Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World
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MAGIC AND MAGICIANS IN THE GRECO- ROMAN WORLD This absorbing work assembles an extraordinary range of evidence for the existence of sorcerers and sorceresses in the ancient world, and addresses the question of their identities and social origins. From Greece in the fifth century BC, through Rome and Italy, to the Christian Roman Empire as far as the late seventh century AD, Professor Dickie shows the development of the concept of magic and the social and legal constraints placed on those seen as magicians. The book provides a fascinating insight into the inaccessible margins of Greco- Roman life, exploring a world of wandering holy men and women, conjurors and wonder-workers, prostitutes, procuresses, charioteers and theatrical performers. Compelling for its clarity and detail, this study is an indispensable resource for the study of ancient magic and society. Matthew W.Dickie teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has written on envy and the Evil Eye, on the learned magician, on ancient erotic magic, and on the interpretation of ancient magical texts. MAGIC AND MAGICIANS IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD Matthew W.Dickie LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in hardback 2001 by Routledge First published in paperback 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2001, 2003 Matthew W.Dickie All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopy and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Calaloging in Publication data ISBN 0-203-45841-9 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-34000-0 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-31129-2 (Print Edition) CONTENTS Preface v Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 1 The formation and nature of the Greek concept of magic 18 2 Sorcerers in the fifth and fourth centuries BC 46 3 Sorceresses in the Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries BC 77 4 Sorcerers in the Greek world of the Hellenistic period (300–1BC) 93 5 Magic as a distinctive category in Roman thought 120 6 Constraints on magicians in the Late Roman Republic and under 137 the Empire 7 Sorcerers and sorceresses in Rome in the Middle and Late 156 Republic and under the Early Empire 8 Witches and magicians in the provinces of the Roman Empire 195 until the time of Constantine 9 Constraints on magicians under a Christian Empire 242 10 Sorcerers and sorceresses from Constantine to the end of the 263 seventh century AD Notes 310 Bibliography 355 Index 365 PREFACE This book had its origins in a footnote on the drunken old women mentioned by Athanasius and John Chrysostom who were summoned to houses to cure the sick by incantations and amulets. The footnote became an article on drunken old women as sorceresses in Classical and Late Antiquity. That expanded into an article on sorceresses in general. At that point I realized that sorceresses could not be treated satisfactorily on their own but needed to be looked at alongside male magic-workers. That meant a book, not an article. I hope that what began as an attempt to satisfy my own curiosity about a subject on which virtually nothing had been written will be of some use to others. Since the compass of the book is fairly wide, extending as it does from the fifth century BC to the seventh century AD, there will no doubt be references that I have missed. I thank my wife for her forbearance in putting up with a project that took rather longer to complete than had been expected and that was delayed by its author’s natural indolence and the ease with which he could be distracted from his task. I should also like to record a particular debt to David Jordan, who has offered unstinting help and support in my stumbling efforts to understand ancient magic. ABBREVIATIONS The abbreviations for classical authors are those given in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition (eds) Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, for Late Greek authors those found in A Patristic Greek Lexicon, (ed.) G.W.H. Lampe and for Late Latin authors those in A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 AD, (ed.) A. Souter. Besides these, the following abbreviations are used: ACO Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum, (ed.) E.Schwartz, Berlin 1927–40 CCSL Corpus Scriptorum Series Latina, Turnholt CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna DTAud Auguste Audollent, Defixionum tabellae quotquot innotuerunt tam in graecis Orientis quam in totius Occidentis partibus praeter atticas in Corpore inscriptionum atticarum editas, Paris, 1904 DTWü IG III (3)=Appendix continens defixionum tabellas in attica regione repertas, (ed.) Richard Wünsch, Berlin, 1897 GCS Die Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, Berlin KAR E.Ebeling, Keilinschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts, Leipzig 1915, 1923 Lauchert F.Lauchert Die Kanones der wichtigsten altkirchlichen Concilien nebst den apostolischen Kanones, Freiburg i. B. and Leipzig, 1896 LSAM F.Sokolowski, Lois sacrées de l'Asie Mineure, Paris, 1955 PG Patrologia Graeca, (ed.) J.P.Migne, Paris, 1857–66 PGM Papyri graecae magicae: Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, (ed.) K.Preisendanz, rev. edn by A.Henrichs I–II, Stuttgart, 1973 PL Patrologia Latina, (ed.) J.P.Migne, Paris, 1844–64 PO Patrologia Orientalis, (eds) R.Graffan, F.Nau et al., Paris, 1907 vii POxy Oxyrhynchus Papyri, London, 1898– RAC Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Stuttgart, 1941– RE Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, (eds) A.Pauly, G. Wissowa and W.Kroll, Stuttgart, 1893–1980 SC Sources chrétiennes SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden, 1923– SIG3 Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd edition, (ed.) W.Dittenberger, Leipzig, 1915–24 SupplMag Supplementum Magicum I–II, (eds) Robert W.Daniel and Franco Maltomini, Abhandlungen der rheinisch-westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Cohniensia XVI, 1–2, Opladen, 1990 INTRODUCTION Much has been written on the techniques of magic-working in antiquity. Great advances have been made in the understanding of the way in which spells written on lead, papyrus or a sherd of pottery were composed, what kinds of formulae were employed in them, what symbols were inscribed on magical amulets and what manner of devices were worn to ward off evil forces. The belief systems that informed the practices of the more sophisticated and educated sorcerers of the ancient world have been studied, in particular their debt to Platonism and its strange offspring, Neopythagoreanism and Gnosticism. But little attention has been paid to the men and women who were believed by their contemporaries to be expert in magic or who themselves professed expertise.1 There has been no study of who it was to whom men and women went for help, if they wanted to put a spell on someone, to have a spell taken off, to nullify the effects of an ominous dream or to have a child cured of some inexplicable illness by incantations and amulets. Nor has there been any comprehensive treatment of the educated men who in their fascination with magic made collections of magical lore or who engaged in magical rituals either to effect a union with the divine or with the more mundane goal of altering the course of nature. Nor yet again has the magic-working of the holy men who wandered from community to community been investigated. This is somewhat surprising in the light of the current interest on the part of many historians in recapturing the lives and beliefs of the more humble inhabitants of the ancient world. It is even more surprising that the figure of the female magician has not attracted more attention from those who are interested in the history of women or in representations of the female in antiquity. Witches and sorcerers, who for the most part did not belong to the more elevated levels of society, would seem to be an obvious topic of research for those concerned with the down-trodden and the oppressed. What can be reconstructed of their lives is not especially edifying, but an examination of the careers of magicians and wise women does give us an entry to areas of life in Classical Antiquity and the Late Roman world to which it is otherwise hard to gain access. It also forces on our attention aspects of life to which we would not in the normal course of events have directed our gaze. My predilection is for that kind of social history that tries to recapture something of the texture of past societies in all of their richness and 2 INTRODUCTION diversity. The ancient historian does not have the archival resources that the historian of late eighteenth-century France can draw upon to illustrate the minutiae of low life. There are no police records preserved from antiquity. There is, accordingly, a limit to how complete a picture can be drawn of life in any period of Greco-Roman antiquity, but just because the picture can never be complete that is no reason for our ignoring aspects of it and for attempting only to write political or military history, or if we lose faith in these enterprises, for confining ourselves to recreating the ideology of some ancient social group.