If the Vikings of Antiquity could seed the underworld cults of Demeter and Persephone as far west as Iberia, why not closer to home in Magna Graecia? Or if not them, why not any of the other Greek masters who would call Italy home for centuries after Velia’s founding. As only one example, consider Parmenides’ star disciple, Empedocles (495–435 BC), who lived in the Greek city of Akragas in Sicily. He left an enigmatic fragment about the magical use of pharmaka as a “remedy for death.” For a skilled shaman like Empedocles, familiarity with these unspecified drugs signals “a person capable of
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