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DEFINING ANCIENT : A BRIEF HISTORIOGRAPHY AND ExPLoRATIoN

Colleen Marie Bradley

NE of the basic tenets of History is that one must know the parame Qters of a subject in order to study it. For some subjects this is quite easy. For example, it is quite clear what the parameters of nineteenth- century French political history would be. For some subjects, such as ancient magic, it is far from clear what is being studied. Ancient Greek and Roman magic tended to be defined differently by every scholar who studied it. Sometimes these scholars have been quite inaccurate in their definitions, forcing modern concepts on an ancient practice. Most modern scholars have done their best to find a definition that would accurately reflect the ancient world, but the lack of continuity in the definition of ancient magic has not been advantageous to the discipline. In any case, what defines the parameters of ancient magic remains one of the most debated subjects in ancient intellectual history. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the scholarly definitions of ancient Greek and Roman magic and try to decipher the ancient meaning of the subject, and possibly come to some conclusions on how the word should be defined and utilized. There are three ways in which scholarly interpretations of ancient magic have tended to differ. The first is magic’s place in the history of religious and scientific development. Many pre-196os scholars placed magic at the beginning of a religious evolution, but more recent scholars have not found this argument compelling. A second major focus of scholars has been the theory behind magic—why did ancient peoples expect magic to work? Much of this information came from anthropolog ical inquiry and often forced a stigma of savagery and foolishness upon the practitioners of magic. The last point of contention was where magic ended and began. The dividing line was unclear in ancient societies, which is especially frustrating for many modern scholars, who largely originate from monotheistic Europe, where there is a clear-cut line between . 150 Colleen Marie Bradley

The debate over defining ancient magic must inevitably start with Sir James George frazer’s The GoldenBough, first published in 1890. frazer’s work had a profound effect on the subject of ancient magic. The Golden Bough, while centering upon the of Diana atAricia, was a study in comparative religion and magic. frazer believed that went through set stages and that magic, which was eventually eschewed for real religion, was the first and most basic of these stages.1He compared the rituals of the ancient Romans to rituals found more recently in what he deemed “primitive cultures.” These cultures were primarily those of Sub-Saharan Africans, South East Asians, and Native Americans.2 Frazer designated ancient beliefs into two categories, religion and . Magic was a part ofsuperstition and more akin to primitive science than religion. frazer saw sympathetic magic as a part of ancient religious belief, and claimed that with ancient magic, “we have another mode in which primitive man seeks to bend nature to his wishes.”3 frazer saw his religion as superior to that of ancient and non-European societies, at one point he commented dismissively, “There is, perhaps, hardly a savage who does not fancy himself possessed of this power of influencing the course of nature by sympathetic magic.”4While Frazer’s work was centered on religion and not magic, his definition of magic embodied the ethnocentric arrogance of his Victorian age. frazer’s view of magic as primitive continued unchecked for many decades. Joseph Mooney’s lengthy discussion at the end of his 1919 translation of Hosidius Geta’s Medea elaborated on Frazer’s view of ancient magic. Mooney saw as the earliest form of Roman magic, and that it, along with other forms of magic, was primarily practiced by women in nocturnal rites.5 Mooney described magic in great detail and explained the rituals and devices involved, but could not explain how magic was different than religion, other than its illegality. He admitted that the line between magic and medicine was “largely mixed up” by the Romans.6 Mooney attempted to systematize Roman magic, but the categories did not come together to comprise a coherent system. Magic, it seemed, was the category where ancient beliefs that did not adhere to other categories were conveniently placed.

‘Robert Ackerman, The and School:J. G.Frazer and the CambridgeRitualists (New York: Routledge, 2002), 63. Ibid., 50. George Frazer, The Golden Bough:A Study in Comparative Religion, vol. i (New York: McMillian, 1894), 12. Ibid., 12. Hosidius Geta, Medea, trans. Joseph J.Mooney (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1919), 58, 6z, 64. 6lbid., 90.

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In comparison, Mooney’s contemporary Eli Burriss had a very clear- cut idea of what constituted magic and what was religion. In , Magic, Spirits, written in 1929, took frazer’s belief in cultural superiority to a new level. As a deeply religious man, he was disdainftil of ancient religion in general and likened ancient magic to the thinking of child ren.7 Buriss concluded that the reason for ancients’ fallacious belief in magic was their “underdeveloped” physiology.8 He succinctly described the pre-196os scholarly belief about ancient magic as such:

In the early stage of his development man has no conception ofa supe rior being on whom he is dependent, whose will he must win; but be lievesthat by performing some mysterious action, usuattyimitatingthe action desired, and often assisted by an incantation or charm. . . he can forcethe desired result. Thismysteriousaction and incantation,passing under the name of magic, arises. . . from a curious twist of logic.9

Burriss not only wrote that magic came before, and therefore was more primitive than religion, but that later magic was a “degeneration.”° Burriss’ curious addition to Frazerian theory was the idea that in cas es where it was not clear if an incantation was religious or magical, the “mental attitude” of the practitioner was the determining factor.” There were, therefore, magic-like acts within mainstream Roman religion, but Burriss interpreted these as religious attempts to protect against evil magic.’2Burriss’ focus on the “mental attitude” of the ancient practition ers differed from frazer’s view of them as it gave practitioners some— albeit not much—agency. This meant ancient peoples were not purely products of their time. In Burriss’ magical-religious landscape, ancient persons could decide to partake in primitive acts of magic, whereas Frazer had insinuated that all rituals acts in a given period were repre sentative of a single stage of religious development. Cyril Bailey’s 1932 Phases in the Religion ofAncient Rome softened Frazer’s stance on magic, by adopting the stance that religion and therefore magic were difficult to define.’3 He maintained that magic came before religion, but claimed that primitive elements (magic) were a

Eli Edward Burriss, Taboo, Magic, Spirits: A Study of Primitive Elements in Roman Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1931), . His father was a minister, as stated above. 8 Ibid., 124, 9lbid,, i. ‘° Ibid., i. “Ibid., 177—178. Ibid., i44(E ° Cyril Bailey,Phases in the Religion ofAncient Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1932), 5.

VOLUME XIX 2010 152 Colleen Marie Bradley part of Roman religion.’4 He kept Frazer’s general definition of magic, but claimed that the line between magic and religion was determined by whether an act was public or private in nature.’5 As well as invoking Frazer, Baileyalso utilized the works of the anthologist R.R.Marett, who claimed that magic was the basis for religion.’6Ultimately Baileybelieved that “magic may be distinguished from religion because it believes that this force [apart from nature] resides in things or persons or acts or words and not in beings, spiritual or personal, to whom an appeal is made.”7 The difference between how magic and religion worked on a theoretical basis was far from clear using Bailey’sdefinition, which was clearly created to separate modern from magic. Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most prominent anthologists of the twentieth century, in his posthumously published 1948 book Magic, Science, and Religion applied a more scientific approach to Frazer’s theories. Malinowski focused on contemporaneous cultures; he found that “the stone-age savages of to-day” still practiced magic, which he explained as “an entirely sober, prosaic, even clumsy art, enacted for purely practical reasons, governed by crude and shallow beliefs.”8 He wrote that the core of magic was the spell—that words were magic and everything else was secondary.’9According to Malinowsid, among these less-advanced practitioners, magical power was conceived as originating from nature, but in “higher societies” magic came from spirits.20These theories were crafted from years of anthropological study and reflected a much more scientific approach to the subject than previous studies. Because of this careful study, Malinowski also gave magic more credit than previous scholars. He said that both magic and religion came from the same need for escape from the stresses of society. Malinowski ultimately distinguished religion from magic by saying that magic should be viewed “asa practical art consisting of acts which are only means to a definite end expected to follow later on; religion as a body of self- contained acts being themselves the fulfillment of their purpose.”’ Magic was physical, while religion was spiritual. The Scottish classicist W. K.C. Guthrie was best known for his work with Greek philosophy, where he brought new historicism to classical

4lbid.,8. ‘ Ibid., 8—9. ,6 Ibid., 31—32. ° Ibid., 33. ,8 Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic Science,and Religion and other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), 51. ‘ Ibid., 54. ° Ibid., 56. “Ibid., 68.

Ex PosT fAcTo DEFININGANCIENT MAGIC 153 studies. His text, The Greeks and their Gods, published in 1950, showed a similar forward thinking nature. Guthrie contended that modern scholars were not able to understand non-European and premodern people as easily as they had previously believed, and therefore many of their previous assumptions about the mentality of such people were likely false.22Magic, to Guthrie, was an anti-social behavior that existed alongside religion, as illustrated by the numerous instances of magic in Athens’ .23Guthrie did not completely eschew frazer’s theories; in fact he occasionally utilized Frazer’swords and ideas. Despite his defense of many frazerian ideas, his text marked a shift in thinking about ancient religion and magic. Guthrie denied that magic was the first stage in religious development and ascertained that it was not a lack of intelligence that caused people to believe in magic. Sir Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd is an anthropologist who focuses on ancient Greek thought. His ‘979 book entitled Magic, Reason and Experience was an attempt to sweep away old anthropological theories and frazer’s concept of magic. Lloydsaw that translating concepts from another culture inevitably distorts them, but believed some comprehen sion was still possible.24Lloyd, like Guthrie, also saw that magic did not come before religion, and that it in fact survived long after the ancient world had ended.25 Religion and science did not supplant magic; they coexisted, and often the lines dividing them were blurred. Lloyd also stressed “the pluralism of Greek religious beliefs” which allowed Greeks to subscribe to numerous beliefs and partake in various rituals while still acting within the constraints of society.26 Lloyd’sfocus was Greek science, but to discuss the origins of Greek science it was necessary to deal with Frazer’s theory of magic as a very primitive form of science. frazer’s emphasis had been on magic’s crudeness, but Lloydwas a new kind of scholar, one that was not intent on degrading any beliefs or proclaiming the superiority of his own beliefs. The new scholarship that emerged from the 196os and 197os, such as Lloyd’s, was less judgmental and attempted to amalgamate beliefs rather than place them into rigid Aristotelian categories. The ghost of frazer was still haunting the halls of academia, but its strength was fading.

W. K.C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), 15. Ibid., 270—274. ‘ G. E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), i—z. Ibid., 5. 6lbid., 10—14.

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The Judeo-Christian religious scholar Man Segaltackled the problem of defining magic in his article “Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition.” While appreciating Malinowsid’s definition, Segal believed that it was impossible to separate magic from either religion or science.27 The term magic was used and interpreted differently throughout time and across cultures, which made it indefinable.8 He faulted previous historians for their attempts to differentiate magic from religion in the Hellenistic world, which he claimed resulted in the misinterpretation of documents as fitting exclusively into either one category or another.29 Comparing texts deemed “magical”and religious, he saw no compelling reason to separate the two into distinct traditions. Segal further refuted Roman legal and literary usage of the word ‘magic’as being useful to scholars because the word always was used in a negative connotation.30 In rejecting the possibility of a meaningful yet legitimate definition of magic, Segal rejected frazer’s paradigm of delimitating between magic and religion. Robin Lane Fox was not interested in defining ancient magic for its own sake, but found it necessary to discuss it in his landmark 1986 book Pagans and Christians. fox, like Lloyd, emphasized the multiplicity of religious beliefs accepted in the ancient world. Since Mediterranean lacked a “concept of heresy” it was not possible to define magic as heretical religious beliefs.3’Fox, like Segal, did not see magic as “a separate technology,” but as a part of the religious system of the ancient Romans.32Ancient Romans may have had a concept of magic being evil, but fox claimed this was a false view that needed to be overlooked by scholars. fox did, however, make a brief attempt to define two types of magic: one was for purely physical ends, the other for spiritual ends.33 Fox’s pragmatic approach to magic gave it a place within the ancient religious system, yet set it apart as somehow different, perhaps because the ancient Greek and Roman writers considered it different. The classicist Walter Burkert, professor emeritus of the University of Zurich, focused much of his career on Greek religious . Like Lloyd, Burkert admitted that when “one tries to translate one religion into the language of another, one finds.. .that this is only possible to a

7Man F.Segat, “Hetlenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” in Studies in Gnostic ism and Hellenistic Religions: Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 6th Birthday, ad. R. Van Den Broek and M. Vermaseren (Leiden: E. 8 J. J.BriI, 1981), 350—351. Ibid., 351. ‘ Ibid., 351—352. ° Ibid., 356—365. ‘ Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Viking, 1986), 31. Ibid., 36. Ibid., 37.

Ex Pos’r FAcTo DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 155 limited degree.”34Therefore, the term ‘magic’will never mean to scholars what it meant to ancient Greeks and Romans. When explaining the reason behind the ritual transformation ofthe scapegoat he claimed that it was not ‘magical’ or non-rational, just not understood by modern Western sensibilities.35Burkert focused much of his energies on explain ing Greek ritual, but did not explain the difference between magical ritual and religious ritual, indicating that he either did not perceive there to be a difference between the two or that they were so far removed from one another that it was not worth mentioning. He stipulated that rituals stemmed from obsolete behavioral patterns rather than ideas, making magic and religion obsolete when discussing ritua1.6 Burkert may not have focused on magic, but his study of religion hinted at the reasons why magic was seen as something removed from Greek society. The multiplicity of accepted beliefs within polytheistic Greece was necessary to fill all the needs of society.37Mystery cults, which were occasionally deemed by ancient critics as being magical, existed to calm personal anxieties, such as a fear of death.8 Public religion, however, was used not only to calm collective fears, but also as a tool to unify the community under a set of leaders.39 Anything that undermined public worship undermined the community and needed to be eliminated for the welfare of the state.4°Therefore, public and private religious practices were given unique connotations in the ancient world because these different forms of religion fulfilled different needs. Hans Dieter Betz reminded scholars about the goal of placing magic in its historical context and the development of religion in “Magic and Mystery in the Greek Magical Texts.” Betz claimed that no scholar had done this or come up with a definition of magic that can be substantiated with copious evidence. furthermore, it did not matter what the distinc tion between ancient religion and magic was.4’According to Betz, “if there is a difference between religion and magic at all, it does not really

‘ Walter Burkert, Homo Necans, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), XXI. Walter Burkert, Structure and History in and Ritual (Berkeley: University of California Press, i79), 67—68. 36 Burkert, Homo Necans, 23, 28. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 216. 38 Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), 12—16, 24—25. Burkert, Greek Religion, 8, 257. ‘1°Ibid., 75, 246, 255. ‘I’Han Dieter Betz, “Magic and Mystery in the ,” in Magic Hiera: Ancient Greek Magica and Religion, ed.Christopher A. faraone and Dirk Obbink (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 245.

VOLUME XIX° 2010 156 Colleen Marie Bradley matter as long as they work in much the same way.”42Considering how other scholars have torn each other’s throats over the subject, this blatant dismissal of the question of defining magic was quite shocking. The reasons Betz gave for not needing a definition was that a definition would always be laden with presumptions and bias. This would lead to a false belief in the scholar’s objectivity, and by defining magic and religion rigidly, there would be no room for the two to overlap.43 Betz took a radical approach to ancient magic, but his concerns echoed those of other scholars in the field. This nihilistic view on defining magic does a disservice to the field because the ancients saw magic as a part of their world, and ignoring this fact lessens our knowledge and understanding of ancient society. Fritz Graf is one of the leading scholars of ancient religion and may also be the of Frazer. His Magic in the Ancient World, first published in German in 1994, was an overview of ancient magic. Graf incorporated modern scholars’ concepts of magic’sinclusive and spiritual nature, proclaiming “magical rites not only helped to harm enemies and rivals but also gave access to a higher spirituality.” Nevertheless, he held many of Frazer’s basic beliefs, such as “magic, in a certain sense, belongs to antiquity and its heritage, like temples, hexameters, and marble statues.”44 Overall, Graf was more interested in the philology and structure of magical works than defining magic’s place within the ancient world. The step-by-step process of becoming a magician or creating a tablet interested him above all else. One on hand, Graf compared magicians to initiates of mystery cults, placing magic near to religion.45 But he also believed Pliny’sassumption that magic started out as a form of medicine and was fundamentally in the realm of science.6 In this he harkened back to Frazer, who described magic as closer to science than to religion. Grafs work was an uneasy balance of both old and new theories on ancient magic. Hans Kippenberg dealt with the legal side of ancient religion in his i97 work, “Magicin Roman CivilDiscourse.” Kippenburg started out by writing that the old legal and literary texts once used by historians were quickly becoming overshadowed by the curse tablets and other archeo

Ibid., 245. Ibid., 246, 247. Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, trans. Franklin Phillip (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 2. 45lbid., 99. 46 fritz Graf “How to Cope with Difficult Life: AView of Ancient Magic,” in Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schafer and Hans G. Kippling (Leiden: BrilI, 1997), 109—112.

Ex POST FACTO DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 157 logical finds that give a window into the beliefs that the majority of the Roman population held regarding magic.47Kippenburg’sassertion meant that the works of previous generations of scholars lacked insight into a crucial element of society, making much of their work obsolete. Kippen berg invoked the memory of Malinowski when he gave his definition of magic as an action that gave confidence to a person who was susceptible to forces beyond his or her control.8 Kippenberg followed the recent scholarly trend by writing that magic and religion were forever linked and sometimes indistinguishable.49 He did, however, add a new element to the definition of magic which appears very basic but was actually fundamental. Magic was illegal because it was a clandestine ritual. Without secrecy it would not be magic. The key to defining magic was its secret, and therefore illicit, nature.5° The team of Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price wrote and compiled a two-volume synopsis of Roman religion in 1997, Religions of Rome. One of the basic principles of their work was that there were no clear-cut definitions of Roman religion.5’ Like religion, magic ‘is not a single category at all; but a term applied to a set of operations whose rules conflict with the prevailing rules of religion, science or logic of the society concerned.”5 Magic remained an enigmatic term for the authors, one that had no definition beyond its distinctiveness from the norms of society. The authors believed that Frazer’s theories were inherently fallacious and detrimental to the study of magic. They suggested that the ancient sources, not modern theory, should be the backbone of any discussion of magic.53As Beard is one of the most notable classicists of the age, the total rejection of frazerian theory in this book carries some weight. The theory put forward by these three authors is in fact in direct opposition to Frazer’s clear-cut distinction between the two categories of religion and magic. In 2000’s, The Gods ofAncient Rome, Robert Turcan opposed magic, astrology and the occult to the state sponsored religions of Rome.Turcan proposed that Roman piety, in its various forms, was a way of coping

47HansG. Kippenberg, Magic in Roman CivilDiscourse: Why Rituals Could BeIllegal,” in Envisioning Magic:A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schafer and Hans G. Kippenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 137. 48Ibid., Ibid., 139. 50 Ibid., 153—157. ‘ Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. i (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), XI. Ibid., 154. Ibid., 219.

VOLUME XIX 2010 158 Colleen Marie Bradley with fear.54The state religion of Rome, along with the cult of the house hold Lars, pacified many of the fears ofthe population. These traditional religious elements were under the control of the community elites. In Turcan’s analysis, magic and the occult satisfied the needs of those who were anti-social or who felt let down by traditional religion.6 This harkens back to Guthrie’s view of magic as an alternative to mainstream religion. Turcan’s sharp division between religion and magic may have been a bit of a throwback, but his statement that the division was due to personal needs and individual agency was concurrent with academic trends. Christopher A. Faraone’s 2001 work, Ancient Greek LoveMagic, de fined magic as:

a set ofpracticaldevicesand ritualsusedbythe Greeks intheir day-to daylivesto control or otherwise influencesupernaturallythe forcesof nature, animals, orother human beings.This typeofmagicwastradi tionallymundane and unremarkableto the ancient Greeks.57

This banal, yet straightforward, definition of ancient magic obscures what elements may separate magic from religion, as this definition could be said to apply to either one. faraone admitted to the difficultly of defining magic, and rejected the frazerian separation of magic from religion and science, citing the insurmountable cultural differences between ancient Greek and modern scholarly culture.8 He insisted a “firm Frazerian distinction between magic and religion” would be “oxymoronic,” as they were two sides to the same coin.59Throughout the book, he declared that the magic had at its core the same ideas and practices that were found in public Greek worship. In order to come full circle in this historiography, it would benefit to look at C. M. C. Green’s 2007 book entitled Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana atAricia. This is appropriate because the focus of frazer’s The Golden Bough, as meandering as it was, was the cult of Diana at Aricia. Knowing full well the history of the subject, Green felt compelled to comment on the legacy of Frazer. Green did not find Frazer’s arguments and theories compelling, but she did defend him, stating “it is now almost a reflex to disparage frazer’s work,” and that few recent scholars

“ Robert Turcan, The Gods ofAncient Rome: Religion in Everyday Lfe from Archaic to Imperial Times, trans. Antonia Nevill (New York: Routledge, 2000), 11, Ibid., 145. 56 Ibid., 146—147. Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek LoveMagic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), i6. Ibid., 17. Ibid., 137—138.

Ex PosT FACTo DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC ‘59 were willing to preserve any part of his legacy.6° Green argued that Frazer’s knowledgeable, hands-on approach had and inspired interest and enthusiasm.6’ Green was inspired by Frazer’s enthusiasm, but she saw the cult of Diana as belonging firmly to the realm of main stream Roman religion, whereas frazer saw it as containing magical aspects. While Green may defend the pioneer of her scholarly subject, it is clear that the theories of frazer and his like-minded brethren no longer hold weight among ancient Greek and Roman religious scholars. The Greeks and Romans did not leave a definition of magic that is comparable to modern scholars’ definitions. When and if the ancients placed the dividing line between religion and magic cannot be easily ascertained. The evidence available to us is scant, and comes in three general forms: Laws, opinions expressed by notable persons, and evidence of magical practice from ordinary citizens. Of these three, laws provide the best understanding of the norms of society, while the other two forms of evidence have the potential to show more breadth of opinions on the matter. Records of very few laws have survived from ancient Greece, and those that have survived do not address magic directly. The closest surviving law to a magic law was from Teos, in which potion (possibly poisonous) making and usage was a capital offense.62We are left with a handful of literary sources that give only a narrow view of the subject. Plato was a well-known critic of magic, not necessarily on spiritual or moral grounds, but because he believed that the professional magicians bilked people out of their money.6 In Laws, he expressed a desire to ban magic and for its ill effects as well as the fraud that could be committed by magical practitioners.6 Poetic and dramatic works, such as Euripides’ Medea, showed magic in a negative light and invariably associated it with the works of wicked women. None of these elite sources gave a definition of magic nor explained its place in society. Popular sources from the Greek world survive mostly in the form of curse tablets, which were invariably only one manifestation of what the Greeks would have deemed to have been ‘magic.’ The earliest curse tablets often give only names, suggesting that many of these relied heavily on spells orally recited. Curse tablets did not identify themselves as being magical. Instead, they appeared to be binding spells, created in

C. M. C. Green, Roman Religionand the Cult ofDiana atAricia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), XV. 6, Ibid., xv—xvi. 6John G. Gager, ed., Curse Tablets and Binding Spellsfrom theAncient World (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992), 23. 63Plato, Laws, 9ogb. 64 Ibid., 9o9c—d,933a.

VOLUME XIX• 2010 i6o ColleenMarie Bradley order to affect control over a person in a specific context, be it in an athletic competition, law case, or a burgeoning relationship. The spell implored or demanded that particular gods and/or spirits of the dead accomplish the goals for the practitioner. Curse tablets showed up in great enough abundance, and with sufficient variety of styles and skill levels, to prove that their use was not restricted to any singular group. In comparison to the Greeks, the Romans were paranoid about mag ic, as the many laws forbidding various forms of magic attested to. In the Twelve Tables, there were stipulations for punishments for spells that harmed other citizens, and these punishments were put alongside other penalties for harming persons and property using non-magical means. Later legislation was harsher on magic, demanding exile or death for its practitioners. A law passed during the reign of Sulla regarding murder and poison also included “substances ‘acting at a distance,’ or what we call magic” in the list of various means to commit homicide.6 Another law passed under Sulla dealt directly with magic, condemning those who practiced or knew magic.66During the imperial age emperors were clear in their rationale in legislating against magic, stating that “the knowledge of those who with the aid of magic arts are discovered to have plotted against people’s well-being or to have diverted chaste minds to lustful thoughts must be punished and a penalty duly exacted under the harshest of laws.”6 As Tacitus attested to several times in his works, magic was clearly a threat to the Emperor, who was always at risk of being assassinated 68 The Romans’ laws showed a negative conception of magic, as did the texts of Roman elites, many of which dealt with magic, albeit briefly. Love potions were the subject of many poetic works, especially those of Ovid and Horace, and later Apuleius. was viewed as being employed almost exclusively by women, who used a variety of spells, incantations, and rituals to subdue men. Pliny gave the best ancient definition of magic as it was applied and understood in this Roman world in Natural History. He claimed magic was a blend of medicine, religion, and astrology and that there were several varieties of magic, such as .6 Pliny also claimed that there were few in Rome who were not afraid of magic.7°

Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 261. Ibid., 262. lbid.,z63. 68 Tacitus, Annals, 2.27—32, 12.52. Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 264. ° Gager, Curse Tablets, 253.

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The non-elite evidence from the Roman world is similar to that from Greece, although it is significantly more abundant. Most surviving curse tablets are dated from the Roman period, and show a variety in not only their application, but in the powers which they invoked, including Semitic deities and angels. The only surviving ‘spell books’ come from Roman controlled Egypt. One of the most interesting of the spells or rituals in these Egyptians books was not a ritual to bind, but a ritual to connect with the divine. This shows that forbidden rituals were not confined to short-term goals of psychical gain, but to spiritual matters as well.7’These ancient sources give only a narrow view of a particular person’s concept of magic, and therefore a culture-wide definition cannot be ascertained from ancient knowledge alone. We are still left with the question of what definition should be used when discussing ancient magic. The frazerian model was obviously flawed because it was based both on a faulty concept of religious evolu tion and general cultural particularism. These ethnocentric and outdated ideas must be avoided at all costs. The concept of magic being particular to ancient or ‘primitive’ societies is ridiculous. The large number of astrologers, tarot card readers, metaphysical stores, and magic books that are sustained by the modern western economy prove that magic is not primitive, rather ever-present. furthermore, most ritual acts within a religion, when viewed by someone outside of the culture, would appear to be magic. Wouldn’t someone who was unfamiliar with call the Eucharist’s transubstantiation of bread and wine to flesh and blood magic? If a series of non-rational rituals were sufficient to consti tute a definition of magic, all religions could be said to contain magic. Magic and religion were not analogous by frazer’s definition; they were separated by time and cultural advancement. Ifwe reject this separation, Frazer’s model must be rejected. We must also reject trite analogies ofancient magic to modern phe nomena as the basis of any new theory, since the religious systems of ancient Mediterranean and modern monotheism are too vastly different. Even if an ancient artifact looks like a modern voodoo doll, the underlying theories behind its existence and effectiveness are not necessarily analogous to a modern voodoo doll. An unusual object does not automatically make a magical object. The ancient system allowed for almost infinite variation while adhering to the same tenets of religion; the same cannot be said for modern Christianity. Scholars must be vigilant not to be anachronistic about intellectual history.

‘ Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 269—270.

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The basic tenets of ancient Greek and Roman religion must be ex amined in order to give magic a fair definition. The religions of the ancient Mediterranean adhered to the do ut des theory ofworship, where temples, , and were given to a god in order for the citizens and devotees to receive something in return from the god. The human obligation of this tenet was seen in public rituals and religion, since and worship were visible to all. It is difficult to ascertain if clandestine rituals such as magic abided by the same do Ut des tenet. Curse tablets and magical texts are the only direct window into the secretive rituals of ancient peoples, as literary or secondary sources were severely tainted by personal bias. Curse tablets give little information on their means of functioning, as the text was usually restricted to the intent of the curse. They followed a basic formula containing the subject to be bound, the matter in which they were to be bound, and sometimes the reason for the binding.72 Occasionally, there is evidence of the tablet’s creator giving or promising to give something to the god invoked to perform the binding. An example of this comes from a third or fourth century found in Roman Britain: “Whoever stole the proper ty of Varenus, whether woman or man, let him pay with his own blood. From the money which he will pay back, one half is donated to and Virtue.”73Yet these examples are rare, and curse tablets, considered together as a body of evidence, do not prove that secretive rituals abided by the do ut des theory. Manuals of ‘magic’give a fuller view of the secret rituals of ancient peoples. These manuals and books sometimes gave step-by-step instruc tions on how to perform spells. They often explained what the curse tablets were lacking and the rituals necessary to make spells and curse tablets successful. The Papyri Graecae Magicae gave instructions for several of such rituals, along with the models for curse tablets, which showed that curse tablets had some concept of, do ut des. The souls of the dead were often the carriers of spells, and they were either threat ened or persuaded with gifts or promises to accomplish their tasks. Small offerings such as flowers were sometimes given with the deposited tablet.74 Unspecified gifts were also promised to the dead.75However, it was the promise of a happy afterlife that was most often offered in phrases such as this one found on a curse tablet in Egypt: “Ifyou accom plish this for me, I will set you free.”6 These curse tablets were often

Gager, Curse Tablets, 5—11. Ibid., 195—196; see also 156, 189, 191—194, 197. Ibid., 95. Ibid., 138. 76 Ibid., 100. See also Beard et al., vol. 2, 266—267.

Ex PosT FACTO DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 163 placed in the tombs of those who died violent deaths who roamed the land as restless spirits. Therefore, such spells could be seen falling into the tenets of the do Ut des system because the completion of the curse would bring benefits for both sides. Many of these rituals also involved prohibitions to ensure purity, analogous to those prohibitions found in public rituals.77 Curse tablets and spell books do not give enough evidence to prove that do ut des was the basis ofsecret rituals in the ancient world. Howev er, they do suggest it was the basis in many cases. It stands to reason that if other rituals were based on the do Ut des system, clandestine rituals would probably follow suit. After all, the practitioners of these rituals were members of the polls or city-state and therefore took part in public rituals. This was the system that they were accustomed to, and they were not likely to have deviated too far despite the fact that the goals of these rituals were personal instead of public. If the basic tenets of secret rites did not greatly deviate from the ac knowledged public rites, then the frazer-inspired model of magic as inferior to religion must be rejected. Yet there was clearly a difference between secret and public rituals because, after all, one was public and the other private. Persecution and fear of magic may have been due to overexcited imaginations, but there must have been some reason why practitioners of magic were never allowed to practice their craft in the public sphere. One possibility was that others labeled rituals done in a secretive manner as magic, and that magic was only differentiated from religion by its secretive nature. It was Walter Burkert’s study of Greek religion that appears to point to the real difference between ancient religion and magic. Religion was in the public sphere, done for the public good. Those rituals labeled ‘magic,’were private or semi-private, done for the personal good of a small number of people, or even just one person. The good of a single individual can often conflict with the good of the many, making magic potentially harmful to society. Julius Paulus Prudentissimus, better known as Paul, a second and third century CE jurist, explained in his Opinions that “those who administer a potion to cause an abortion or as an aphrodisiac, even if they do not act maliciously, nevertheless because their action is a bad example,” must be punished.8 Magic was not necessarily harmful, but any rituals done in private had the potential of harming society, and therefore had to be stopped.

Gager, Curse Tablets, io6. Instructions on one love spell included this: “Take care to kee? yourself from intercourse, from wine, and from all (kinds of) meat.” Beard et aI., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 262.

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Magic was not differentiated from religion because there was a dif ference in its theory of functionality, the disposition of the practitioner, or the level of religiosity involved. It was made distinct because it was perceived to have the possibility of becoming damaging to the polis or city-state. The secretive nature of a ritual created a social suspicion about the ritual’s intent; the ritual, in turn, became a legally defined act of civil disobedience and was viewed as potentially harmful to the community. In other words, magic diverges from religion along legal and political lines, not philosophical or spiritual ones. Simplyput, ancient magic was a ritual that was forbidden or suppressed by a government or society. The study of Greek and Roman magic has come a long way, yet still remains a source of tension within the scholarly community. frazer’s belief in the inherent inferiority of magic reigned for almost a century, until the 19605 and 1970S brought a new wave of scholars into the fold. Since the 198os, most historians, classicists, and anthropologists have been more sympathetic to magic. They saw it as a means of expressing burgeoning new ideas, although many scholars were remiss to define it. Ancient sources written by elites were uniformly negative towards magic, but they were also unlikely to define it. Ancient magic operated on the same principles as, and co-existed with, ancient religion. However, it was feared for its secretive nature and tendency to benefit the few instead of the many. Magic became distinguished from religion in the ancient world because it had the potential to harm the community, therefore becoming a distinct entity in social and legal terms.

Colleen focuses on the history of magic, alchemy, and astrology, especiallyduring the Greekand Roman periods. She hopes to someday teach at a community college,whereshefirstfound her lovefor history.

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