Podcast episode

May 13, 2026

Episode 217: Three Ancient Sages: On East Roman Magical Books

We examine three important manuals of practical ritual from East Rome by three very important authors: Hermes Trismegistos, Apollonios of Tyana, and King Solomon. Each book has a fascinating story to tell, and each will be with us as the podcast progresses.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Our episodes on the talismanic Constantinople: Part I here and Part II here.

Primary:

‘The Book of Wisdom and of the Science of Talismans of Apollonios of Tyana’ (βίβλος σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως ἀποτελεσμάτων Ἀπολλονίου τοῦ Τυανέως): Franciscus Boll, editor. Codices Germanici, volume VII of Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum. Bruxellis, 1908, pp. 175–81.

For John Malalas’ Chronographia in English, see Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys and Roger Scott, trans. The Chronicle of John Malalas. Number 4 in Byzantina Australiensia. Brill, Leiden, 1986. For Apollonios and his talismans, see 10.263–266.

MS Harleianus 5596: https://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/39555/

Niketas Choniatēs cites a Solomonic work from the twelfth century: cited at Chester Charlton McCown. The Testament of Solomon. J. C. Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1922, pp. 101–2.

Secondary:

Franz Cumont. Démetrios Chloros et la tradition des Cyranides. Bulletin de la societé nationale des antiquaires de France, pages 175–81, 1919.

Garth Fowden. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986., quoting pp. 87-88 and citing p. 161.

Ioannis Marathakis, editor. The Magical Treatise of Solomon or Hygromanteia, also called the Apotelesmatikē Pragmateia, Epistle to Rehoboam, Solomōnikē. Number 8 in Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic Series. Golden Hoard Press, Singapore, 2011.

David Pingree. Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 43:1–15, 1980., quoting p. 9.

Pablo A. Torijano. Solomon the Esoteric King: From King to Magus, Development of a Tradition. Brill, Leiden, 2002, quoting p. 174 on the MSS and dating of the Hygromanteia. Summary of the Hygromanteia: p. 164. Summary of the ‘magical treatise’: pp. 210–11.

Alicia Walker. Magic in Medieval Byzantium. In David J. Collins, editor, The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West From Antiquity to the Present, pages 209–34. The University Press, Cambridge, 2015, quoting p. 210.

Recommended Reading:

SHWEP Episode 217 East Roman Magic Recommended Reading

Themes

Addressative Ritual, Amulets, Angelology, Apollonios of Tyana, Astrology, characteres, Demonology, East Rome, Esoteric Tradition, Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, Greek Magical Papyri, Hermetica, Kyranides, Lithica, Medicine, Orthodoxy, Picatrix, Solomon, Solomonic Tradition, stoicheia, Talismans