Robert Wagman

CHAPTER XXI

There is moreover another kind of spirit which can be seen under different shapes in domestic hearths, cellars, fields and wells, very often at night, rarely during the day. Sometimes it appears as a snake or lizard or other reptile; sometimes as a little man, most often of a really dark color. It does no harm to residents; in fact, it is said to announce a bounty of good things. And so, since similar things are said, nor can it be known exactly under what shape the spirit of that house hides, it is a transgression and a crime to mistreat them. So they leave them free to go about and enter wherever they wish: they do not hunt them down or even stop them on the way, let alone kill or disturb them at all. And it has been noticed that, if one somehow bothers them or kills them, a great evil in return befalls on the household—such as the death of one’s father or mother, or some other domestic disaster. So they respect them out of some superstitious feeling and come just short of worshipping them, as they believe in so many such stupidities. They call this kind of thing a stoicheion, or an ‘element’, borrowing the term from the Magi. [We read in] The Testament of Solomon,

I ordered that another demon come to me: and a cluster of beautiful-looking spirits all joined together appeared. So that I, Solomon, stood in awe and asked, ‘Who are you?’, and they simulteneously answered, with one mouth, ‘We are what they call the Elements, the lords of this world of Darkness: Deceit, Discord, etc.

[These powers] are called thus because they are born inside the individual elements, where they stay together vivifying their single components like a breath of life. Alcinous writes in ch. 6 of The Handbook of Platonism,

There are also other demons, which one could define as gods born within the individual elements (some visible, some invisible), aether, fire, air, and water; so that there is nothing, in this universe, which lacks a soul, or the natural life of the animated beings.

Not only demons themselves can be called ‘Elements’, but also things made by magicians through the power of the magic arts, through which even inanimate objects can govern a man’s life and fortunes. Wherefore the words stoicheioun (to haunt) and stoicheiousthai (to be haunted), and the word stoicheiomaticoi, which refers to the magicians themselves who make this sort of things using certain symbols and incantations. There was a statue of Simeon of Bulgaria, in Xerolophos, which caused Simeon’s death when it was broken. Thus Cedrenus, in The Life of Romanus Lecapenus,

A certain astronomer called Johannes approached Romanus and advised him to send someone to cut off the head of the statue which stands on the arch of Xerolophos facing west. In that way Simeon, whose fate was bound to the statue’s, would die as well. The emperor did as told and—as he later learned after careful inquiry—the very moment the statue’s head was cut off, Simeon died of a heart attack in Bulgaria.

Very similar is the story which the same author tells [in his account?] of Michael son of Teophilus about the deceits of John the Patriarch and how he caused the death of his enemies by cutting off the heads of their statues with a single slash. Nor was Meleager’s fateful log any different. Using magical symbols and figurines, Apollonius of Tyana produced many such things—so that he, as well, is called stoicheiomaticos by Cedrenus in the Life of Claudius,

During the reign of Claudius lived a Pythagorean philosopher by the name of Apollonius, native of Tyana, who [‘was an enchanter’ Grk.] did wondrous things with magical symbols. Upon the locals’ request, when he was in Constantinople, he cast a spell so that snakes and scorpions wouldn’t strike, mosquitoes would no longer exist, horses would stay tame, and  these animals not grow angry, either amongst themselves or at any other creature. He even put a spell on the Lycus river, that it may no longer damage Constantinople with its floods.

Stoicheia are also called ‘telesmata’ in the Chronicle of Alexandria,

Under their consulate, there lived a man by the name of Apollonius of Tyana, who went around cities and provinces performing spells through the power of magic and incantations. From Rome he went to Byzantium—which now, because of the turn of events, we are required to call Constantinople. There he placed various spells, on turtles; on the river Lycus, which runs through the middle of the city; on horses; and on other things.

Matthew Rader, who did not understand this text at all, made up some nonsense about Apollonius receiving “taxes” and “dues from oyster fishing in the Lycus river, the rearing of horses and other things”. Some sources refer to these as apotelesmatica tes glypseos, others just call them stoicheia. The ancients mention similar objects, such as the Palladium at Troy. As John of Antioch explains in his Archaeology,

The palladium at Troy was a small creature made by a magician from the east for the city’s protection.

Or the armed statues mentioned by Olympiodorus in Photius’ Library,

Armed statues guard the Roman borders from the barbarians.

Or Marsyas’ hide, in Aelian, book 13, chapter 2,

In Celena, if someone plays the Phrygian mode over the hide of the Phrygian [Marsyas], the hide starts to move; but if it is a tune for Apollo, the hide does not stir, as if it were deaf.

Or the dogs in Alcinous’ palace described by Homer,

Along both sides were dogs of gold and silver, which Ephestus created out of his masterful imagination for the protection of noble Alcinous’ palace: immortal they were, and never got old with the passing of time.

Jean Picard relates that in the year 1145 a live toad was found inside a hollow block from the city walls of Le Mans. It was killed, and from that time on, the city was infested with toads as never before. In his Exercises Against Cardan, 196, citing from Egyptian sources in Arabic, Julius Scaliger reports that the Arab Praefect of Egypt, Humethaben Thaulon, once ordered a lead crocodile figurine to be melted down which had been discovered in the foundations of a temple. From that time on, as Scaliger’s sources bitterly complain, the whole region became infested with crocodiles, since that figurine had been created and put in the ground by the wise men of old as protection against such pests. Additional evidence could be added here from the Antiquitates Constantinopolitanae still unpublished, and other sources. These can be compiled by anyone who would wish to do so. For our purpose, let the material presented here be enough.

NOTES

Forthcoming