AGYRTÆ, in antiquity, a kind of strolling impostors running about the country, to pick up money by telling fortunes at rich men's doors, pretending to cure diseases by charms, sacrifices, and other religious mysteries; also to expiate the crimes of their deceased ancestors, by virtue of certain odours and fumigations; to torment their enemies, by the use of magical verses and the like. The word is Greek Agyrta, formed of the verb agyr, I congregate; alluding to the practice of Charlatans, who gather a crowd about them.
Agyta, among the Greeks, amount to the same with Exuscatores among the Latins, and differ not much from Gypses among us.