Basilisk of antique doctors and magicians

The book explores ancient and medieval historical, literary and medical sources in which a basilisk is mentioned, in order to find the answer to the question: before us is the story of transformations of the same creature or are we talking about different figures named by a common name? The analyzed materials represented by the texts of Nikandra Ko-Lophon, Pliny the Elder, Elian, and the mountain-Apollo allow us to say that there were no defined many basilisks. They were distinguished by both properties and an external appearance. Particular attention is paid to the ancient theory of "sympathy" and "antipathies", the adherent of which was a paradoxograph of marshes from Mendes. This study is the first scientific history of the basilisk in the domestic tradition