William e. Klikngshirn - Isidore of Seville's Taxonomy of Magicians and Diviners

5/23/2018 William e. Klikngshirn - Isidore of Seville's Taxonomy of Magicians and Diviners

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ISIDORE OF SEVILLE'S TAXONOMY OFMAGICIANS AND DIVINERSByWILLIAM E. KLINGSHIRN

In Etymologies 8.9, Isidore presents a detailed classification of the diversegroup of ritual experts he calls magi. Well organized, erudite, flexibleenough to include a wide range of specialists, and, as its record of influencedemonstrates, enormously useful as a template for later medieval classifications, the De Magis offerswhat can rightly be called the first definitivewestern Christian taxonomy of unauthorized practitioners. Although Isidorerelied heavily on a wide range of pagan and Christian sources for the contents of the chapter, their selection, revision, and arrangement ? the elements of his taxonomy ? were all his own.1

Yet, for all its importance, Isidore's chapter has received little critical attention in recent years. Unlike, for instance, its neighbor Dediis gentium (Etym. 8.II),2 it has not been the subject of a published commentary or an exhaustive investigation of its sources.3 It has ofcourse been used and summarized in studies ofmagic,4 excerpted in various

1 Les sources des Etymologies sont multiples. . . .Elles se r?partissent, sans distinctionapparente, entre auteurs pa?ens et auteurs chr?tiens. Mais l'important est ici de soulignerque, ni par leur conception d'ensemble, ni par la m?thode d'investigation et la d?marcheintellectuelle, les Etymologies ne paraissent pourvoir remonter ? un mod?le pr?cis: les mat?riaux sont tous emprunt?s, l'architecture est originale (Marc Reydellet, Sacr? et profanedans l'encyclop?disme d'Isidore de Seville, in Le Divin: discours encyclop?diques, ed. DenisH?e [Caen, 1994], 313-25, at 318-19).

This article is based on a paper delivered in May 2000 at the annual meeting of theNorth American Patristics Society in Chicago. For advice in revising it for publication, Iam grateful to members of the audience, to my colleague, Professor F. A. C. Mantello, andto Professor J. N. Hillgarth and the other editors of Traditio. I should also like to thankthe American Council of Learned Societies for a fellowship supporting my work on divinersin late antiquity during the 2000-2001 academic year.2Katherine Nell Macfarlane, Isidore of Seville on the Pagan Gods (Origines VI 11.11),

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 70:3 (Philadelphia, 1980).3 Sophie de Clauzade's edition, French translation, and commentary on book 8, scheduled to be published by Belles Lettres in the series Auteurs latins du Moyen Age, remainsforthcoming. It will be based on Sophie de Clauzade de Mazieux, Isidori Hispalensis Ety

mologiarum liber octavus de ecclesia et sectis: Edition critique et commentaire (master's thesis, Ecole nationale des Chartes, 1977). An abstract can be found in Positions des th?sessoutenues par les ?l?ves de la promotion de 1977 pour obtenir le dipl?me d'archiviste pal?ographe (Paris, 1977), 49-54.4Most recently by Valerie Flint, The Rise ofMagic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1991), esp. 51-53.


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60 TRADITIOforms,5 and fully translated into (and thereby interpreted in) Spanish,6 Italian,7 and German.8 And a new Spanish study of the sources of book 8 of the

Etymologies9 now supplements the notes in the editions of Juan de Grial(1599)10 and Faustino Ar?valo (1798),11 which Jacques-Paul Migne reprintedin 1850.12 But despite this scholarly progress, basic questions about the De

Magis still persist: what it is actually a taxonomy of, how Isidore constructed it, and how his account matches the perceptions and practices ofmagic and divination in his own day.This paper explores the structure, sources, and contents of Isidore's DeMagis with a view toward advancing the discussion of these problems. Itbegins by arguing that Isidore's chapter is not simply about magic, as isoften said, but rather about the many kinds of ritual practitioners thatcould be grouped under the capacious termmagi.13 It continues by showing

5 E.g., as an illustration of the intellectual condition of the dark ages, by Ernest Brehaut (An Encyclopedist of theDark Ages: Isidore of Seville [New York, 1912], 7), who translates portions of the chapter at 200-203.6 San Isidoro de Sevilla: Etimolog?as, trans. Jos? Oroz Reta and Manuel-Antonio MarcosCasquero, introd. Manuel C. D?az y D?az, 2d. ed., Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 433(Madrid, 1993), 1:713-17.7Fabrizio Nicoli, Cristianesimo, superstizione emagia nell'alto Medioevo: Cesario di Arles,Martino di Braga, Isidoro di Siviglia (Bagni di Lucca, 1992), 91-95.8 Isidor von Sevilla: ?ber Glauben und Aberglauben, Etymologien, VIII. Buch, trans.

Dagmar Linhart (Dettelbach, 1997), 35-42. Tantalizingly, the author comments only onchapters 1.4, 3.3, 3.7, and 4.3-39; a complete commentary is promised in a forthcomingGesamtedition.9Angel Valastro Canale, Herej?as y sectas en la iglesia antigua: el octavo libro de las Etimolog?as de Isidoro de Sevilla y sus fuentes (Madrid, 2000).10Divi Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Opera Philippi Secundi catholici reg?s iussu e vetustisexemplaribus emendata (Madrid, 1599). I have consulted this edition in the reprint publishedin 1778 by Bartholomaeus Ulloa: Divi Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Opera ... e vetustisexemplaribus emendata nunc denuo diligentissime correda, atque aliquibus opusculis appendicis loco aucta, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1778).11 ?S. Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Hispaniarum doctoris opera omnia, 7 vols. (Rome,1797-1803), vol. 3, Etymologiarum libri priores (1798), 369-74.12Grial's notes are at PL 82:310-14, and Ar?valo's at PL 82:916-17.13 It is arguable that just as ancient magic is best understood as a category of ritual,so too is ancient divination (and, for that matter, most ancient healing practices). This ispreferable to the Enlightenment taxonomy in which such practices are grouped under themajor headings of magic, religion, and science. See Einar Thomassen, Is Magic aSubclass of Ritual? in The World of Ancient Magic: Papers from the First InternationalSamson Eitrem Seminar at theNorwegian Institute at Athens, 4-8 May 1997, ed. DavidR. Jordan, Hugo Montgomery, and Einar Thomassen (Bergen, 1999), 55-66. The work ofDavid Frankfurter is helpful on this question. See in particular Dynamics of RitualExpertise in Antiquity and Beyond: Towards a New Taxonomy of 'Magicians,' inMagicand Ritual in the Ancient World, ed. Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (Leiden, 2002),159-78.


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TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 61

how Isidore classified the figures he selected, mainly by measuring thegreater or lesser degree of demonic influence they all exhibited, but also bymore secular, classical standards, especially technical distinctions in theiraims and methods. The article then discusses the categories and subcategories of Isidore's taxonomy, paying particular attention to the reasoning andexamples that informed them. It concludes by surveying other evidencefrom later sixth- and seventh-century Spain and Gaul in order to compareIsidore's classification with contemporary parallels. Appended to the articleis an annotated translation of Etym. 8.9. Both the article and the translation are largely based onW. M. Lindsay's Oxford Classical Text edition of1911 but diverge from it on occasion, as noted.

Magi

It has long been recognized that the work we know as the Etymologieshas a complicated textual history. First arranged in titilli by Isidore, itwas divided into libri by Braulio of Saragossa,14 and eventually intocapitula, in patterns that vary considerably from one group ofmanuscriptsto the next.15 Despite these variations, it seems reasonable to suppose thatthe De Magis always constituted its own unit: it forms a separate titulusin numerous manuscripts organized by tituli and receives a separateheading in the lists of books and chapters to which Lindsay gives thenames Index librorum17 and Capitula librorum.18 Although the title DeMagis is not found in every manuscript, its form (De + the firstword inthe entry) fits the pattern of other titles, both in its own half of book 8(chapters 6-11), and in the larger unit to which book 8 belongs (books7-10, on nomina).19

14 Etymologiarum codicem nimiae magnitudinis, distinctum ab eo titulis, non libris:quem quia rogatu meo fecit, quamvis inperfectum ipse reliquerit, ego in quindecim librosdivisi (Renotatio Isidori a Braulione Caesaraiig listano episcopo edita, ed. Pascual Galindo, inC. H. Lynch and P. Galindo, San Braulio Obispo de Zaragoza (631-651): Su vida y susobras [Madrid, 1950], 358).15Carmen Codo?er, Los tituli en las Etymologiae: Aportaciones al estudio de la transmisi?n del texto, in Actas I Congreso Nacional de Latin Medieval (Le?n, 1-4 de diciembrede 1993), ed. Maurilio P?rez Gonz?lez (Le?n, 1995), 29-46.16 L. VIII, Tts. II: De magicis artibus. See Eduard Anspach, Taionis et Isidori novafragmenta et opera (Madrid, 1930), 32, and Codo?er, Los tituli, 30-31.17 Vili: De Ecclesia et Synagoga, de Religione et Fide, de Haeresibus, de Philosophis,Poetis, Sibyllis, Magis, Paganis ac Dis Gentium.18 VIIIB: iv. De magis.19Walter Porzig, Die Rezensionen der Etymologiae des Isidorus von Sevilla, Hermes72 (1937): 129-70, at 138-41.


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62 TRADITIOHow we translate the title De Magis depends on what we think the

chapter is about. Ernest Brehaut headed the chapter On the magi, 20 atranslation followed by Jos? Oroz Reta and Manuel-Antonio Marcos Casquero ( Sobre los magos )21 and Dagmar Linhart ( ?ber die Magier ).22 Abetter English translation would be Magi, since the preposition de in aLatin title simply marks it as a title: so, Fabrizio Nicoli ( I Maghi ).23 Butother scholars would translate magi as magicians, based on the notionthat magic is what the chapter is about. As Lynn Thorndike wrote in hisHistory ofMagic and Experimental Science: Isidore's chapter on theMagior magicians ... is a notable one. . . .Perhaps the most noteworthy point . . .is that he has made magic and magicians the general and inclusive head[emphasis added] under which he presently lists various other minor occultarts and their practitioners for separate definition. 24 Since most of the practitioners listed in Isidore's chapter are in fact diviners, this view presentedThorndike with a problem, which he solved by asserting that, From thefirst Isidore identifies magic and divination. 25 Over the years, Thorndike'stranslation and his solution to the problem it created have been influential:among others, they can be found in Stephen McKenna,26 Richard Kieckhefer,27 and Fritz Graf.28

20 Brehaut, An Encyclopedist (n. 5 above), 200.21 Oroz Reta and Casquero, Etimolog?as ( . 6 above), 1:713.22 Linhart, ?ber Glauben und Aberglauben (n. 8 above), 35.23Nicoli, Cristianesimo ( . 7 above), 91.24 Lynn Thorndike, A History ofMagic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York,1923), 1:628-29.25 Ibid., 1:629.26 Isidore then proceeds to define various kinds of magic, such as necromancy, hydromancy, geomancy, aeromancy, and pyromancy. Under the heading ofmagic he also groupsthe practice of divination, by means of the flight of birds, the entrails of animals, and themovement of the stars (Stephen McKenna, Paganism and Pagan Survivals in Spain up totheFall of the Visigothic Kingdom, The Catholic University of America Studies inMediaeval History, n.s. 1 [Washington, D.C., 1938], 140).27 Isidore of Seville . . . listed geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, and pyromancy . . .under the heading magic, and then went on under the same heading to discuss divinatory observation of the flight and cries of birds, the entrails of sacrificial animals, andpositions of stars and planets. . . .Only after cataloging these and other species of divination did he include enchantment (magical use of words), ligatures (medical use of magicalobjects bound to the patient), and various other phenomena in his discussion of magic(Richard Kieckhefer, Magic

in theMiddle Ages [Cambridge, 1989], 10-11).28 In his Etymologies . . . Isidore, bishop of Seville, dedicates a chapter (8.9) to magicians or sorcerers (De magis). After naming Zoroastrian Persia as the cradle and home-landof magic, he tells how the fallen angels brought this non-sense (vanitates) to their humanbrides ? and how 'for the sake of knowing the future and Hell and how to call it up,'there developed 'the arts of the haruspex and the augur, and what they call oracles andnecromancy.' Magic, then, is nothing more than the various methods of pagan divination


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The problem with Thorndike's position lies in its equation of the Latinterm magi, which had acquired an almost impossibly wide range of meanings by Isidore's time, with the English term magicians, which covers (andshould cover) a far narrower semantic field.29 Isidore's magi are not so muchmagicians as, literally, a : specifically, the mages hell?nis?s well described by Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, whom centuries of Greek andRoman (mis)interpretation had transformed from Persian priests specializingin sacrifice and divination into all manner of wise men, sorcerers, diviners,

poisoners, astrologers, and frauds.30 Saying that the De Magis is aboutmagic or magicians inaccurately prejudges its contents and specificallyendorses the opinion that Isidore believed that magic and divination wereidentical. As we shall see inmore detail below, such a view is contradicted

by the careful organization of the De Magis. Although Isidore placedmagicians and diviners under the general heading of magi and explicitlyincluded divination among their artes (??2, 3), he also took pains to organizethe chapter in such a way as to distinguish magicians, who performed occultactions (??4-10), from diviners, who supplied occult knowledge (??14-29). Atthe fuzzy edges of these categories, he located boundary-crossers. 31 Theseincluded necromancers and hydromancers, practitioners par excellence of

magical divination (??11-12), and incantatores (?15), whose incantationssummoned demons for divination (?11), but also empowered healing amulets(?30) and harmful spells (?10).The reason Isidore (or whoever supplied the title) chose the term magi todescribe the individuals and groups of individuals listed in the chapter wasprecisely its wide range of meanings. The main virtue of the title DeMagis was that it did not have to mean any specific kind of practitioner

(Fritz Graf, Magic and Divination, in The World of Ancient Magic [note 13 above],283-98, at 284).29 So, OED2, s.v. magician : One skilled inmagic or sorcery; a necromancer, wizard,with OED2, s.v. magic : The pretended art of influencing the course of events, and ofproducing marvellous physical phenomena. . . . The fact that English (and French) speakers can differentiate between magi (mages) and magicians (magiciens) is due to the creationin Middle English and Old French of a separate word, magicien (magiciien), derived fromthe Latin magicus, and to the simultaneous survival of the original term in both languages.See Adolphe Hatzfeld and Ars?ne Darmesteter, with Antoine Thomas, Dictionnaire g?n?ralde la langue fran?aise, 2 vols. (Paris, 1890-93), 2:1440, s.v. magicien, and 1:95, ?244:Suffixe ANUS. See also Robert-L?on Wagner, Sorcier et Magicien : Contribution d?histoire du vocabulaire de la magie (Paris, 1939), 156-57, 217.30 Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les Mages Hell?nis?s: Zoroastre, Ostan?s etHystasped'apr?s la tradition grecque, 2 vols. (Paris 1938; repr. 1973). See also Fritz Graf, Magic inthe Ancient World, trans. Franklin Philip (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 20-29.31 I take this term from G. E. R. Lloyd's discussion of Aristotle's zoological taxonomy inScience, Folklore, and Ideology (Cambridge, 1983), 44-50.


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64 TRADITIOat all.32 It could therefore be used as a blanket term not only formagiciansof various types, but also for diviners, healers, and others with secret knowledge. This meaning is consistent with the word's usage in Latin from anearly point,33 and is especially prominent in Pliny the Elder, on whom Isidore relied heavily.34 Where Isidore uses the term inmore specific senses inthe chapter itself, it designates various figures: the Persian priests whosechief was Zoroaster (?1), the Pharaoh's magicians (?4), Circe (?5), the malefici condemned by Roman law (?9), and the astrologers from the East inMatt. 2:1 (?25).Elsewhere in the Etymologies, Isidore uses the word magi primarily in passages borrowed from Pliny, where it usually refers to wise men who possessarcane (but not necessarily magical ) scientific knowledge. For instance, inEtymologies, book 16 (dependent on books 36 and 37 of theNatural History)Isidore lists what magi believe about or perform with various kinds ofstones. Their knowledge and practices relate to magic (8.1, 5; 11.1; 13.8;14.7; 15.8, 17, 24), necromancy (15.22, 26), and divination (15.23, 25).

Apart from these passages, Isidore's most significant use of the wordmagus occurs in the De differentiis uerborum,where he distinguishes betweenthe incantator and three other kinds of practitioner: magus, aruspex, andmaleficus.35 All four definitions are taken directly from Jerome's Commentarli inD?nielem 1.2.2a (CCL 75A:783-84) and 1.2.27b (CCL 75A:790), withonly one significant change. Recalling his earlier discussion of their status asPersian wise men (Comm. in Dan. 1.1.20 [CCL 75A:782]), Jerome haddefined magi as those who philosophize about individual things (qui desingulis philosophantur [CCL75A:784, line 161]). Wishing to be more precise,Isidore revised this definition in the light of Jerome's added comment thatthe magi were Chaldean philosophers (philosophi Chaldaeorum [CCL75A:784, lines 166-67]).36 Knowing that Chaldeans had invented astrology(Etym. 3.25.1), he therefore altered Jerome's text to read that Magi arethose who philosophize about the constellations (de sideribus). Interestingly

32 Ce mot si g?n?ral avait un avantage; il ne pr?jugeait rien du caract?re de l'hommeauquel on l'appliquait (Wagner, Sorcier et Magicien 143).33 For a survey, see the article by Hermann Dietzfelbinger in ThLL 8:149-52, s.v.magus.34 Jos? Oroz Reta, Pr?sence de Pline dans les Etymologies de saint Isidore de S?ville,inPline Canden: t?moin de son temps, ed. Jackie Pigeaud and Jos? Oroz Reta (Salamanca,1987), 611-22.35 Inter incantatorem et magum, aruspicem et maleficum. Incantatores sunt qui remverbis peragunt; magi qui de sideribus philosophantur; malefici qui sanguine utuntur etvictimis et saepe contingunt corpora mortuorum; aruspices qui exta pecudum inspiciuntet ex eis futura praedicunt (De differentiis 1.84, ed. Carmen Codo?er, Isidoro de Sevilla:Diferencias [Paris, 1992], 124 [=De diff. 1.29 (PL 83:40)]).36 Codo?er, Isidoro de Sevilla: Diferencias, 332.


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taxonomy of magicians 65

however, unlike his definitions of the other terms, which reappear verbatimin De Magis, this definition of magus was not reused in the chapter. Itmay be that the idea ofmagi as philosopher-astrologers contradicted the lessbenign definitions that Isidore chose to include, or that he thought thatsince this meaning of the term had been eclipsed at Christ's birth (Etym.8.9.25), it should hold no permanent place in his taxonomy.The Structure of the De Magis

Like other chapters in the Etymologies, the De Magis consists at itsmost basic level of glosses on related lemmata, in this case, on terms fordifferent kinds of practitioners. If we imposed no other structure on thechapter, we could say that magi is the first and most extensively glossed ofthese terms, with a definition proper only appearing at ?9 ( Magi sunt )after a general introduction (??1-3) and other prefatory material (??4-8).Once introduced, magi are defined as malefici, whose own bad deeds are disturbingly recited (??9-10).37 These first ten sections form the most elaboratepart of the chapter. They contain all its poetic quotations and feature allbut one of the occurrences of magus and its derivatives.38 After this, thechapter continues in a much simpler fashion, beginning with a new lemmaat ?11 ( Necromantii sunt ), and so on to ?30 where the pattern changes toaccommodate amulets, a conclusion, and sundry additional facts.In a certain sense, then, although the chapter is titled Magi, it is onlythe first ten sections that are actually about magi. The chapter then gradually moves on to other figures, beginning with necromancers (?11) andhydromancers (?12), the latter deemed to practice a genus diuinationis(?13). At this point, we enter a new realm of practitioners and practices,headed by Varro's listing of the four types of divination. We do not encounter magi again at all, except in ?25, where the use of the word to meanastrologers is treated as a biblical fossil and relegated to the time beforeChrist's birth.

It could be argued, however, that the De Magis ismore than a looselyorganized stream of lemmata and glosses. One simple way of arranging itssections occurs in some of the manuscripts organized by tituli,where thetitulus De magicis artibus is divided into i. De magicae inventoribus

37Against Thorndike, History ofMagic (n. 24 above), 1:629, I understand malefici ratherthan magi to be the antecedent of hi in the two passages where it occurs. In Hi et elementa

(?9) hi ismore likely to refer to malefici, because Uli would be needed to refer to magi. InHi etiam sanguine (?10), Isidore is paraphrasing a passage from the De differentiis verborum(n. 35 above), and replaces malefici with hi and qui with etiam.38 The forms are magi (??9, 25), magorum (??1, 4), maga (?5), magicae artes (?2), magicarum artium (?3), magicis artibus (?6), and murmure magico (?8).


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66 TRADITIO(??1-3), ii. De magorum praestigiis (??4-8), and iii. De generibus magorum (??9-35).39 This does not do much more than to show how, already inthe early Middle Ages, the prefatory material of ??1-8 could be divided intotwo parts. But such a schematization also suggests that itwould not be outof place to look for a more sophisticated arrangement overall. The followingoutline represents one possibility.

I. Introduction: history ofmagic and divination (??1-3)II. MagiciansA. performing illusions1. Pharaoh's magicians, Moses (?4)2. Circe, the Arcadians (?5)B. raising the dead1. the Massylian witch (?6)2. the witch of Endor (?7)3. Mercury (?8)C. doing evil (??9-10)III. Magical divinersA. necromancers (?11)B. hydromancers (??12-13a)IV. DivinersA. definitions (??13b-14)1. Varro's division of divination

2. etymology of divinas3. Cicero's division of divinationB. types of diviners1. incantatores (?15)2. harioli (?16)3. haruspices (?17)4. augurs (??18-20)5. pythonissae (?21)6. astrologersa. astrologi (?22)b. genethliaci (?23)c. mathematici (?24)d. magi (??25-26)e. horoscopi (?27)

7. sortilegi (?28)8. salisatores (?29)

39Anspach, Taionis et Isidori ( . 16 above), 32.


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V. Amulets (?30)VI. Summary: the ars daemonum (?31)VII. Appendix ( Firsts )A. Phrygians the first to discover augury from birds (?32)B. Mercury the first to discover illusion (?33)C. Tages the first to transmit haruspicy (??34-35)This outline organizes the six main parts of the chapter (apart from the

appendix) into three nested pairs in the pattern abccba. The first and sixthparts (a), which constitute an introduction and conclusion, bracket the second and fifthparts (b), which discuss magicians and amulets; these in turnbracket the third and fourth parts (c), which discuss two different classes ofdiviners. It is a mark of the chapters deliberate organization that Isidorerelegates to an appendix what does not fit into this neat scheme. In otherchapters inwhich first discoverers appear, they are usually more prominently displayed.40 A brief discussion of each main heading will help toexplain Isidore's reasoning.Introduction (??1-3)

Isidore relies on Pliny the Elder and Lactantius to set the stage. The firsttwo sections, drawn from the opening chapters of Pliny's book 30, focus onthe bibliography of the artes magicae by directly mentioning the body ofwritings attributed to Zoroaster (?1) and alluding to the works (haec operaeius [Pliny, Hist. Nat. 30.2.9]) attributed to Democritus (?2). Isidore alsoemphasizes the long history of the arts of the magi and their wide geographic spread from Zoroaster's Persia and Ninus's Assyria through Greecein the time of Democritus and Hippocrates to Rome at the end of therepublic, marked by Lucan's poem on the battle of Pharsalus in 48 b.c.It is after Lucan, in the third section, that Isidore gets to the heart of hisintroduction. Here he explains the two principles that structure the rest ofthe chapter: first, that the arts of the magi were learned from the wickedangels (ex traditione angelorum malorum), and second, that these arts flourished over a long extent of space and time because of (per) a knowledge ofthe future (quandam scientiam futurorum) and the calling forth of the dead(infernorum evocationes). Owing to a problem with Lindsay's text, my analysis of section 3 is based on the text of Sophie de Clauzade, as approvingly

40 E.g., at the beginning of a chapter: Etym. 17.1.1: Rerum rusticarum scribendi sollertiam apud Graecos primus Hesiodus Boeotius humanis studiis contulit ; 17.3.1: PrimaCeres coepit uti frugibus in Graecia ; 17.5.1: Vitis plantationem primus Noe instituit rudiadhuc saeculo.


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68 TRADITIOreported by Jacques Fontaine.41 It is this text that I reproduce below,organized per cola et commata. Isidore's sources (precise references for whichappear in the appended translation) are noted in the right column.

?3. Itaque haec uanitas magicarumartiumex traditione angelorum malorumin toto terrarum orbeplurimis saeculis ualuitper quandam scientiam futurorumet infernorum euocationes:eorum inuenta suntaruspicia, augurationes,et ipsa quae dicunturoracula et necromantia.

M?gicas vanita tes (Pliny)in toto terrarum orbe

plurimisque saeculis valuit (Pliny)scientiam rerum futurarum (Cicero)et inferum evocatione (Pliny)Eorum inventa sunt astrologia et

haruspicina et auguratioet ipsa quae dicunturoracula et necromantia (Lactantius)The phrase ex traditione angelorum malorum may be Isidore's, based on acommon construction in Christian Latin42 and on a common idea in Chris

tian thought. To judge by the last sentence in the section, his immediatesource is Lactantius's identification of the wicked angels with demons inDivine Institutes 2.14-16 (itself based on Minucius Felix, Octavius 26).Describing the widespread evil actions of demons, Lactantius had explainedthat the entire art and power of the magi also depends on the inspirationsof these. Called upon by magi, they deceive human sight by blinding tricks,so that people do not see what exists and think they see what does notexist. 43

41 Jacques Fontaine, Le 'sacr?' antique vu par un homme du Vile si?cle: le livre VIIIdes Etymologies d'Isidore de S?ville, Bulletin de Association Guillaume Bud? (1989):394-405, at 396 . 7. One argument in favor of this reading is that it acknowledges Isidore's adaptation of the phrase et infernorum euocationes from Pliny's et inferum evocatione;another is that it recognizes from Lactantius that a new thought begins at eorum inuenta.Lindsay's text reads et vocationes instead of euocationes and punctuates differently: Perquandam scientiam futurorum et infernorum et vocationes eorum.... This produces a verydifferent sense, as Graf's translation indicates: for the sake of knowing the future and Helland how to call it up (Graf, Magic and Divination [n. 28 above], 284).42The construction ex traditione + gen. (a Grecism: a a e + gen.) is a favoriteof Rufinus. It is found in his translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History 2.9.2 and5.18.14 (ed. Eduard Schwartz, Theodor Mommsen, and Friedhelm Winkelmann, Eusebius

Werke, vol. 2, Die Kirchengeschichte, 2d ed., pt. 1, GCS [Berlin, 1999], 125 and 479), and inhis translation of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones 1.50.3, 3.30.1, and 9.20.1 (ed. Bernhard Rehm and Georg Strecker, Die Pseudoklementinen, vol. 2, Rekognitionen in Rufins?bersetzung, 2d ed., GCS [Berlin, 1994], 37, 118, 272).43 Lactantius, Diu. inst. 2.14.10 (CSEL 19.1:164): magorum quoque ars omnis ac potentia horum adspirationibus constat, a quibus invocati visus hominum praestigiis obcaecantibus fallunt, ut non videant ea quae sunt et videre se putent illa quae non sunt.


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On the basis of this idea, Isidore then specifies the means by which thearts of the magi prevail: that is, through a knowledge of the future and thecalling up of the dead. He develops this point in the final sentence of section3, where he returns to the Divine Institutes. As the original context makesclear, the antecedent of Isidore's eorum (like Lactantius's) is angelorum malorum and not the much nearer infernorum.44 It is therefore to the wickedangels and not to the spirits of the dead that Isidore attributes haruspicies,auguries, oracles, and necromancy. Of these modes of divination, enabled, aswe have seen, by the wicked angels, the first three pertain to a knowledgeof the future and the last to the calling forth of the dead. This bipartitearrangement continues (in inverted form) into the following sections. Aftera brief excursion into the illusions performed by magi (??4-5), Isidore firsttreats practitioners known for calling forth the dead (??6-12) and then discusses those known for a knowledge of the future (??14-29). In both categories, Satan and the wicked angels (demons) are repeatedly blamed,45 a pointthat is bluntly brought home in the summary (?31). A survey of the chapter'smajor divisions will reveal further details of Isidore's argument.

Magicians (??4-10)This division consists of three categories that merge into one another andare arranged in order of increasing wickedness: those who perform illusions

(??4-5), those who raise the dead (??6-8), and those who perform evilactions, especially homicide (??9-10).46 The entire division is neatly bracketed by the words necromantia at the very end of ?3 and necromantii at thevery beginning of ?11. It is here that Isidore locates most of the activitiesand figureswe can properly call magical in the chapter; the others appearin sections 15 and 30.

Isidore's decision to begin with magi who perform praestigiae may havebeen inspired by Lactantius's praestigiis obcaecantibus (n. 43 above). Examples include the illusions performed by the Pharaoh's magicians inExodus 7and two cases ofmagical transformation (both reversible) cited from City ofGod 18.17: Circe's transformation ofmen into beasts in the Odyssey, and thenine-year transformation of certain Arcadians into wolves.47 Christianauthors believed that praestigiae (or, less correctly, praestigia) were the

44 Fontaine, Le 'sacr?' antique, 396 . 7, citing S. de Clauzade.45 Satanae fallada (?7); Demonibus addtis (?10), daemones (?11), umbras daemonum (?12),daemonum responsa (?16).46 Fontaine sees the same three categories, though he characterizes them somewhat differently; see Le 'sacr?' antique, 396.47 Fontaine points out that all three examples share the notion of (sacrilegiously) overturning the natural order, which also connects them with the Massylian priestess whointroduces the next category: s?rie verbale vertentes (magiciens de Pharaon), mutavit


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70 TRADITIOmeans by which magi, with the help of demons, counterfeited divinemiracles to deceive the faithful.48That they were not miracles is the firstpoint Isidore wants to make. But he also wants to show how spectacularsuch illusions could be and so chooses dramatic examples from pagan literature, notably witches fromHomer and Virgil. Circe is described at secondhand and mentioned only for her skill at turning men into beasts, but theMassylian sacerdos described by Dido is presented inVirgil's own words anddepicted as fully qualified in the magicae artes. Her spells could help orharm, overturn nature, and raise up spirits from the dead.It is her spirit-raising power that links the Massylian priestess with thewitch of Endor, who summoned the spirit of Samuel to prophesy for Saul(1 Sam. 28:7-9), and with the god Mercury (Hermes), frequently mentionedinmagical texts. Thus is the raising of the dead placed in the central category of this tripartite division ofmagicians, linked to both the first category(praestigiae) and the third (malefici) by Mercury, who in fact belongs to allthree categories. For in addition to raising up ghosts from the dead, whichputs him in the second category, Mercury also invented praestigium (?33),which puts him in the first, and has the power to send the living down todeath (?8), which puts him in the third.

Mercury's ars noxia, in turn, introduces the reader to magi who specializein truly evil practices and are therefore known as malefici. Under thislemma, Isidore places figures condemned by three separate laws in the Theodosian Code as well as his fourthwoman in the chapter: Erichtho, Lucan'sThessalian witch, also skilled, among her other arts, in necromancy. To conclude the division and move to the next, Isidore repeats verbatim the definition of malefici that he had previously given in De differentiis verborum.Their contact with blood, sacrifices, and dead bodies provides a smoothtransition to necromancers and hydromancers, whose divinatory knowledgecame from the spirits they were able to conjure up from the dead.

Magical divination (??ll-13a)Already previewed at the end of the introduction and in the figure of thewitch of Endor, necromantii are here given their own lemma, along with the

closely associated hydromantii. Isidore bases his discussion on a passage fromthe City of God (7.35) inwhich Augustine draws on Varr?. He goes beyondAugustine, however, in providing etymologies fornecromantii and hydromantii and in explaining how their arts were connected. Not only did both spe

(Circ?), convertabantur (Arcadiens), vertere retro (la magicienne ?voqu?e dans En?ide, 4,487) (ibid., 396 with . 8).48Tertullian, Apol. 22.1-23.1 is the locus classicus in Latin. Further references in ThLL10.2, fase. 6 (1991), cols. 936-38, s.v. praest(r)igiae.


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cialists summon up the dead for prophecy, but, he theorized, they both alsoused water and blood. In necromancy, the gore required was mixed withwater (cruor aqua miscitur), and in hydromancy, in addition to water, sanguis was applied.These sections continue Isidore's interest inmagi who can raise the deadbut focus on their divinatory purposes for doing so. It is clear that the wholedivision is about divination ? Isidore uses the word three times (?11: divinare, divinatio; ?13a: divinationis) ? but also that magic is involved (?11:praecantationibus, cadaveri, cruore sanguinis). As Auguste Bouch?-Leclercqobserved in 1879, La n?cromancie n'est, en effet, possible qu'avec le concours de la magie. 49 It is thus entirely in keeping with Isidore's purposefulorganization of the chapter that his readers make the transition to the general category of divination by way of two of itsmost obviously magical and,especially, demonic species (?11: daemones; ?12: umbras daemonum). As weshall see, this magical theme is carried over into Isidore's descriptions ofdiviners, but gradually disappears as divination based on furor gives wayto divination based on ars.Diviners (??13b-29)

It is clear that this represents a major new heading. An etymology of theword divini is bracketed by two separate classifications of divination: Varro's classification into four genera on the basis of the four elements and Cicero's classification into two genera on the basis of Plato's distinction (Phaedrus 244d) between a a (furor) and (sc. , ars) After thiscomes an extensive catalogue of diviners, which follows Cicero's rather thanVarro's classification. It is arranged along the spectrum between demonicinspiration (furor) and technical skill (ars). There are three subgroups. Thefirst group (??15-16) consists of diviners who displayed the most furor(incantatores, harioli); the third group (?? 22-29) of those who displayed themost ars (astrologers, sortilegi, salisatores). Between these two groups Isidoreplaced haruspices, augurs, and pythonissae (??17-21). This is a mixed group:one type, pythonissae, exhibits demonic inspiration and the other two, haruspices and augurs, rely on skill.What seems to bring these divergent typestogether is their official status in the divination systems of Etruria, Rome,and Greece (Delphi).The diviners listed in the first group were thought to obtain their information directly from demons. In patristic texts incantatores were usuallyassociated with magicians, and especially with spells, herbs, and amulets.Isidore reflects this view elsewhere in the Etymologies, when he repeats the

49Auguste Bouch?-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans Antiquit?, 4 vols. (Paris,1879-82), 1:333.


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72 TRADITIOcommonly held view that asps could resist the voces magicae uttered byincantatores by pressing one ear to the ground and covering the other withtheir tail.50 In this chapter he most likely assigned incantatores to the category of diviners rather than to that ofmagicians because his source, Jerome,had identified them with harioli: Those whom we translate as harioli,others translate as a , that is incantatores. 51 Harioli for their partwere primarily known by the fourth century for gaining access to the divinatory power of demons by prayers and sacrifices.52The order of Isidore's presentation seems to slip a bit when we come tothe second group. As divinely inspired mouthpieces, pythonissae should becloser to incantatores and harioli than to haruspices and augurs. These latterpractitioners, on the other hand, more closely resemble the rest of Isidore'sdiviners, who explicitly employ neither magic nor demons in their search foranswers, but rather the knowledge (recalling quandam scientiam futurorum,?3) supplied by their particular arts (?26: cuius artis scientia; ?28: divinationisscientiam). The most likely reason for this arrangement is that Isidorewanted to keep harioli and haruspices together, both because of their popular etymological association (although Isidore does not mention this) andbecause of their close historical connection and rivalry.53 Because they werein turn closely associated with haruspices in the Roman state religion,augurs would then have had to come next. Pythonissae were accordinglydisplaced to their present location in the catalogue.As themost scientific form of divination and ipso facto the least susceptible to demonic interference, astrology dominates the final group. One term isgiven for its general practitioners (astrologi), four for practitioners of natalastrology (genethliaci, mathematici, horoscopi, magi), and one forpractitionersof horary astrology (ifwe include Isidore's other definition of haruspices).54This group of technical diviners is rounded out by sortilegi and salisatores, bothofwhom practiced lot divination from texts that still survive.55

50Etym. 12.4.12. Isidore takes the story from Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 57.7(CCL 39:714-15).ol Quos nos 'hariolos' ceteri a interpretati sunt, id est 'incantatores' (Commentarli in Danielem 1.2.2 [CCL 75A:784]).52 Santiago Montero, M?ntica inspirada y demonologia: los Harioli VAntiquit? classique 62 (1993): 115-29, at 124-27.53 Ibid., 121-23.Ji On this other definition, see Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et l'astrologie,Revue des etudesMines 31 (1953): 271-300, at 281, who is followed by Flint, Rise ofMagic(n. 4 above), 95. On horary astrology (determining the advisability of a particular enterprise based on the stars' positions at the time of inquiry), see Tamsyn Barton, AncientAstrology (London, 1994), 29, 49, 57, 60.?? For a text used by sortilegi that is exactly contemporaneous with Isidore, see AlbanDold, Die Orakelspr?che im St. Galler Palimpsestcodex 908 (die sogenannten ((Sortes Sangal


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The most striking feature of Isidore's classification of diviners is its relatively high degree of differentiation and precision, especially when comparedwith his classification ofmagicians. This probably reflects both a high levelof specialization historically inMediterranean divination and the correspondingly detailed record for it to which Isidore and his sources had access. It isalso significant that a long history of state-sponsored divination had (withinlimits) legitimated its practice by private individuals. Magic was not soauthorized, which encouraged magicians to be circumspect about their services. Even if they did cultivate different specialties, they were not necessarily eager to advertise these.56Diviners on the other hand seem to have beenfreer and more inclined to market their skills in public. They developed,named, and advertised different specialties not only because different divinatory techniques were available, but also because such product differentiation was good for business and could be safely conducted in the streets,baths, fora, and other public places. Even when the political atmospheremade certain kinds of divination dangerous, practicing in public could stillbe recommended, in part as a defense against charges of illegal activity. Asthe astrologer Firmicus Maternus wrote in the early fourth century, Youwill then give your responses in public, and you should announce this toclients beforehand, that you are going to tell them everything about whichthey ask in a loud voice, to prevent anything being asked of you which it isnot permitted either to ask or to answer. 57

Although itsmost intensive phase was certainly over by the fourth century, the process of divinatory specialization made an indelible impact ontexts and practices alike. In late antiquity, even the most hostile critics ofdivination could not avoid knowing about many different kinds of divinersfrom what they read and heard as well as what they encountered themselves. Magicians left no comparably differentiated public record of themselves and their activities, and indeed, for safety's sake sometimes evenpracticed under the cover of one or another divinatory specialty, like the

lenses ), Sb. Akad. Vienna, 225.4 (1948), with the Erl?uterungen by Richard Meister, DieOrakelspr?che im St. Galler Palimpsestcodex 908 (die sogenannten Sortes Sangallenses ), Sb.Akad. Vienna, 225.5 (1951). For a text used by salisatores, see Hermann Diels, Beitr?gezur Zuckungsliteratur des Okzidents und Orients, I: Die griechischen Zuckungsb?cher (Melampus e a ), Abh. Akad. Berlin (1907), Abh. 4, 3-42, and II: Weitere griechische und au?ergriechische Literatur und Volks?berlieferung, Abh. Akad. Berlin (1908),Abh. 4, 3-16.56Hans Dieter Betz, Secrecy in the Greek Magical Papyri, in Secrecy and Concealment:Studies in theHistory ofMediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, ed. Hans G. Kippenberg and Guy G. Stroumsa, Studies in the History of Religions, 65 (Leiden, 1995), 152-75.57 Dabis sane responsa publice et hoc interrogaturis ante praedicito, omnia quidem illis,de quibus interrogant, clara sis voce dicturus, ne quid a te tale forte quaeratur, quod nonliceat nec interrogare nec dicere (Mathesis 2.30.3).


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74 TRADITIOharuspex who offered to cast a spell for Augustine in Carthage (Conf.4.2.3). Faithful to his sources, Isidore reflects these differences in his catalogue.

Amulets (?30)This brief section on amulets, adapted fromAugustine's De doctrina Christiana, clearly represents a new heading. Shifting the subject from practitioners to practices, it opens by stating that amulets too pertain to allthese things ( ad haec omnia pertinent et ligaturae ). Ad haec omnia is an

adaptation of Augustine's ad hoc genus, which Isidore had to changebecause, unlike Augustine, he is not referring to a genus. Ad haec omniarefers not to the diviners of the previous category ? if he had meant to saythat, Isidore would have written ad hos omnes? but rather to the entiresubject matter of the chapter, that is,who magi are and what they do. Morespecifically, the section returns to the subject ofmagic: the word praecantationibus in ?30 echoes the same word in ?11, where it described the magicalmeans by which necromancers raise the dead to prophesy. Isidore's focushere, however, is on the use of spells, magical symbols (characteres), andamulets in healing. He follows Augustine in contrasting these magical remedies with those recommended by physicians, but substitutes the word arsforAugustine's disciplina, just as, conversely, he had substituted the worddisciplina forPliny's ars at Etym. 8.9.2. If the reason was not simply variatio, Isidore may have wanted to contrast physicians with practitioners of theother artes mentioned in the chapter (??2, 3, 6, 10, 14, 26), behind all ofwhich stood the ars daemonum (?31).Summary and Appendix (??31-35)

As in ?30, the summary in ?31 is also adapted fromAugustine's De doctrina Christiana. Likewise, its opening words (in quibus omnibus) refer tothe entire chapter. Demons, Isidore says, are behind everything that magido, all of which the Christian should avoid. This produces a rhetoricallyeffective ending, but the chapter does not end here. Instead, it continuesfor four more sections of firsts, a favorite topic of Isidore's curiosity,here displaced to the end by the chapter's tight organization. In thisappended material, Mercury, the inventor of illusion, takes center position.He is flanked on the one hand by the Phrygians, first discoverers of birdauguries, and on the other by Tages, who first handed down the art ofharuspicy to the Etruscans. It is an indication of the careful organizationof the rest of the chapter that magic and divination come jumbledtogether only here. Elsewhere in the chapter, as we have seen, they areclearly separated from one another.


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Isidore's World

Like all taxonomies, Isidore's taxonomy of the magi is an ideal construct,composed mainly of fragments of other ideal constructs. But readers of Isidore have often looked to the De Magis for something else: a glimpse ofthe magical (and divinatory) activities that went on in his world. It is notat all improbable that Isidore in his discussion had in mind actual magicalpractices among the people of Spain, wrote Stephen McKenna in 1938.58Valerie Flint echoes this view: Isidore's description ... ofmagical practicesseems partly to be borrowed . . .but many may well also have been directlyencountered. 59 No taxonomy, of course, can be taken as a straightforwardrepresentation of reality, but to make any sense, itmust classify what is atleast thought to exist. Can we argue that Isidore's treatment of magiciansand diviners in the De Magis reflects the beliefs and practices of his ownday, or is his compilation too full of traditional Christian teaching and borrowed antiquarian learning to fulfill that hope?In 1953, Jacques Fontaine laid down conditions for answering such questions that still remain valid.

On ne peut acc?der ? la v?ritable originalit? d'Isidore de S?ville que par untriple d?marche. D'abord, un bilan aussi complet et d?taill? que possible deses sources directes et indirectes. Ensuite, un observation minutieuse descoupures, additions etmodifications auxquelles Isidore soumet le texte qu'ilemprunte. Enfin, la r?f?rence ? la r?alit? contemporaine sous tous sesaspects.60

To put it in other words, whatever mixture of tradition and originality or, inhistorical terms, continuity and change we might see in Isidore's catalogueofmagi comes down to how we think he deployed other texts and how thecultural world inwhich he lived? itself known to him, as to us, primarilythrough texts ? reflected and is reflected in his procedures of selection,revision, and composition.

Although this is inmany ways an impossible project, I think we can saythat in the De Magis, Isidore's shaping of his material is so careful anddeliberate, as we have seen, that in its very broadest outlines it does reflectthe beliefs and practices of his own day, at least as perceived by the ecclesiastical elite to which he belonged. But Isidore's use of sources makes itvery hazardous to postulate this of any specific detail. First, there is thedanger ofmissing the source entirely. Thus, paraphrasing Isidore's description ofmalefici (?10), Valerie Flint writes, Such malefici make use, he says,

58McKenna, Paganism and Pagan Survivals (n. 26 above), 140.59 Flint, Rise ofMagic (n. 4 above), 5160 Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et l'astrologie, 300 . 1.


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76 TRADITIOof blood and sacrifices and dead bodies especially (surely Isidore is callingupon direct observation here). 61 So confident a supposition is renderedunlikely by Isidore's verbatim borrowing of this description from Jerome'scommentary on Daniel. Moreover, even when we know Isidore's source, itis impossible to conclude from this that a particular phenomenon was notstill observed in his own day. Conversely, it is also possible that ideas orpractices forwhich no earlier source can be found, or which were Isidore'sown, had no identifiable connection to the real world, however we mightbe able to identify such a link. It therefore seems more promising to compare Isidore's taxonomy of practitioners with the lists and descriptions wefind elsewhere in the period. Many of these texts relied on the same sourcesas Isidore and so cannot be considered to provide strictly independent evidence, but their differing contexts, authors, and audiences do at least provide another angle fromwhich to look.Let us begin with a list of practitioners that is exactly contemporaneouswith the De Magis. It comes from the fourth council of Toledo, overwhich Isidore himself presided in 633. In canon 29, the assembled bishopsprohibit one another and all other clergy from consulting a wide range ofspecialists.

If any bishop, priest, deacon, or other cleric shall have been found to haveconsulted magi, haruspices, or harioli, or certainly augurs, lot-diviners, orthose who profess any art, or any people practicing things similar to these,he should be deposed from the status of his office and be placed in the careof a monastery. There, devoted to lifelongpenance, he should atone for thesacrilegious crime he has perpetrated.62

Jacques Fontaine suggests a connection between these figures and thepractitioners mentioned in the De Magis, noting that the two lists followalmost the same order (except that haruspices and harioli are reversed) andinclude several of the same names.63 This is plausible, but there is a muchcloser parallel at hand, namely the law issued by the emperor Constantius in358 from which canon 29 was adapted. The relevant portion follows:

if any magus, or anyone accustomed to the contagions of the magi who ispopularly called a maleficus, or any haruspex, hariolus, or certainly auguror also astrologer or anyone hiding any art of divination in the interpreta

61 Flint, Rise ofMagic, 52.62 Si episcopus quis aut presbyter sive diaconus vel quilibetex ordine clericorum

magos, aut aruspices aut ariolos aut certe augures vel sort?legos vel eos, qui profitenturartem aliquam, aut aliquos eorum similia exercentes, considere fuerit deprehensus abhonore dignitatis suae depositus monasterii curam excipiat ibique perpetuae poenitentiaededitus scelus admissum sacrilegii luat (Concilios Visig?ticos eHispano-Romanos, ed. Jos?Vives et al. [Barcelona, 1963], 203).63 Fontaine, Le 'sacr?' antique ( . 41 above), 398.


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tion of dreams, or certainly anyone practicing anything similar to these shallhave been discovered inmy court or in that of the Caesar [Julian], let himnot by the protection of his status escape tortures and torments.64There are of course differences between the two rulings, but the borrow

ing is obvious. Not only do both laws share the names of four specialistsoccurring in the same order (magi, haruspices, harioli, augures), but they alsoshare the identical phrases artem aliquam and fuerit deprehensus and thenearly identical phrases cerle augures/certe augur, similia exercentes/simileexercens, and honore dignitatis/praesidio dignitatis. In addition, both laws dealwith the consultation of objectionable practitioners by high-ranking officials:clergy in the case of Toledo IV and courtiers in the case of Constantius'slaw. But the bishops assembled at Toledo also modified Constantius's lawto suit their own purposes. First, they made the reference to magi evenvaguer by shortening the sequence magus vel . . .male ficus . . . nuncupaturto the single term magos. Then they substituted sortilegi formathematicus,and eliminated dream-interpreters in favor of a vague reference to the practitioners of any art. Finally, they converted horrific civil penalties intomilder ecclesiastical sanctions.

It is significant that the list of practitioners incanon 29 is almost but not

quite a match with the one in De Magis. To be sure, all the figuresmentioned in the canon were also mentioned by Isidore, and one of the specialties it did not mention, dream interpretation, was also not mentioned byIsidore (probably because, like the bishops assembled at Toledo, he did notobject to it). But the canon also leaves out mathematici, who were mentioned both in Constantius's law and in the De Magis. Jacques Fontainesuggested that the term haruspices in the canon was meant to representastrologers, as he argued it does in the De Magis. 65 But we cannot assumethat Isidore's idiosyncratic etymology

for the word haruspex was accepted atthe fourth council of Toledo against the term's more usual meanings.66 Wealso cannot suppose that themagi mentioned in canon 29 were really astrologers, since the law on which itwas based clearly identified magi with magicians (malefici). In fact, as we shall see, the council of Toledo was notunique in taking this step: other Visigothic lists of practitioners also leaveout the astrologers found in their sources. This could mean that astrologers

64 Si quis magus vei magicis contaminibus adsuetus, qui malefieus vulgi consuetudinenuncupatur, aut haruspex

aut hariolus aut certe augur vei etiam mathematicus aut narrandis somniis occultane artem aliquam divinandi aut certe aliquid horum simile exercens incomitatu meo vei Caesaris fuerit deprehensus, praesidio dignit?tis cruciatus et tormentanon fugiat (Cod. Theod. 9.16.6).65 Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et l'astrologie (n. 54 above), 280-81.66 Santiago Montero, Pol?tica y adivinaci?n en el Bajo Imperio Romano: emperadores yharuspices (193 D.C.-408 D.C), Collection Latomus, 211 (Brussels, 1991), esp. chap. 4.


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78 TRADITIOwere

actually scarce or that legislators did not object to them and thereforedeclined tomention them.The fact that the council of Toledo substitutes sortilegi for astrologers isalso significant. Sortilegi and the sortes they interpreted are frequently mentioned in fifth-and sixth-century Gallic sermons and councils (from one ofwhich Isidore takes his definition), and there is little doubt that diviners withthis title were also active in Spain in the later sixth and seventh century. Alaw of king Chindaswinth (642-53), for instance, bans the testimony of three

categories of offenders: 1) murderers, malefici, thieves, poisoners, and othercriminals; 2) those who commit abduction or perjury; and 3) those whocon

sult sortilegi and divini.67 Sortilegi and divini are also mentioned together incanon 71 of the Greek canons translated by bishop Martin of Braga andapproved by the second council of Braga in 572. Taken from the council ofAncyra (314), this ruling prohibits anyone from bringing divini, and specifically sortilegi, into his house in order to drive out evil, uncover evil deeds(maleficia), or perform pagan purifications.68 Inmany cultures, the detectionand expulsion ofmagic is a job fordiviners, and there is no reason not to seethe same assignment of duties here, as the canon itself states.That sortilegi were involved in such operations is clearly documented inthe divinatory manual known as the Sortes Sangallenses, whose sole copy,possibly made in southern Gaul, dates to the late sixth or early seventh century.69 Several of its responses convey the unhappy news that the inquireror his house has suffered occult harm and urge him to seek help. Forinstance, response 10 to question 112 states that You must be protectedby remedies ifyou do not wish to be driven out of your house. 70 Response9 to question 113 warns the inquirer to Help yourself, because you havebeen bewitched,71 while response 10 to the same question adds the furtherdetail that a woman is responsible.72 In response 12 to question 111, thediviners advice is to Help yourself, because your house has been put undera binding spell. 73 Finally, in question 114, the inquirer learns in response 8

67 Homicidae, malefici, fures, criminosi, sive venefici, et qui raptum fecerint vel falsumtestimonium dixerint, seu qui ad sort?legos divinosque concurrerint, nullatenus erunt adtestimonium admittendi (Leges Visigothorum 2.4.1, ed. Karl Zeumer, MGH Leges 1.1[1892], 95).68 Si quis paganorum consuetudinem sequens divinos et sort?legos in domo sua introduxerit, quasi ut malum foras mittant aut maleficia inveniant vel lustrationes paganorumfaciant, quinqu? annis poenitentiam agant (Ca?ones ex orientalium patrum synodis 71, ed.Claude W. Barlow, Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia [New Haven, 1950], 140).69Dold, Die Orakelspr?che ( . 55 above), 7-8.70 Remediis tibi tuendum est, si vis non fugari de domo (ibid., 67).71 Succurre tibi quia medicamentatus es (ibid.).72 Succurre tibi, quia a muliere medicamentatus es (ibid.).73 Sucurre tibi, quia obligata est domus tua (ibid., 66).


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that he has not been put under a binding spell,74 and in response 9 that hehas not been bewitched, but rather (equally vexing) has been made subject, perhaps to a love spell.75 The obscurities of these responses were presumably cleared up by the diviner employing them, who would also havebeen in a position to recommend protective steps or, if necessary, to referthe client to another practitioner.Other diviners mentioned by Isidore are also found in contemporary textsfrom Spain and Gaul. Pythonissae, for instance, appear in Gregory ofTours.76 A law of king Chindaswinth (adapted from the same portion of theSentences of Paulus that Isidore used for his etymology of divini in ?14)condemns those who consult harioli, haruspices or vaticinatores77 concerningthe health or life of the king or of anyone else, as well as those diviners whoreply to such consultations.78 Like canon 29 of the council of Toledo, it tooleaves out the mathematici mentioned in its source. In another law, issued ageneration later by king Erwig (680-87), judges were prohibited from consulting divini or haruspices to investigate the facts of a case.In addition to these direct references to diviners, contemporary textsmention various divinatory practices. In a separate provision of Erwig's lawabout judges, people devoted to auguries (auguriis dediti) were also condemned.79 Auguries (augurio) and the interpretation of bird signs (alia diaboli signa per aviedlos) were also attacked in the De correctione rusticorum ofMartin of Braga.80 The same passage mentions the divinatory interpretationof sneezes (per . . . sternutos), a subset of the larger category of divination bybodily movement practiced by salisatores.81 Martin also prohibited Christiansfrom using what seem to be astrological and other practices in connectionwith building a house, planting crops or trees, or getting married.82 Where

74 Obligatus non es (ibid., 67).75 Non es maleficatus, sed magis es subiectus (ibid.). For this interpretation, see Meister, Erl?uterungen ( . 55 above), 34.76Hist. 5.14; 7.44, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH Scriptores rerum

merovingicarum 1.1 (1937-51), 210, 364-65.77Although vaticinatores (those who issued vaticinici, the utterances of vales) were notmentioned by Isidore in the De Magis, he had referred inEtym. 8.7.3 to divini who wentby the name vates.78Leges Visigothorum 6.2.1, ed. Zeumer, 257.79 Ibid., 6.2.2, ed. Zeumer, 257-59.80De correctione rusticorum 16, ed. Barlow, Martini Episcopi Bracarensis Opera Omnia( . 68 above), 198-99.81Arthur Stanley Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione (Darmstadt, 1963), 487.82 Non liceat Christianis tenere traditiones gentilium et observare vei colere elementaaut lunae aut stellarum cursum aut inanem signorum fallaciam pro domo facienda vei adsegetes vel arbores plantandas vel coniugia socianda (Ca?ones ex orientalium patrum synodis 72, ed. Barlow, 141).


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80 TRADITIOall these texts differ from the De Magis is not in the practices they condemn but in their reluctance to assign these to specific figures (augurs, salisalores, astrologers). This difference may be partly the result of an overschematization of diviners' titles by Isidore. But we cannot overlook the possibility that it also signals the increasing scarcity of some kinds of highlyspecialized diviners by the end of the sixth century.The same kinds of near-matches are evident when we turn to the magicians and magical practices Isidore classified in the De Magis. We havealready noted the appearance of malefici in the law of Chindaswinth thatbarred various classes of persons from testifying, and three of his other laws

mention these and other practitioners of occult harm as well. One lawfocuses solely on venefici** and the other two on various evil practices. Thelonger of these laws combines Codex Theodosianus 9.16.3 and 9.16.7. It isdirected against malefici who perform harmful weather magic, against thosewho disturb human minds by calling down demons, against those who perform necromancy, and against those who consult any of the above.84 Theother law targets those who perform actions intended to harm people, animals, or crops, whether by means of magic (maleficium), bindings (ligamento), or written spells (scriptis)85 Still another law in the Leges Visigothorum, dated prior to 654, prohibits robbing sarcophagi to procure a remedium86 This has been interpreted as a restriction on necromancy,87 butmore likely refers to the remedium of a saint's relic, to Christian eyes a verydifferentmeans by which one called upon the dead forhelp.These laws probably stand closer to contemporary practice than does Isidore. Similarly, when we come to the incantatores and incantationes mentioned in two of the Greek canons translated by Martin ofBraga, we see notdiviners, as in Isidore, but healers. Canon 59, adapted from the council ofLaodicea (ca. 352), prohibits clerics from being incantatores and makingamulets, which is a binding of souls. 88 In mentioning only incantatores, itdiffers significantly from the Greek original, which, along with a(incantatores), lists a , a a , and a .89Another Latinversion of the same canon, found in the seventh-century collectioHispana,

83 Leges Visigothorum 6.2.3, ed. Zeumer, 259.84 Ibid., 6.2.4, ed. Zeumer, 259.85 Ibid., 6.2.5, ed. Zeumer, 260.86 Ibid., 9.2.2, ed. Zeumer, 403.8/McKenna, Paganism and Pagan Survivals ( . 26 above), 125; Flint, Rise ofMagic(n. 4 above), 216.88 Non liceat clericis incantatores esse et ligaturas facer?, quod est colligatio animarum.Si quis haec facit, de ecclesia proiciatur (Ca?ones ex orientalium patrum synodis 59, ed.Barlow, 138).89 Council of Laodicea, can. 36, ed. P?ricl?s-Pierre Joannou, Discipline g?n?rale antique,vol. 1.2, Les canons des Synodes Particuliers (IVe-IXe s.), Pontificia Commissione per laredazione del codice di diritto canonico orientale, Fonti, fase. 9 (Rome, 1962), 145.


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restores magi to the list, but not mathematici or astrologi.90 The other canondirects those who collect medicinal herbs not to perform the rituals or utterthe incantations usually prescribed for their maximum healing power butonly to recite the creed and Lord's Prayer.91 These prayers, Martin of Bragaasserts elsewhere, constitute a form of incantatio sanda that can be directlysubstituted for the spells (incantationes) . . . discovered by magi and malefici.9992A Christian incantation from eighth-century Asturias, designed forprotection rather than healing, provides striking documentary confirmationfor the endurance of this strategy.93Isidore's relatively clear divisions between divination and magic aremuddled even further in the miracle stories of Gregory of Tours. Ratherthan confining the titles sortilegi and harioli to diviners, Gregory appliesthem to practitioners who used amulets, potions, and spells for healing.94His fullest description appears in the story of one of his own slaves, who wasstricken by plague in the village of Brioude. Without Gregory's knowledge,his other slaves called in a hariolus. He . . . came to the sick boy and triedto practice his art: he murmured incantations, cast lots, [and] hung amuletsaround his neck. 95 All in vain: the boy's fever worsened and he died shortlyafter the healer's arrival. Whether hariolus was the healer's own label orGregory's, it is clear that a diviner's title had been appropriated for someonewho practiced both divination (in the casting of lots) and magic (in the useof amulets and spells). Isidore's classification is not hospitable to such a confusing combination of roles.

Conclusions

We can conclude from this survey that Isidore's taxonomy of magiciansand diviners presents a more finely differentiated, comprehensive, and90 Quoniam non oportet ministros altaris aut clerieos magos aut incanta tores esse, autfacer? quae dicuntur phylacteria, quae sunt magna obligamenta animarum: hos autem, quitalibus utuntur, proici ab ecclesia iussimus (Sententiae quae in veteribus exemplaribus conciliorum non habentur, sed a quibusdam in ipsis insertae sunt, ed. C. Munier, CCL 148:228).91 Non liceat in collectiones herbarum, quae medicinales sunt, aliquas observationes aut

incantationes adtendere, nisi tantum cum symbolo divino aut oratione dominica, ut tantum Deus creator omnium et dominus honoretur (Ca?ones ex orientalium patrum synodis74, ed. Barlow, 141).92 De correctione rusticorum 16, ed. Barlow ( . 80 above), 199.93 Isabel Vel?zquez Soriano, Las Pizarras visigodas: Edici?n cr?tica y estudio, Antig?edady cristianismo, 6 (Murcia, 1989), no. 104, pp. 312-14, 614-17.94De virtutibus sancii Martini 1.26; 4.36, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH Scriptores rerummerovingicarum 1.2 (1885), 151, 208-9.9:3 Ule . . . accessit ad aegrotum et artem suam exercere conatur. Incantationes inmurmurat, sortes iactat, ligaturas collo suspendit (De virtutibus s. Iuliani 46a, ed. B. Krusch,MGH Scriptores rerum merovingicarum 1.2 [1885], 132).


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82 TRADITIOorderly picture of their activities than do other texts from the later sixthand seventh centuries. While necessarily fuzzy around the edges, Isidore'sclassification still maintains fairly distinct boundaries between magic anddivination. There are two main reasons for this. First, overly rigid distinctions are what we expect from a taxonomy, whose very purpose is to imposean order on disorder in such a way as to produce a clearer depiction of reality than reality itself provides.96 Second, although Isidore manipulated hissources in various creative ways, he did in the end rely on them, whichinevitably led to a traditional selection of practitioners and to conservativerepresentations of those he selected. This may explain why augurs andastrologers play an important role in the De Magis but not in other Visigothic texts, and why Isidore's harioli and sortilegi do not show the versatility of Gregory's healers.These conclusions would seem to contradict both the opinion that theDe Magis conflates the categories ofmagic and divination, and, as a corollary, the opinion that it faithfully records contemporary realities. The factthat the De Magis has often been subjected to these kinds of readingsmay be due to the prior assumption that the category ofmagic is alwayswide enough to encompass divination, and therefore that a close match ispossible between the seeming tidiness of Isidore's taxonomy and untidy contemporary practice. Ironically, this assumption is encouraged by the powerful ideological datum embedded in Isidore's De Magis that all objectionable practices, including divination and magic, must be controlled bydemons. But Isidore, relying on traditional classical distinctions betweendivinatory knowledge and magical action, found it possible to nuance thisfundamental Christian conviction inways that later readers have not alwaysbeen prepared to recognize. In so doing, while not providing much directevidence for the practices and practitioners he classifies, he does suggesthow these might have been understood by others, especially but not onlyChristians, in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Confirmed, at leastin this limited way, as firsthand evidence, Isidore's classification of themagicians, diviners, and other specialists he knew as magi can still be of use inretrieving what we can of the lives and actions of those elusive figures,whose secret arts and powerful knowledge have not ceased to fascinate andpuzzle readers of the De Magis.

The Catholic University ofAmerica

96 On the drive for taxonomie clarity, see Alan F. Segal, Hellenistic Magic: SomeQuestions of Definition, in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions Presented toGilles Quispel on the Occasion ofHis 65th Birthday, ed. R. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden, 1981), 349-75, at 375.


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AppendixAn Annotated Translation of Isidore, Etymologies 8.9

This translation is for the most part based on Lindsay's edition, with divergences as noted. I have consulted, and on occasion followed, the modern versionscited above in notes 5-8, especially Ernest Brehaut's well-translated selections.

MAGI1. Of themagi, the firstwas Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians,97 whom Ninus,

king of theAssyrians, killed in battle.98 Aristotle writes of him that labels on hisscrolls identify two million lines composed by him.992. Many centuries later Democritus enlarged this art100at the same time asHippocrates flourished in the discipline ofmedicine.101 Lucan attests that amongtheAssyrians themagic arts are abundant:Who by means of entrails could learn whatHas been done (facta),102 interpret birds, pay attention to the lightning of the skyAnd observe the constellations with Assyrian skill? (Pharsalia 6.427-29).

3. And so this vanity of themagic arts prevailed in thewhole world formanycenturies103by the teaching of the wicked angels through some sort of knowledge

97 Eusebius, Chron., ed. Rudolf Helm arid Ursula Treu, Eusebius Werke, vol. 7, DieChronik des Hieronymus, 3d ed., GCS (Berlin, 1984), 20a: Zoroastres magus rex Bactrianorum. For Zoroaster's position as the first magus, see Pliny, Hist. Nat. 30.2.3. On theselegends about Zoroaster, see Bidez and Cumont, Les Mages Hell?nis?s ( . 30 above).98 For his defeat in battle, see Augustine, De civ. Dei 21.14.99 Pliny (Hist. Nat. 30.2.4) attributes this information to Hermippus (of Smyrna) ratherthan to Aristotle: Hermippus qui de tota ea arte diligentissime scripsit et viciens centummilia versuum a Zoroastre condita indicibus quoque voluminum eius positis explanavit.

Hermippus's catalogue of Zoroaster's works may have come from a e a writtenabout 200 b.c. (Karl M?ller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, vol. 3 [Paris, 1883], 53-54).Bidez and Cumont (Les Mages Hell?nis?s, 1:86-87) point out that, at 2500 lines per scroll,the number of volumes Hermippus attributed to Zoroaster would have amounted to about800, not by any means an impossible pseudepigraphic corpus.100 I.e., by increasing the number of available texts. Isidore alludes to Pliny's statementthat Democritus based his own writings (haec opera eius) on the teachings of Apollobex ofCoptos and Dardanus the Phoenician (Hist. Nat. 30.2.9).101Pliny notes this conjunction at Hist. Nat. 30.2.10.102Lucan's text has fata. Isidore's direct quotations of classical authors often deviateslightly from the texts printed inmodern editions of their works, whether because he wasrelying on his memory, quoting at second hand, or using an inferior manuscript. The problem has been much discussed. See on book 8, Valastro Canale, Herej?as ( . 9 above) and, ingeneral, Nicol? Messina, Le citazioni classiche nelle Etymologiae di Isidoro di Siviglia,Archivos leoneses 34 (1980): 205-65.103Pliny, Hist. Nat. 30.1.1: in toto terrarum orbe plurimisque saeculis valuit.


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84 TRADITIOof future things104and the calling forth of lower spirits.105Their devices areharuspicies, auguries, and what are called oracles and necromancy.1064. And there is nothing miraculous about the illusions of the magi, whosemalevolent arts reached such a point that they even resistedMoses by signs verylike his, turning staffs into serpents107and the waters into blood.1085. There is also the tale of a certain very famous maga, Circe, who turnedUlysses' companions into animals.109 And one reads of the sacrifice that theArcadians offered to their Lycaean god: those who partook of itwere transformed into animals.1106. From this there appears to be some truth inwhat that noble poet writes ofa certain woman who excelled in the arts of the magi.ux He says:

She promises to free by her spells the mindsOf anyone she wishes, but to impose oppressive troubles on others;To stop the flow of a river (fluminis)112 and reverse the movements of stars.She stirs up the spirits of the dead at night, and you will hear the earthRumble beneath your feet and see ash trees descend from the mountains(Virgil, Aeneid 4.487-91, quoted from Augustine, City of God 21.6.2).

7.What more [can one say], if it is right to believe of the Pythoness,113 thatshe called forth the soul of the prophet Samuel from the secret places of hell114and presented him to the sight of the living115? that is, ifwe can believe thatit really was the soul of the prophet and not some fantastic illusion created bythe deception of Satan?116104Cicero, Diu. 1.1.1: scientiam rerum futurarum. Sophie de Clauzade's text is preferable here. See above, pp. 67-68.105A close paraphrase of Pliny, Hist. Nat. 30.2.6: et inferum evocatione.106Lactantius, Diu. inst. 2.16.1 (CSEL 19.1:167): Eorum inventa sunt astrologia et

haruspicina et auguratio et ipsa quae dicuntur oracula et necromantia.107Exod. 7:11-12 (Vulg.): proieceruntque singuli virgas suas quae versae sunt in dracones.108Exod. 7:20 (Vulg.): percussit aquam fluminis coram Pharao et servis eius quae versaest in sanguinem.109Augustine, De civ. Dei 18.17: de illa maga famosissima Circe, quae socios quoqueUlixis mutavit in bestias.110 Ibid.: cum gustasset de sacrificio, quod Arcades immolato puero deo suo Lycaeofacer? solerent. The Lycaean god was Pan or Zeus. On these transformations, see furtherIsidore, Etym. 11.4.1.111Augustine, De civ. Dei 21.6.2: ut congruere hominum sensibus sibi nobilis poetavideretur, de quadam femina, quae tali arte polieret.112Virgil's text has fluviis.113 Isidore takes her title from Augustine's discussion of the witch of Endor in his Quaestiones vii ad Simplicianum 2.3.1 (CCL 44:81). The Vulgate has mulierem habentem pythonemat 1 Sam. 28:7 and pythonissam at 1 Par. (Chron.) 10:13.114Augustine, Quaestiones vii ad Simplicianum 2.3.1 (CCL 44:82): de abditis mortuorumreceptaculis evocare.115 Ibid., 2.3.3 (CCL 44:86): magicis carminibus evocatam vivorum apparere conspectibus.116 Ibid., 2.3.2 (CCL 44:83): ut non vere spiritum Samuelis excita tum a requie sua credamus, sed aliquod phantasma, et imaginariam illusionem diaboli machinationibus factam.


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8. Prudentius also relates this ofMercury:He is said by his control over the wand he had taken upTo have called the souls of the dead back into the lightBut to have condemned others to death (Against Symmachus 1.90-91, 93).And a little later he added:For his harmful art knows how to raise up pale ghosts by magic murmuringAnd cleverly to enchant sepulchral ashes,And likewise to despoil others of life (Against Symmachus 1.96-98).9.Magi are those who are popularly called evil-doers (malefici) because of themagnitude of their crimes.117These shake up even the elements,118 disturbhuman minds,119 and without any drink of poison kill merely by the violence ofa spell.10. Whence also Lucan:The mind perishes, not contaminated by a poisonous venom it has drunk,But by enchantment (Pharsalia 6.457-58).For, by summoning demons, they dare to set them in motion in order thateach one might destroy his enemies by evil arts.120They also use blood and sacrifices, and often touch the bodies of the dead.12111. Necromancers (necromantii) are those whose incantations seem to bringthe dead back to life to prophesy and answer questions.122 For inGreek nekrosmeans a dead man, and manteia means divination. To raise them up,123 blood isapplied to a corpse;124 for it said that demons love blood. Therefore, whenevernecromancy takes place, gore (cruor) ismixed with water, that they may bemore easily summoned by the bloody gore (cruore sanguinis).12. Hydromancers (hydromantii) take their name fromwater. For it is hydromancy to call forth the shades of demons by looking intowater and to see their

117Cod. Theod. 9.16.4: Chaldaei ac magi et ceteri, quos mal?ficos ob facinorum magnitudinem vulgus appellat. On quotations from the Theodosian Code in the chapter, see further Harry L. Levy, Isidore, Etymolog?ae VIII, 9, 9, Speculum 22 (1947): 81-82.118Cod. Theod. 9.16.5: Multi magicis artibus ausi dementa turbare.119 Ibid., 9.16.3, interpr.: Malefici vei incantatores vei inmissores tempestatum vei hi,qui per invocationem daemonum mentes hominum turb?nt.120 Ibid., 9.16.5: et manibus accitis audent ventilare, ut quisque suos conficiat malisartibus inimicos.121Jerome, Commentarli in Danielem 1.2.2 (CCL 75A:784): malefici qui sanguine utuntur et victimis et saepe contingunt corpora mortuorum.122Augustine, De civ. Dei 7.35: ubi videntur mortui divinare.123 I read suscitandos (Ar?valo) for sciscitandos (Grial, Lindsay). Ar?valo's

note (PL82:916C) justifies the reading.124The locus classicus is Odysseus's consultation of Tiresias in the underworld in Od. 11,but Grial also adduces Servius, ad Aen. 6.149, ed. Georg Thilo, Servii grammatici qui feruntur in Vergila carmina commentarli, voi. 2 (Leipzig, 1883), 32: sed secundum Lucanumin necromantia ad levandum cadaver sanguis est necessarius. The reference is to Luc?n,Phars. 6.667: Pectora tune primum ferventi sanguine supplet.


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86 TRADITIOrepresentations or deceptions, and then to hear things from these,125 when theytoo [i.e., hydromancers] are believed to question the dead ifblood has been supplied.12613. This kind of divination is said to have been introduced by the Persians.127Varr? says that there are fourkinds of divination: by earth, water, air, and fire.Hence, they are called geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, and pyromancy.12814. Diviners (divini) receive this name frombeing full ofGod ; for they pretend that they are full of divinity and by some sort of deceptive cunning interpret future events for people.129 There are two kinds of divination:130 skill andinspiration.13115. Enchanters (incantatores) are those who exercise their skill by words.13216. Arioli (harioli) take their name from the fact that they utter abominableprayers and offer deadly sacrifices133 around the altars of idols.134 From theserituals they receive the responses of demons.135

125Augustine, De civ. Dei 7.35: ut in aqua videret imagines deorum vei potius ludificationes daemonum, a quibus audiret, quid in sacris constituere atque observare deberet.126 Ibid.: ubi adhibito sanguine etiam inferos perhibet sciscitari.12/ Ibid.: Quod genus divinationis idem Varr? a Persis dicit allatum.128Serv. Dan. ad Aen. 3.359, ed. Arthur Frederick Stocker et al., Servianorum in Vergilacarmina commentariorum editionis Harvardianae volumen, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1965), 141: Varr?autem quattuor genera divinationum dicit, terram, aerem, aquam, ignem ? geomantis,aeromantis, hydromantis, pyromantis.129Pauli Sententiae 5.21.1, ed. S. Riccobono et al., Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani(Florence, 1940), 2:406: Vaticinatores, qui se deo plenos adsimulant. For Augustine's useof this etymology, see Serm. 243.6.5 (PL 38:1146): Divine videbunt, quando Deo pienierunt. See further, Celestina Milani, Note sul lessico della divinazione nel mondo classico, in La profezia nel mondo antico, ed. Marta Sordi (Milan, 1993), 31-49, at 31-32.130Cicero, Div. 1.6.11: Duo sunt enim divinandi genera, quorum alterum artis est,alterum naturae.131 Isidore has substituted the narrower and less benign term furor for Cicero's natura,perhaps on the basis of Servius, ad Aen. 3.359 (ed. Stocker, 140): nam, ut ait Cicero,omnis divinandi peritia in duas partes dividitur:

nam aut furor est . . . aut ars. On furor,see Cicero, Div. 1.31.56.132Jerome, Comm. in Dan. 1.2.2 (CCL 75A:784): Ergo videntur mihi 'incantatores' essequi verbis rem peragunt.133Cod. Theod. 9.16.7: Ne quis deinceps nocturnis temporibus aut nefarias preces autm?gicos apparatus aut sacrificia funesta celebrare conetur. Similar language can be foundin the mid-sixth century Commentarii super Cantica ecclesiastica by Verecundus, bishop ofIunca (Tunisia): Arioli dicuntur qui sacrificiis et precibus quibusdam impiis et suasionibusfunestorum verborum ad fantasias daemones conpellunt (CCL 93:96).134This common etymology connects arioli with altars (arae). It is found in a number ofglossaries and commentaries, none of which is obviously Isidore's source. For references, seeMontero, M?ntica inspirada y demonologia ( . 52 above), 124-25.135Valastro Canale, Herej?as ( . 9 above), 171-72, traces the phrase daemonumresponsa percipiunt to a commentary on 1 Kings long attributed to Gregory the Great:In librum primum regum 6.33 (CCL 144:569). But if Adalbert de Vog?? is correct (SC449:20-23) that the commentary was in fact written by Peter II (Divinacello), monk ofCava and abbot of Venosa (d. 1156), then the whole passage, including its etymology ofara, may be based instead on Isidore.


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17. Haruspices are called this because they are inspectors of the hours(horae)\xmthey watch over the days and hours for doing business and servicesand attend to what a person should do at any given moment.137 They alsoinspect the entrails of cattle and from these predict the future.13818. Augurs (augures) are those who attend to the flights and sounds of birds,and other signs of things or unforeseen observations that people experience.139They are the same as bird-seers (auspices). For auspices (auspicia) are what people making a journey observe.19. Now auspices receive their name from observations of birds (aviumaspicia).140 Auguries (augurio) receive their name from the chattering noises birdsmake (avium garr?a), that is, the sounds and utterances of birds.141 Likewise,augury (augurium) receives its name from avigerium, that is, what birds do.14220. There are two kinds of auspices: one pertaining to the eyes and the otherto the ears. Birds' flight pertains to the eyes and their sound to the ears.14321. Pythonesses (pythonissae) are so called fromPythian Apollo, because hewas alleged to be the source of their divining.144

136 ^e jgjdQj-g'g own etymology. As Fontaine notes ( Isidore de Seville etl'astrologie [ . 54 above], 281 . 2), it is not found in other authors. Other popular ety

mologies defined haruspices (aruspices) as inspectors of an altar (Corpus GlossariorumLatinorum, ed. G. Goetz, vol. 4 [Leipzig, 1889], 21, line 25: Aruspex are inspector ) orof the sacrificial victims variously known as harigae, harugae, ariugae, or arvigae (ThLL2.728-29, s.v. arviga ). For modern theories, see Milani, Note, 47-48.137A definition of horary astrology, in which the positions of the stars were consultedfor advice about particular actions. See n. 54 above.138Jerome, Comm. in Dan. 1.2.27b (CCL 75A:790): qui exta inspiciant et ex his futurapraedicant.139What augurs did is best explained by Jerzy Linderski, The Augural Law, Aufstiegund Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.16.3 (1986), 2146-312. Isidore correctly states that theobservation of birds constituted only one aspect of their divination.140Festus, Gloss Lat. 93 explains the etymology: Auspicium: from the observing of

abird; for aspicio, which we say with a preposition, the ancients used to say without a preposition: spicio. [Auspicium: ab ave spicienda; nam quod nos cum praepositione dicimusaspicio apud veteres sine praepositione spicio dicebatur.] Serv. Dan. ad Aen. 3.374 (ed.Stocker, 147), gives a slightly different version: dictum ab ave inspiciendo, quasi avispicium. A shorter version can be found in Keil, Gramm. Lat. 5:455, line 10: ab aspicioauspex.141Festus, Gloss. Lat. 93: from the chattering of birds (ab avium garritu).142Servius ad Aen. 5.523 (ed. Stocker, 550): 'augurium' dictum quasi 'avigerium', id estquod aves gerunt.143On the division of bird-auspices into those based on flight and those based on sound,see Cicero, Div. 1.42.94. The distinction was based on the two types of birds consulted forauspices: alites were birds whose flight was interpreted, and oscines were birds whose soundwas interpreted. See Isid., Etym. 12.7.75-78, and Bouch?-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination( . 49 above), 4:200.144jms obvious (and correct) etymology may be Isidore's own. For his speculation onthe epithet Pythius for Apollo, see Etym. 8.11.54-55, with Macfarlane, Isidore of Sevilleon thePagan Gods (n. 2 above), 23.


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88 TRADITIO22. Astrologers (astrologi) are named for the fact that they conduct their aug

uries among the stars (in asir is).14523. Genethliaci are named for their observance of birthdays.146 For theyarrange people's horoscopes (gen?ses) according to the twelve signs of the zodiac,and by the course of the stars try to predict the characters, actions, a

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William e. Klikngshirn - Isidore of Seville's Taxonomy of Magicians and Diviners