characteristically elaborate account of the calling up of the shade of
Laius by Eteocles and Tiresias.

Apuleius,[66] in his truly astounding account of Thessaly in his day,
gives a detailed description of the process of calling back a corpse to
life. "The prophet then took a certain herb and laid it thrice upon the
mouth of the dead man, placing another upon the breast. Then, turning
himself to the east with a silent prayer for the help of the holy sun,
he drew the attention of the audience to the great miracle he was
performing. Gradually the breast of the corpse began to swell in the act
of breathing, the arteries to pulsate, and the body to be filled with
life. Finally the dead man sat up and asked why he had been brought back
to life and not left in peace."

One is reminded of the dead man being carried out to burial who meets
Dionysus in Hades, in Aristophanes' _Frogs_, and expresses the wish that
he may be struck alive again if he does what is requested of him. If
ghosts are often represented as "all loath to leave the body that they
love," they are generally quite as loath to return to it, when once they
have left it, though whether it is the process of returning or the
continuance of a life which they have left that is distasteful to them
is not very clear. The painfulness of the process of restoration to life
after drowning seems to favour the former explanation.

These cases of resurrection are, of course, quite different from
ordinary necromancy--the summoning of the shade of a dead man from the
world below, in order to ask its advice with the help of a professional
diviner. As religious faith decayed and the superstitions of the East
and the belief in magic gained ground, necromancy became more and more
common. Even Cicero charges Vatinius[67] with evoking the souls of the