THE INVENTION OF MAGIC IN THE AGE OF AUGUSTUS Patrick James Dombrowski A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classics. Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: James B. Rives Sharon L. James Fred Naiden Luca Grillo Andreas Bendlin © 2018 Patrick James Dombrowski ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Patrick James Dombrowski: The Invention of Magic in the Age of Augustus (Under the direction of James B. Rives) This dissertation provides the first systematic analysis of the development of the Roman concept of magic as expressed in extant Latin literature down to the Augustan era. Using digital corpora of Latin texts, it identifies key points of convergence in terminology and argues that a distinctive Roman concept of magic first emerges in Augustan poetry. A general introduction discusses the prior scholarship on magic in Latin literature and outlines the methodology used to quantify and analyze collocations of key terminology. The resulting data is presented in the appendices that follow the dissertation’s conclusion. Chapter 1 examines six key word families (carmen, uenenum, superstitio, saga, deuotio, and magus), each in its own section, tracing their development from the earliest sources down to the last decades of the first century BCE. It specifically examines the many nuances of meaning and conceptual associations that accompany each word family and influence the development of the concept of magic. Chapter 2 takes a more chronological approach as it turns to the literature of the age of Augustus. The first section examines how the early poetry of Vergil and iii Horace laid the foundations for the subsequent construction of magic. The second section examines in depth the elegies of Tibullus and Ovid in which, I argue, a distinctive Roman concept of magic first emerges. The third section discusses the appearance of magic in the great epics of Vergil and Ovid, while the fourth examines its absence in contemporary prose texts. The final section looks at the associations that developed between magic, gender, and social marginality. Chapter 3 is divided into two halves, each of which looks ahead to later developments of the Roman concept of magic. The first considers the further evolution of the literary concept of magic through Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. The second investigates how the literary concept of magic is used to describe and shape an audience’s perception of “real world” events in Tacitus’ Annals and Apuleius’ Apology. A general conclusion speculates on the further implications of the dissertation. iv For mom, and dad, and Melissa. We did it. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I give thanks first and foremost to James Rives, my advisor, without whose guidance this dissertation would not exist. Our weekly meetings over the past three summers provided the structure and motivation that I needed to persevere with an often-delayed project. I must also thank Sharon James, my M.A. thesis advisor and dissertation committee member, whose mentorship carried me through the many ups and downs of my graduate career. Special thanks goes also to Zola Packman, who first taught me to love Latin more than a decade ago. I am also very grateful to Ray Samuels, my faculty mentor at Enloe Magnet High School, who made my transition to public education as painless as possible. His seemingly endless supply of wisdom and humor helped make a Herculean task much more manageable. Further thanks are due to Nabeel Kandah, Adriana Quesada, and Loreta Youssef for their daily support. The boundless enthusiasm of my students has also been a continual source of inspiration—and, yes, you can finally call me Dr. D! T. H. M. Gellar-Goad was indispensable at all stages of this project, from providing research companionship while I combed through volumes of fragments to answering late-night questions about the wording of my final edits. In all things he has been the very best of friends. Serena Witzke was a source of both practical advice vi as well as specialist knowledge about comedy, elegy, and women. I also benefitted greatly from the encouragement and distraction of Jake Gellar-Goad, Rebecca Stephen, and David Wiltshire. Deepest gratitude goes to my parents, whose love, understanding, and support have seen me through more years of college than any of us expected. Particular thanks go to my mother, my greatest supporter and the first to awaken my interest in religions, though perhaps not in the way that she intended. Most of all I thank my wife, Melissa, whose patient and abiding love has sustained me from the very beginning. It is with love and appreciation that I dedicate this work to her and to my parents. It is theirs as much as it is mine. vii PREFACE Ancient authors and works are abbreviated as in the OLD, OCD, and LSJ. All texts that I have quoted or cited with any frequency, including editions of fragmentary authors, are listed in the bibliography. For consistency, I have modified all texts’ spelling conventions to replace lowercase V with lowercase U, so that the noun “poison,” for instance, is not venenum but uenenum. Translations of the Greek magical papyri are from Betz (1992). All other translations are my own. In many instances, I have left certain key words deliberately untranslated or translated them only vaguely in order to approximate their broadest semantic range without imposing a particular interpretation. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... xi INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: The Foundation of Magic ..........................................................................24 Carmen .........................................................................................................................25 Venenum ......................................................................................................................39 Superstitio ....................................................................................................................55 Saga ..............................................................................................................................66 Deuotio .........................................................................................................................73 Magus ..........................................................................................................................96 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................102 CHAPTER 2: The Invention of Magic ............................................................................104 Vergil and Horace: Eclogues, Epodes, and Satires .................................................106 Elegy: Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid .................................................................116 Epic: Aeneid and Metamorphoses ............................................................................136 Prose Authors ..........................................................................................................140 Conceptual Associations: Gender and Social Marginalization ........................150 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................164 ix CHAPTER 3: The Expansion of Magic ..........................................................................168 Further Developments of Literary Magic ............................................................171 The Impact of Literary Magic on Real World Situations ..................................187 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................213 APPENDICES .....................................................................................................................217 Appendix A: Combined Collocation Data ..........................................................217 Appendix B: Carmen-Family Collocations ...........................................................222 Appendix C: Venenum-Family Collocations ........................................................241 Appendix D: Superstitio-Family Collocations .....................................................255 Appendix E: Saga-Family Collocations ................................................................258 Appendix F: Deuotio-Family Collocations ...........................................................259 Appendix G: Magus-Family Collocations ............................................................264 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................266 Abbreviations ..........................................................................................................266 Digital Corpora ........................................................................................................267 Editions of Ancient Authors ..................................................................................267 Works Cited .............................................................................................................280 x LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Collocations over Time .....................................................................................19