Note 426 — Chapter VI · SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS.
Reading edition
Ammian. Marcellin. XIX. xii. 14; XXVI. iii.; XXIX. i. 5-14, ii. 1-5.—Zozimi IV. 14.—Lib. IX. Cod. Theod. xvi. 7-12.
Yet favoritism led Valens to pardon Pollentianus, a military tribune, who confessed that, for the purpose of ascertaining the destiny of the imperial crown, he had ripped open a living woman and extracted her unborn babe to perform a hideous rite of necromancy (Am. Marcell. XXIX. ii. 17). In the later Roman augury, contaminated with Eastern rites, omens of the highest significance were found in the entrails of human victims, especially in those of the fœtus (Æl. Lamprid. Elagabal. 8.—Euseb. H. E. VII. 10, VIII. 14.—Paul. Diac. Hist. Miscell. XI.).