4. But if one stops up the ears of goats with salve, they say they will shortly die because prevented from breathing. [Sidenote: p. 100.] For they say that this is with them the way in which the intaken air is breathed forth. And they say that a ram dies if one should bend him backwards against the sun.[125] But they make a house catch fire by anointing it with the ichor of a certain animal called dactylus;[126] and this is very useful because of sea-water. And there is a sea-foam heated in an earthen jar with sweet substances, which if you apply to it a lighted lamp catches fire and is inflamed, but does not burn at all if poured on the head. But if you sprinkle it with melted gum, it catches fire much better; and it does better still if you also add sulphur to it.
5. Thunder is produced in very many ways. For very many large stones rolled from a height over wooden planks and falling upon sheets of brass make a noise very like thunder. And they coil a slender cord round the thin [Sidenote: p. 101.] board on which the wool-carders press cloth, and then spin the board by whisking away the string when the whirring of it makes the sound of thunder. These tricks they play thus; but there are others which I shall set forth which those who play them also consider great. Putting a cauldron full of pitch upon burning coals, when it boils they plunge their hands in it and are not burned; and further they tread with naked feet upon coals of fire and are not burned. And also putting a pyramid of stone upon the altar, they make it burn and from its mouth it pours forth much smoke and fire. Then laying a linen cloth upon a pan of water and casting upon it many burning coals, the linen remains unburnt. And having made darkness in the house, the magician claims to make gods or dæmons enter in, and if one somehow asks that Esculapius shall be displayed he makes invocation, saying thus:--
“Apollo’s son, once dead and again undying! I call on thee to come as a helper to my libations. [Sidenote: p. 102.] Who erst the myriad tribes of fleeting dead In the ever-mournful caves of wide Tartarus Swimming the stream hard to cross and the rising tide, Fatal to all mortal men alike, Or wailing by the shore and bemoaning inexorable things These thyself did rescue from gloomy Persephoneia. Whether thou dost haunt the seat of holy Thrace Or lovely Pergamum or beyond these Ionian Epidaurus Hither, O blessed one, the prince of magicians calls thee to be present here.”[127]