to the Chaldeans, for instance, “the stones had some religious associations and we
are told of their affinity with the stars” (Plin. Nat.37.100). These two traditions
were used, for instance, in order to transform the color of metals and other sub-
stances, and that represented one of the most ancient forms of alchemy. The major
antecedent for such a syncretism was offered by the tradition according to which
Democritus was a pupil of Ostanes, Xerxes’ Magus during the Persian invasion of
Greece (e.g. Diogenes Laertius 9.34f.), and of Pythagoras (Greek scientist, philosopher,
and theologian of the end of the sixth centurybc) or of a Pythagorean scholar
(Diogenes Laertius 9.38). Thus Hippolytos (Against the Heresies1.11) wrote: “And
Democritus was an acquaintance of Leucippus. Democritus, son of Damasippus, a
native of Abdera, conferring with many gymnosophists among the Indians, and with
priests in Egypt, and with astrologers and Magi in Babylon, (propounded his sys-
tem).” Bolus Mendesius himself formulated this (Book of Democritus for Leucippus
2.53f. Berthelot):
“Be aware, Leucippus, of what is reported in the books of Persian prophets about that
Egyptian procedure; I have written a book in common Greek, because such a matter
could be better dealt with in that language. It is not a common book; in fact it reports
ancient enigmas and the health-giving things that the ancestors and the kings of divine
Egypt have granted to the Phoenicians... That treatise includes whitening and dyeing
yellow, the softening and boiling of copper ore.”Bolos’ aim was the knowledge of sympathies and antipathies which joined or
separated each substance, plant, or animal to or from others. This kind of research
was the first step toward a construction of scientific knowledge of the whole cosmos
and the gods. Indeed the religion of the Chaldeans and Magi was founded upon
a supposed scientific and empirical knowledge of the cosmos. Bolos’ discoveries
and methods allowed later learned theologians to control the substances and pro-
duce supposed miracles. Similar researches had been produced, in the same late
Hellenistic period, by other scholars, such as Metrodoros of Scepsis, friend of
Mithridates Eupator, and Zachalias of Babylon; they explained many of the secrets
of substances, their relations with the stars, and the concrete use of them.
Anaxilaos of Larissa was a Pythagorean Magus and follower of Bolos’ teaching;
he wanted to bring to Rome the science of substances as the basis of a new reli-
gious attitude. He was expelled by Augustus in 28bc(Suet. frag. 81 Reifferscheid).
Simon Magus and Marcus, a magician follower of the Gnostic Valentinus, used the
gimmicks of Anaxilaos’ repertory in order to perform miracles (Förster 1999). The
study of substances in both a Democritean and a Magical (that is, of the Persian
Magi) tradition was the basis of the knowledge of the cosmos for many scholars of
Hellenistic and imperial times, such as Pamphylos (c.ad 60) or Neptunalios (second
centuryad). This was also the starting point of the cosmological and theological
system of the apocrypha of Ostanes and Zoroaster, the most influential representat-
ive of Iranian theology and of the doctrine of the Magi. The Democritean approach
to knowledge of the world could produce indifference to religion or, on the other
hand, a new knowledge of the gods through the secrets of nature.
380 Attilio Mastrocinque