeier, J. N. Astronomisches aus Babylon, 1889.
Ginzel, F. K. Die astronomischen Kentnisse der Babylonier, 1901.
Hehn, J. Siebenzahl und Sabbat bei den Babyloniern und im Alten Testament, 1907.
Jensen, P. Kosmologie der Babylonier, 1890.
Jeremias. Das Alter der babylonischen Astronomie, 1908.
Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 1913.
Kugler, F. X. Die Babylonische Mondrechnung, 1900.
Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Freiburg, 1907-1913. To
be completed in four vols.
Im Bannkreis Babels, 1910.
Oppert, J. Die astronomischen Angaben der assyrischen Keilinschriften,
in Sitzb. d. Wien. Akad. Math.-Nat. Classe, 1885, pp.
894-906.
Un texte Babylonien astronomique et sa traduction grecque par
Cl. Ptolémeé, in Zeitsch. f. Assyriol. VI (1891), pp. 103-23.
Sayce, A. H. The astronomy and astrology of the Babylonians, with translations of the tablets relating to the subject, in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, III (1874), 145-339; the first and until recently the best guide to the subject.
Schiaparelli, G. V. I Primordi ed i Progressi dell’ Astronomia
presso i Babilonesi, Bologna, 1908.
Astronomy in the Old Testament, 1905.
Stücken, Astralmythen, 1896-1907.
Virolleaud, Ch. L’Astrologie chaldéenne, Paris, 1905-; to be completed in eight parts, texts and translations.
Winckler, Himmels-und Weltenbild der Babylonier als Grundlage der Weltanschauung und Mythologie aller Völker, in Der alte Orient, III, 2-3.
BOOK I. THE ROMAN EMPIRE
| Foreword. | ||
| Chapter 2. | Pliny’s Natural History. | |
| I. | Its place in the history of science. | |
| II. | Its experimental tendency. | |
| III. | Pliny’s account of magic. | |
| IV. | The science of the Magi. | |
| V. | Pliny’s magical science. | |
| Chapter 3. | Seneca and Ptolemy: Natural Divination and Astrology. | |
| Chapter 4. | Galen. | |
| I. | The man and his times. | |
| II. | His medicine and experimental science. | |
| III. | His attitude toward magic. | |
| Chapter 5. | Ancient Applied Science and Magic. | |
| Chapter 6. | Plutarch’s Essays. | |
| Chapter 7. | Apuleius of Madaura. | |
| Chapter 8. | Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana. | |
| Chapter 9. | Literary and Philosophical Attacks upon Superstition. | |
| Chapter 10. | The Spurious Mystic Writings of Hermes, Orpheus, and Zoroaster. | |
| Chapter 11. | Neo-Platonism and its Relations to Astrology and Theurgy. | |
| Chapter 12. | Aelian, Solinus, and Horapollo. | |
BOOK I. THE ROMAN EMPIRE
FOREWORD
A trio of great names, Pliny, Galen, and Ptolemy, stand out above all others in the history of science under the Roman Empire. In the use or criticism which they make of earlier writers and investigators they are also our chief sources for the science of the preceding Hellenistic period. By their voluminousness, their generous scope in ground covered, and their broad, liberal, personal outlooks, they have painted, in colors for the most part imperishable, extensive canvasses of the scientific spirit and acquisitions of their own time. Pliny pursued politics and literature as well as natural science; Ptolemy was at once mathematician, astronomer, physicist, and geographer; Galen knew philosophy as well as medicine. The two latter men, moreover, made original contributions of their own of the very first order to scientific knowledge and method. It is characteristic of the homogeneous and widespread culture of the Roman Empire that these three representatives of different, although overlapping, fields of science were natives of the three continents that enclose the Mediterranean Sea. Pliny was born at Como where Italy verges on transalpine lands; Ptolemy, born somewhere in Egypt, did his work at Alexandria; Galen came from Pergamum in Asia Minor. Finally, these men were, after Aristotle, the three ancient scientists who directly or indirectly most powerfully influenced the middle ages. Thus they illuminate past, present, and future.
We shall therefore open the present section of our investigation by considering in turn chronologically, Pliny, Ptolemy, and Galen, coupling, however, with our consideration of Ptolemy the work of Seneca on Natural Questions which shows the same combination of natural science and natural divination. Next we shall consider some representatives of ancient applied science and its relations to magic, and the more miscellaneous writings of Plutarch, Apuleius, and Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana. From the hospitable attitude toward magic and occult science displayed by these last writers we shall then turn back again to consider some examples of literary and philosophical attacks upon superstition, before proceeding lastly to spurious mystic writings of the Roman Empire, Neo-Platonism and its relations to astrology and theurgy, and the works of Aelian, Solinus, and Horapollo.