171) had also found an entrance among the Israelites, especially when idolaters were on the throne (2 Kings xxi, 6; 2 Chron. xxxiii, C; Isa. viii, 19; xxix, 4; comp. xix, 3, where the Egyptian enchantments are mentioned). In the Law the consultation of these men was forbidden as a heathen superstition (Lev. xix, 31), and they who disobeyed were threatened with death (Lev. XX, 6 ; Dent, viii, 11). Saul, in his distress, caused the shade of Samuel to be summoned from Sheol by an enchantress (1 Sam. xxviii, 7 sq. ; comp. J. C Haren- burg in I ken. Xov. Thesaur. i, G39 sq. ; E. F. Schmer- sahl, Nat. Erkldr. der Gesch. Sauls mit d. Betriiyerin zu Kndor [Gera, 1780] ; Hensler, Erldut. des 1 Ji. Sam. p. 88 sq. ; Exeget. llandbuch. A. T. iv, 2b\ sq. ; Bottchcr, De Inferis, i. 111 sq.). Dathe believed in the actual appearance of Samuel by a miracle (com|i. Doderlein, Tkeol. Hiblioth. iii, 331) ; and the conception the people formed of this apparition, which was not essentially altered by the poets and prophets, afforded a very nat- ural basis for such superstitions. To the spirits thus evoked the enchanter lent a low, soft, almost whispering voice (Isa. viii, 19; comp. xix, 3), as seemed natural for such shades; just as the Greeks and Ilomans also applied the words rpiZtiv {Tpv^nv; Iliad, xxxiii, 101; Odi/s. xxiv sq. ; Lucian, Menip. or Necromant. xi) and stridere (Statins, Thebais, vii, 770 ; Claudian, In Rujin. i, 126 ; Petronius, Sat. cxxii, 17 ; comp. Virgil, ^Kn. iii, 39 sq.) to the returning manes. It is by no means proved that the necromancers ^jroduced this muttering and whispering by ventriloquism, although the Sep- tuagint usually renders the Hebrew 2"S by the Greek tyyaffTplfiv^oc (according to Galen, the lyyaarpi^ti'^oi are so called because, speaking with the mouth closed, they seem to speak from the belly; comp. Josephus, Ant. vi, 14, 2). The meaning of the word has been much discussed (see Thenius, On 1 Sajn. xxriii, 3; Knobel, Prop/ielism. d. Ilebr. i, 241 sq.; Biittcher, I)& Inferis, i, 101 sq.). Ventriloquism was certainly one of the arts of ancient jugglers (Aristoph. Vesp. 1019 sq. See also Leo AUat. De Engasti-imijtho, also in the Tractat. Bibl. of the Critin s'acri, vi, 331 sq.; Dickin- son, Delph. Phaniciss. p. 91 sq. ; (jesenius. Comment, on Isa. i, 605 sq., 853 : Van Dale, De Idolat. \\ 608 sq. ; IMillii Dissertat. Sel. No. 12, also in Ugolini's Thesaur. xxiii; Tjeeidv, in the Conimenlal. Societ. Scient. Vlissinq. i, 546 sq. ; Potter, Greek Archeeol. i, 758 sq. ; Heyne, Excurs. I, ad Virg. y?Jn. vi).— Winer, ii, 626. See D.emos; SoRCiiRY. In most parts of Greece, necromancy was practiced by priests or consecrated persons in the tem- ples; in Thessaly, it was the profession of a distinct class of persons called Psychagogoi (" Evokers of Spirits"). The practice of it in that country was ulti- mately connected with many horrid rites, in which human blood, half-burned portions of bodies from funer- al piles, the immature foetus cut out of the womb, etc., were employed; sometimes human beings were slain, that their spirits might be consulted ere they finally passed into the lower world. The estal)lisbmcnt of Christianity under Constantine caused necromancy to be placed under the ban of the Church. There are evi- dent traces of necromancy in some of the older Norse and Teutonic poems. The mediajval belief in the evo- cation of spirits belongs rather to sorcery than to necro- mancy (Chambers, s. v.). See Peuccr's Commentarius de. prncipuis divinatiomtm ffenenbus (Zerbst, 1591); iV. A. Berieu; Ixxx, 512. See Divination; Magic.
A species of necromancy, called Rochester knocHngs, from Kochester, N. Y., where it originated, and spirit- lappings, from the raps by which deiiarted spirits are said to give their responses, has recently prevailed ex- tensively in the United States, and produced no small amount of fanaticism and infidelity. See Brit. Qiiar, /to". Oct. 1875, art. vi. See MKSMiiuisM: SriKiTtAi-isM.
Necropolis (ycKn('nro\ir, city of the drad^. a term apiiliid to the ctnietcries in the vicinity of ancient cities. It occurs in classical antiquity only as applied to a suburb
NECROTHAPT^
913
NECTARIUS
of Alexandria, lying to the west of that city, having many shops and gardens, and places suitable for the reception of the deaii. The corpses were received and embalmed in it. Here Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, applied the asp to her breast, to avoid the ignominy of being led in triumph by Augustus. The site of the necropolis of ancient Alexandria seems to have been where are now the catacombs, consisting of galleries and tombs hollowed out of the soft calcareous stone of which the city is built, and lying at the extremity of the city. See Alexandria. The term necropolis is no;v, how- ever, used in a much more extended sense, and applied to all the cemeteries of the ancient world. These con- sisted either of tombs constructed in the shape of houses and temples, and arranged in streets, like a city of the dead; or else of chambers hollowed in the rock, and ornamented with facades, to imitate houses and temples. Such cemeteries are to be distinguished from the colum- baria, or subterraneous chambers of the Romans, in which their urns were deposited ; or the rows of tombs along the Via Appia ; or the cemeteries of the Chris- tians, whose bodies were deposited in the ground. See Catacombs. The most remarkable necropolises are at Thebes, in Egypt, situated in a place called Kur- neh, on the left bank of the Nile, capable of hold- ing three thousand persons, and which it is calculated must at least have contained five thousand mummies: those of El-Kab, or Eileithyia ; of Beni-Hassan, or the Speos Artemidos ; and of Madfun, or Abydos ; of Siwah, or the Oasis of Ammon. See Egypt. In Africa, the necropolis of Cyrene is also extensive; and those of Vulci, Corneto, Tarquinii, and Capua are distinguished for their painted tombs [see Tomb], and the numerous vases and other objects of ancient art which have been exhumed from them. Large necropolises have also been found in Lycia, Sicily, and elsewhere (Chambers, s. v.). See Strabo, xviii, p. 795-799; Plutarch, Vif. Anion.; 'Leironne, Journal des Savans (1828), p. 103; Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, i, 412 ; ii, 276-358. See Cemetery.