having been
assassinated about sixty years before by a perfidious comrade who had
taken his money, he had been secretly interred in that house; that the
god of Hades would not receive him on the other side of Acheron, as he
had died prematurely; for which reason he was obliged to remain in
that house of which he had taken possession.

"Haec mihi dedita habitatio;
Nam me Acherontem recipere noluit,
Quia praemature vita careo."

The pagans, who had the simplicity to believe that the Lamiae and evil
spirits disquieted those who dwelt in certain houses and certain
rooms, and who slept in certain beds, conjured them by magic verses,
and pretended to drive them away by fumigations composed of sulphur
and other stinking drugs, and certain herbs mixed with sea water.
Ovid, speaking of Medea, that celebrated magician, says[314]--

"Terque senem flamma, ter aqua, ter sulphure lustrat."

And elsewhere he adds eggs:--

"Adveniat quae lustret anus lectumque locumque,
Deferat et tremula sulphur et ova manu."

In addition to this they adduce the instance of the archangel
Raphael,[315] who drove away the devil Asmodeus from the chamber of
Sarah by the smell of the liver of a fish which he burnt upon the
fire. But the instance of Raphael ought not to be placed along with
the superstitious ceremonies of magicians, which were laughed at by
the pagans themselves; if they had any power, it could only be by the
operation of the demon with the permission of God; whilst what is told
of the archangel Raphael is certainly the work of a good spirit, sent
by God to cure Sarah the daughter of Raguel, who was as much
distinguished by her piety as the magicians are degraded by their
malice and superstition.

Footnotes:

[310] Plin. junior, Epist. ad Suram. lib. vii. cap. 27.

[311] In Philo pseud. p. 840.

[312] Bolland, 31 Jul. p. 211.

[313] Plaut. Mostell. act. ii. v. 67.

[314] Vide Joan. Vier. de Curat. Malific. c. 215.

[315] Tob. viii.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

OTHER INSTANCES OF SPECTRES WHICH HAUNT CERTAIN HOUSES.

Father Pierre Thyree,[316] a Jesuit, relates an infinite number of
anecdotes of houses haunted by ghosts, spirits, and demons; for
instance, that of a tribune, named Hesperius, whose house was infested
by a demon who tormented the domestics and animals, and who was driven
away, says St. Augustin,[317] by a good priest of Hippo, who offered
therein the divine sacrifice of the body of our Lor