BOOK ONE OF NATURAL MAGIC, BY GIOVANNI BATTISTA PORTA, NEAPOLITAN.

CHAP. I.

Porphyrius Neoplatonic philosopher and Apuleius Roman writer, who hold no small rank among the Platonists followers of Plato, affirm that Magic took its name and birth in Persia, although Suidas Byzantine lexicographer estimates that it drew it from the Maguseans ancient Persian sect; for the people of this nation call Mages those whom the Latins honor with the name of Sages. The Greeks, for the sake of Pythagoras Greek philosopher alone, have named them philosophers, the Indians Gymnosophists naked philosophers in the Greek language, the Egyptians have called them priests, the Cabalists Jewish mystics prophets, the Babylonians and