The Works of Apuleius (Golden Ass, God of Socrates, Florida, On the Doctrines of Plato)

she frustrated this design; and as Medea, having obtained by entreaty from Creon the truce of a single day prior to her departure, burned his whole palace, his daughter, and the old man himself with flames issuing from a garland, so, likewise, did this sorceress, having performed certain deadly incantations in a ditchSacrifices to celestial gods were offered on raised altars; those to terrestrial gods, on the ground; those to infernal gods, in a pit or ditch. (as she herself lately told me in a fit of drunkenness), confine all the inhabitants of the town, each in his own house, through a secret spell of the demons. For two whole days together, neither could the bars be wrenched off, nor the doors be taken off their hinges, nor, in short, could a hole be made in the walls, until, by mutual consent, the people unanimously cried out and swore in the most sacred manner that they would not lift a hand against her, and would, in case anyone else should think of doing so, afford her timely assistance. Being in this manner appeased, she liberated the whole city.

"In the middle of the night, however, she moved the author of this conspiracy, together with all his house—that is to say, with the walls, the very ground, and all the foundations, close-shut as it was—into another city, situated at the hundredth milestone from here, on the summit of a craggy mountain, which is, in consequence, deprived of water. And, as the dwellings of the inhabitants were built so close together that they did not afford room for this new arrival, she threw down the house before the gate of the city and took her departure."

"You narrate marvelous things, my good Socrates," said I, "and no less terrible than marvelous. In short, you have excited in me no small anxiety; indeed, I may say, fear—not just a grain of apprehension, but piercing me with dread as with a spear, lest this old hag, employing the assistance of some demon in a similar manner, should come to know of this conversation of ours. Let us, therefore, with all speed, betake ourselves to rest, and when we have relieved our weariness by a night's sleep, let us fly from here as far as we possibly can before daylight."

While I was still advising him, the worthy Socrates, overcome by more wine than he was accustomed to and by the fatigue of the day, had fallen asleep and was now...