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That is, we can foreknow, if not control, the results of the processes of universal nature. Since it is through the forces of nature that we do this, augury, oracular utterances, oneiromancy and astrology all become for Ammianus but subdivisions of physical science. He admits that there are persons who disagree with him, who object that predictions are often erroneous; but against such persons he employs the old refutation that occasional mistakes are to be attributed to man’s imperfect knowledge and faulty observation, and that by such mistakes the validity of divination is no more disproved than is grammar forever discredited because a grammarian speaks incorrectly, or music because a musician sings out of tune.[224] Opposition to the arts of divination he calls “vanities plebeia,” and upon such loud-mouthed ignorance of the vulgar he looks down with much the same superior smile that the lover of speculative philosophy to-day bestows upon the man in the street who irritably disputes the utility of that subject.

Indeed, the strength of Ammianus’s attachment to divination is so great that he quotes its arch-opponent, Cicero, in its support. For he concludes his discussion of the subject in these words: “Wherefore in this as in other matters Tully says most admirably, ‘Signs of future events are shown by the gods.’”[225] Unless perchance Ammianus was omnium principi malivoli praenoscendi futura pravas artes adsignant, advertendum est breviter unde sapienti viro hoc quoque accidere potent doctrinae genus baud leve. Elementorum omnium spiritus, utpote perennium corporum praesentendi motu semper et ubique vigens ex his quae per disciplinas varias affectamus, participat nobiscum munera divinandi; et substantiales potestates ritu diverso placatae, velut ex perpetuis fontium venis vaticina mortalitati subpeditant verba.”

Synesius (370–430 a. d.), Bishop of Ptolemais, furnishes a good example of what was probably the position of the average Neo-Platonist who did not go to extremes in the last period of the Roman Empire. In the present survey we are not concerned with Christian belief in the Empire, and so it is only as a Neo-Platonist that Synesius will at present interest us. He is the more interesting for us in that he was a man with some taste for science. He knew some medicine and was well acquainted with geometry and astronomy, subjects which he probably studied under his friend Hypatia. He believed himself to be the inventor of an astrolable and of a hydroscope. He played his part in secular politics and as bishop defended his people from oppression. He was fond of the chase and of his dogs and horses, and said so. He was a great lover of books also, but thought that their true use was to call one’s own mental powers into action. Philosophy, mathematics and literature all claimed his attention. Yet broad and independent-minded as he was for his age, and interested as he was in science, he believed in magic. Indeed, there was apparently no form of magic in which he would not have believed.

Synesius regarded the universe as a unit and all its parts as closely correlated. This belief not only led him to maintain, like Seneca, that whatever had a cause was a sign of some future event, or to hold with Plotinus that in any and every object the sage might discern the future of every other thing, and that the birds themselves, if endowed with sufficient intelligence, would be able to predict the future by observing the movements of human bipeds.[226] It led him also to the conclusion that the various parts of the universe were more than passive mirrors in which one might see the future of the other parts; that they further exerted, by virtue of the magic sympathy which united all parts of the universe, a potent active influence over other objects and occurrences. The wise man might not only predict the future; he might, to a great extent, control it.

For it must be, I think, that of this whole, so joined in sympathy and in agreement, the parts are closely connected as if members of a single body. And does not this explain the spells of the magi? For things, besides being signs of each other, have magic power over each other. The wise man, then, is he who knows the relationships of the parts of the universe. For he draws one object under his control by means of another object, holding what is at hand as a pledge for what is far away, and working through sounds and material substances and forms.[227]

Synesius explained that plants and stones are related by bonds of occult sympathy to the gods who are within the universe and who form a part of it, that plants and stones have magic power over these gods, and that one may by means of such material substances attract those deities.[228] He evidently believed that it was quite legitimate to control the processes of nature by invoking demons. His devotion to divination has been already implied. He regarded it as among the noblest of human pursuits.[229] Dreams he viewed as significant and very useful events. They aided him, he wrote, in his every-day life, and had upon one occasion saved him from magic devices against his life.[230] Of course, he had faith in astrology. The stars were well-nigh ever present in his thought. In his Praise of Baldness he characterized comets as fatal omens, as harbingers of the worst public disasters.[231] In On Providence he explained the supposed fact that history repeats itself by the periodical return to their former positions of the stars which govern our life.[232] In On the Gift of an Astrolabe he declared that “astronomy” besides being itself a noble science, prepared men for the diviner mysteries of theology.[233] Finally, he held the view common among students of magic that knowledge should be esoteric; that its mysteries and marvels should be confined to the few fitted to receive them and that they should be expressed in language incomprehensible to the vulgar crowd.[234]

Macrobius, who wrote at the beginning of the fifth century and displayed considerable interest in physical questions for a person of those days, reinforces the evidence of Ammianus and of Synesius, although he held no very extreme views. Unless, however, we except his Philonian notion that all knowledge may be derived from a few past writings. For Macrobius affirmed that Virgil contains practically all man needs to know, and that Cicero’s brief story of the dream of Scipio was a work second to none and contained the entire substance of philosophy.[235] Macrobius also believed that numbers possess occult power. He dilated at considerable length upon each of those from one to eight, emphasizing their perfection and far-reaching significance. He held the good old Pythagorean and Platonic notions that the world-soul is constructed of number, that the harmony of celestial bodies is ruled by number, and that we derive the numerical values proper to musical consonance from the music of the spheres.[236] He was of the opinion that to the careful investigator dreams and other striking occurrences will reveal an occult meaning.[237] As for astrology, he believed that the stars are signs but not causes of future events, just as birds by their flight or song reveal matters of which they themselves are ignorant.[238] The sun and planets, though in a way divine, are but material bodies, and it is not from them but from the world-soul (pure mind), whence they too come, that the human spirit takes its origin.[239] Macrobius also displayed some belief in the possession of occult properties by objects about us. In the Saturnalia, Disaurius the physician is asked and answers such questions as why a brass knife stuck in game prevents decay.[240] Macrobius by the way, had considerable influence in the Middle Ages. Abelard makes frequent reference to him, and called him “no mean philosopher.”[241] Aquinas cited him as an authority for the doctrines of Neo-Platonism.