Religious ritual had the intended purpose of giving a god their just due honor, or asking for divine intervention and favor, while magic is seen as practiced by those who seek only power, and often undertaken based on a false scientific basis. Ultimately, the practice of magic includes rites that do not play a part in worship, and are ultimately irreligious. Associations with this term tend to be an evolving process in ancient literature, but generally speaking ancient magic reflects aspects of broader religious traditions in the Mediterranean world, that is, a belief in magic reflects a belief in deities, divination, and words of power. The concept of magic however came to represent a more coherent and self-reflective tradition exemplified by magicians seeking to fuse varying non-traditional elements of Greco-Roman religious practice into something specifically called magic. This fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire, in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE. Thorndike comments: "Greek science at its best was not untainted by magic".