L. 4; Herodotus, L. 3, c. 37; Eusebius, Praep Evang;

Pausanius, L. 9 ; Bryant, Antient Mythology, Vol. III.)
Cacodaemons : Deities of inferior rank, one of whom it was believed by many was attached to each mortal from his birth as a constant companion, and were capable of giving impulses, and acting as a sort of messenger between the gods and men. The cacodaemons were of a hostile nature, as opposed to the agathodaemons who were friendly. It is said that one of the cacodaemons who appeared to Cassius was a man of huge stature, and of a black hue. The belief in these daemons is probably traditional, and it is said that they are the rebellious angels who were expelled from heaven for their crimes. They tried, but in vain, to obtain a settlement in various parts of the universe ; and their final abode is believed to be all the space between the earth and the stars. There they abide, hated by all the elements, and finding their pleasure in revenge and injury. Their king was called Hades by the Greeks, Typhon by the Egyptians, and Ahrimanes by the Persians and Chaldajans.
Cacodemon : The name given by the ancients to an evil spirit. He changed his shape so frequently that no one could tell in what guise he most generally appeared to man. Each person was also supposed to have a good and bad genius, the evil being the cacodemon. The astrologers also called the twelfth house of the sun, which is regarded as evil, that of cacodemon.
Cactomite : A marvellous stone, said to possess occult prop- erties, which was known to the ancients, and which was probably the cornelian. Any one wearing it was supposed to be assured of victory in battle.
Caer : The daughter of Ethal Anubal, Prince of the Danaans of Connaught, and mentioned in Irish myths. It was said that she lived year about in the form of a maiden and of a swan. She was beloved by Angus Og, who also found himself transformed into a swan ; and all who heard the rapturous song of the swan-lovers were plunged into a deep sleep, lasting for three days and nights.
Caetulum (See Lithomancy.)
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Cagliostro : one of the greatest occult figures of all time. It was the fashion during the latter half of the XlXth century to regard Cagliostro as a charlatan and impostor, and this point of view was greatly aided by the savage attack per- petrated on his memory by Carlyle, who alluded to him as the " Prince of Quacks." Recent researches, however, and especially those made by Mr. W. R. H. Trowbridge in his Cagliostro : the Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic (1910), go to show that if Cagliostro was not a man of unimpeachable honour, he was by no means the quack and scoundrel that so many have made him out to be. In the first place it will be well to give a brief outline of his life as known to us before Mr. Trowbridge's exam- ination of the whole question placed Cagliostro' s circum- stances in a different light, and then to check the details of his career in view of what may be termed Mr. Trowbridge' s discoveries.
We find that Carlyle possessed a strong prejudice in regard to Cagliostro, and that he made no allowance for the flagrant mendacity of the documentary evidence re- garding the so-called magician ; and this leads up to the fact that although documents and books relating to Cag- liostro abound, they possess little or no value. An account compiled from all these sources would present the following features :
Cagliostro' s father whose name is alleged to have been Peter Balsamo, a person of humble origin, died young, and his mother, unable to support him, was glad to receive assistance for this purpose from one of her brothers ; but from infancy he showed himself averse to proper courses, and when placed in an religious seminary at Palermo, he more than once ran away from it, usually to be recaptured in undesirable company. Sent next to a Benedictine con- vent, where he was under the care of a Father Superior, who quickly discovered his natural aptitude, he became the assistant of an apothecary attached to the convent, from whom he learned the principles of chemistry and medicine ; but even then his desire was more to discover surprising and astonishing chemical combinations than to gain more useful knowledge. Tiring of the life at last, he succeeded in escaping from the convent, and betook himself to Palermo where he associated with rascals and vagabonds. He was constantly in the hands of the police, and his kind uncle Who tried to assist him was rewarded by being robbed of a considerable sum. Engaged in every description of rascality, he was even said to have assisted in the assassination of a wealthy canon. At this time it is asserted that he was only fourteen years of age, but, later, becoming tired of lesser villainies he resolved upon a grand stroke, upon which to lay the foundations of his fortunes .
At Palermo resided an avaricious goldsmith named Marano, a stupid, superstitious man who believed devout- edly in the efficacy of magic. He became attracted to Cagliostro, who at the age of seventeen posed as being deeply versed in occultism, and had . been seen evoking spirits. Marano made his acquaintance and confided to him that he had spent a great deal of money upon quack alchemists ; but that he was convinced that in meeting him (Cagliostro) he had at last chanced upon a real master of magic. Cagliostro willingly ministered to the man's superstitions, and told him. as a profound secret that in a field at no great distance from Palermo lay a buried treasure which, by the aid of magic ceremonies he could absolutely locate. But the operation necessitated some expensive preliminaries — at least 60 oz. of gold would be required in connection with it. To this very considerable sum Marano demurred, and Cagliostro cooly asserted that he would enjoy the vast treasure alone. But the credulity of Marano was too strong for his better sense, and at length he agreed to furnish the necessary funds.
At midnight they sought the field where it was supposed the treasure was hid. Cagliostro proceeded with his in- cantations and Marano, terrified at their dreadful nature, fell prostrate on his face, in which position he was un- mercifully belaboured by a number of scoundrels whom Cagliostro had collected for that purpose. Palermo rang with the affair, but Cagliostro managed to escape to Messina, where he adopted the title of " Count."
It was in this town that he first met with the mysterious Althotas. He was walking one day in the vicinity of the harbour when he encountered a person of singular dress and countenance. This man, apparently about fifty years of age, was dressed as an oriental, with caftan and robes, and was accompanied by an Albanian greyhound. At- tracted by his appearance Cagliostro saluted him, and after some conversation the stranger offered to tell the pseudo- count the story of his past, and to reveal what was actually passing in his mind at that moment. Cagliostro was in- terested and made arrangements for visiting the stranger, who pointed out to him the house in which he resided, requesting him to call a little before midnight, and to rap twice on the knocker, then three times more slowly, when he would be admitted. At the time appointed Cagliostro duly appeared and was conducted along a narrow passage lit by a single lamp in a niche of the wall. At the end of this was a spacious apartment illuminated by wax candles, and furnished with everything necessary for the practice of alchemy. Althotas expressed himself as a believer in the mutability of physical law rather than of magic, which he regarded as a science having fixed laws discoverable and reducible to reason. He proposed to depart for Egypt, and to carry Cagliostro thither with him — a proposal which the latter joyfully accepted. Althotas acquainted him with the fact that he possessed no funds, and upon Cag- liostro's expressing some annoyance at this circumstance laughed at him, telling him that it was an easy matter for him to make sufficient gold to pay the expenses of their voyage. Authorities differ greatly regarding the per- sonality of Althotas ; but we will leave this part of the Cagliostro mystery for the moment.
Embarking upon a Genoese ship they duly came to Alexandria where Althotas told his comrade that he was absolutely ignorant regarding his birth and parentage, and said that he was much older than he appeared to be, but that he was in possession of certain secrets for the preservation of strength and health. " Nothing " he said ' ' astonishes me ; nothing grieves me, save the evils which I am powerless to prevent ; and I trust to reach in peace the term of my protracted existence." His early years had been passed near Tunis on the coast of Barbary, where he had been the slave of a wealthy Mussulman pirate. At twelve 5-ears of age he spoke Arabic fluently, studied botany, and read the Koran to his master, who died when Althotas was sixteen. Althotas now found himself free, and master of a very considerable sum which had been bequeathed him by his late owner.
Accompanied by Cagliostro he penetrated into Africa and the heart of Egypt, visiting the Pyramids, making the acquaintance of the priests of different temples, and receiving from them much hidden knowledge. (The slightest acquaintance with Egyptian history would have saved the author of this statement from making such an absurd anachronism). Following upon their Egyptian tour, however, they visited the principal kingdoms of Africa and Asia, and they are subsequently discovered at Rhodes pursuing alchemical operations. At Malta they assisted the Grand-master Pinto, who was infatuated with alchemical experiments,and from that momentAlthotas completely disappears — the memoir of Cagliostro merely sta- ting that during their residence in Malta he passed away.
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Cagliostro on the death of his comrade repaired to Naples. He was in funds, for Pinto had well provided him before he left Malta. In Naples he met with a Sicilian prince, who conceived a strong predilection for his society, and invited him to his castle near Palermo. This was dan- gerous ground but Cagliostro was nothing if not courageous, and besides he was curious to revisit the haunts of his youth. He had not been long in Palermo when one day he travelled to Messina where he encountered by chance one of his confederates in the affair of Marano the gold- smith. This man warned him strongly not to enter the town of Palermo, and finally persuaded him to return to Naples to open a gambling-house for the plucking of wealthy foreigners. This scheme the pair carried out, but the Neapolitan authorities regarded them with such grave suspicion that they betook themselves to the Papal States. Here they parted company, and regarding this time the alleged memoir of Cagliostro is not very clear. It however leads us to believe that the so-called Count had no lack of dupes, and from this obscurity he emerges at Rome where we find him established as an empiric, retailing specifics for all the diseases that flesh is heir to. Money flowed in upon him, and he lived in considerable luxury.
It was at this time that he met the young and beautiful Lorenza Feliciani, to whom he proposed marriage ; her father dazzled by Cagliostro's apparent wealth and im- portance consented, and the marriage took place with some ceremony. All biographers of Cagliostro agree in stating that Lorenza was a thoroughly good woman, honest, devoted and modest. The most dreadful accusations have been made concerning the manner in which Cagliostro treated his wife, and it has been alleged that he thoroughly ruined her character and corrupted her mind. But we shall discover late? that this account has been coloured by the unscrupulous imagination of the Jesuitical writers of the Roman Inquisition. All biographers agree that Cagliostro hastened his wife's ruin, but it is difficult to know how they came by their data ; and in any case they disagree substantially in their details. Cagliostro's resi- dence now became the resort of card-sharpers and other undesirables, and it is said that he himself assumed the title and uniform of a Prussian colonel ; but he and his confederates quarrelled and with his wife he was forced to quit Rome with a so-called Marquis D'Agriata. They took the road to Venice, and reached Bergamo, which through their rogueries they had speedily to leave. They then made the best of their way through Sardinia and Genoa, and indeed spent several years in wandering through Southern Europe. At last they arrived in Spain by way of Barcelona, where they tarried for six months, proceeding afterwards to Madrid and Lisbon. From Lisbon they sailed to England, where Cagliostro lived upon his wits, duping certain foreigners. An English life of Cagliostro gives an account of his adventures in London, and tells how he was robbed of a large sum in plate, jewels and money ; how he hired apartments in Whitcomb Street, where he spent most of his time in studying chemistry and physics, giving away much money and comporting himself generously and decently on all sides.
In 1772 he returned to France with his wife and a certain Duplaisir. At this time it is said that Duplaisir eloped with Lorenza, and that Cagliostro obtaining an order for her arrest, she was imprisoned in a penitentiary, where she was detained for several months. On her release, it is alleged, an immediate reconciliation occurred between husband and wife. At this time Cagliostro had attracted much attention in Paris by his alchemical successes. It was the period of mystic enthusiasm in Europe, when princes, bishops, and the nobility generally were keen to
probe the secrets of nature, and when alchemy and the allied sciences were the pursuits and hobbies of the great. But according to his Italian biographer Cagliostro went too far and raised such hopes in the breasts of his dupes that at last they entertained suspicions of his honesty, so that he was forced to flee to Brussels, whence he made his way to his native town of Palermo, where he was speedily arrested by the goldsmith Marano. A certain nobleman, however, interested himself on his behalf, and procured his release, and he embarked with his wife who had accom- panied him, for Malta. From that island they soon retired to Naple.5, and from there to Marseilles and Barcelona. Their progress was marked by considerable state, and having cheated a certain alchemist of 100,000 crowns under the pretence of achieving some alchemical secret, they hurried to England.
It was during his second visit to London that the Count was initiated into Masonry, and conceived his great idea of employing that system for his own behoof. With this grand object in view he incessantly visited the- various London Lodges, and ingratiated himself with their prin- cipals and officials. At this period he is said to have picked up in an obscure London bookstall a curious manuscript which is said to have belonged to a certain George Gaston, concerning whom nothing is known. This document dealt with the mysteries of Egyptian Masonry, and abounded in magical and mystical references. It was from this, it is alleged, that Cagliostro gathered his occult inspirations. He studied it closely and laid his plans carefully. After another and somewhat harassed tour through Holland, Italy and Germany, he paid a visit to the celebrated Count de St. Germain. In his usual eccentric manner, St. Ger- main arranged their meeting for the hour of two in the morning, at which time Cagliostro and his wife, robed in white garments, and cinctured by girdles of rose colour, presented themselves before the Count's temple of mystery. The drawbridge was lowered, and a man of exceptional height led them into a dimly lighted apartment where folded doors sprang suddenly open, and they beheld a temple illuminated by hundreds of wax lights. The Count of St. Germain sat upon the altar, and at his feet two aco- lytes swung golden censers. In the Lives of the Alchemy s- iical Philosophers this interview is thus detailed. " The divinity bore upon his breast a diamond pentagram of almost intolerable radiance. A majestic statue, white and diaphanous, upheld on the steps of the altar a vase inscribed, ' Elixir of Immortality,' while a vast mirror was on the wall, and before it a living being, majestic as the statue, walked to and fro. Above the mirror were these singular words — ' Store House of Wandering Souls.' The most solemn silence prevailed in this sacred retreat, but at length a voice, which seemed hardly a voice, pro- nounced these words — ' Who are you ? Whence come you ? What would you ?' Then the Count and Countess Cag- liostro prostrated themselves, and the former answered after a long pause, ' I come to invoke the God of the faith- ful, the Son of Nature, the Sire of Truth. I come to de- mand of him one of the fourteen thousand seven hundred secrets which are treasured in his breast, I come to proclaim myself his slave, his apostle his martyr.'
" The divinity did not respond, but after a long silence, the same voice asked : — ' What does the partner of thy long wanderings intend ?'
" ' To obey and to serve,' answered Lorenza.
" Simultaneously with her words, profound darkness succeeded the glare of light, uproar followed on tranquillity, terror on trust, and a sharp and menacing voice cried loudly : — ' Woe to those who cannot stand the tests .'
'" Husband and wife were immediately separated to undergo their respective trials, which they endured with
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exemplary fortitude, and which are detailed in the text of their memoirs. When the romantic mummery was over, the two postulants were led back into the temple with the promise of admission to the divine mysteries. There a man mysteriously draped in a long mantle cried out to them : — ' Know ye that the arcanum of our great art is the government of mankind, and that the one means to rule them is never to tell them the truth. Do not foolishly regulate your actions according to the rules of common sense ; rather outrage reason and cour- ageously maintain every unbelievable absurdity. Re- member that reproduction is the palmary active power in nature, politics and society alike ; that it is a mania with mortals to be immortal, to know the future without under- standing the present, and to be spiritual while all that surrounds them is material.'
" After this harangue the orator genuflected devoutly before the divinity of the temple and retired. At the same moment a man of gigantic stature led the countess to the feet of the immortal Count de St. Germain who thus spoke : —
" ' Elected from my tenderest youth to the things of greatness, I employed myself in ascertaining the nature of veritable glory. Politics appeared to me nothing but the science of deception, tactics the art of assassination, philosophy the ambitious imbecility of complete irration- ality ; physics fine fancies about Nature and the continual mistakes of persons suddenly transplanted into a country which is utterly unknown to them ; theology the science of the misery which results from human pride ; history the melancholy spectacle of perpetual perfidy and blun- dering. Thence I concluded that the statesman was a skilful liar, the hero an illustrious idiot, the philosopher an eccentric creature, the physician a pitiable and blind man, the theologian an anatical pedagogue, and the his- torian a word-monger. Then did I hear of the divinity of this temple. I cast my cares upon him, with my in- certitudes and aspirations. When he took possession of my soul he caused me to perceive all objects in a new light ; I began to read futurity. This universe so limited, so narrow, so desert, was now enlarged. I abode not only ■with those who are, but with those who were. He united me to the loveliest women of antiquity. I found it em- inently delectable to know all without studying anything, to dispose of the treasures of the earth without the so- licitations of monarchs, to rule the elements rather than men. Keaven made me liberal ; I have sufficient to satisfy my taste ; all that surrounds me is rich, loving, predestinated.
' ' When the service was finished the costume of ordinary life was resumed. A superb repast terminated the cere- mony. During the course of the banquet the two guests were informed that the Elixir of Immortality was merely Tokay coloured green or red according to the necessities of the case. Several essential precepts were enjoined upon them, among others that they must detest, avoid, and •calumniate men of understanding, but flatter, foster, and blind fools, that they must spread abroad with much mystery the intelligence that the Count de St. Germain was five hundred years old, and that they must make gold, but dupes before all."
There is no good authority for this singular interview, but if it really occurred it only probably served to confirm ■Cagliostro in the projects he had mapped out for himself.
Travelling into Courland, he and his wife succeeded in establishing several Masonic Lodges according to the rite of what he called Egyptian Freemasonry. Persons of high rank flocked around the couple, and it is even said that he plotted for the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy. Be this as it may, it is alleged that he collected a very large
treasure of presents and money, and set out for St. Peters- burg, where he established himself as a phyrician.
A large number of cures have been credited to Cagliostro throughout his career, and his methods have been the subject of considerable controversy. But there is little doubt that the basis of them was a species of mesmeric influence. It has been said that he trusted simply to the laying on of hands ; that he charged nothing for his ser- vices ; that most of his time was occupied in treating the poor, among whom he distributed vast amounts of money. The source of this wealth was said to have been derived from the Masonic Lodges, with whose assistance and coun- tenance he had undertaken this work.
Returning to Germany he was received in most of the towns through which he passed as a benefactor of the human race. Some regarded his cures as miracles, others as sorceries, while he himself asserted that they—were effected by celestial aid.
For three years Cagliostro remained at Strasburg, feted and lauded by all. He formed a strong friendship with the famous Cardinal-archbishop, the Prince de Rohan who was fired by the idea of achieving alchemical successes. Rohan was extremely credulous, and leaned greatly to the marvellous. Cagliostro accomplished supposed trans- mutations under his eyes, and the Prince delighted with the seeming successes lavished immense sume upon the Count. He even believed that the elixir of life was known to Cagliostro and built a small house in which he was to undergo a physical regeneration. When he had sucked the Prince almost dry, Cagliostro repaired to Bordeaux, proceeding afterwards to Lyons, where he occupied him- self with the foundation of headquarters for his Egyptian Masonic rite. He now betook himself to Paris, where he assumed the role of a master of practical magic, and where it is said he evoked phantoms which he caused to appear at the wish of the enquirer in a vase of clear water, or mirror. Mr. Waite thinks in this connection that fraud wa= an impossibility, and appears to lean to the theory that the visions evoked by Cagliostro were such as occur in crystal-gazing, and that no one was more astonished than the Count himself at the results he obtained. Paris rang with his name and he won the appellation of the '' Divine Cagliostro." Introduced to the Court of Louis