Magical Practice in the Latin West Religions in the Graeco-Roman World Editors H.S. Versnel D. Frankfurter J. Hahn VOLUME 168 Magical Practice in the Latin West Papers from the International Conference held at the University of Zaragoza 30 Sept.–1 Oct. 2005 Edited by Richard L. Gordon and Francisco Marco Simón LEIDEN • BOSTON 2010 Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Magical practice in the Latin West : papers from the international conference held at the University of Zaragoza, 30 Sept.–1 Oct. 2005 / edited by Richard L. Gordon and Francisco Marco Simon. p. cm. — (Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, ISSN 0927-7633 ; v. 168) Includes indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-17904-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Magic—Europe—History— Congresses. I. Gordon, R. L. (Richard Lindsay) II. Marco Simón, Francisco. III. Title. IV. Series. BF1591.M3444 2010 133.4’3094—dc22 2009041611 ISSN 0927-7633 ISBN 978 90 04 17904 2 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Preface ................................................................................................. ix Abbreviations ..................................................................................... xiii List of Text-Figures, Tables and Illustrations ............................... xix Th e Contributors ............................................................................... xxv Introduction Richard Gordon and Francisco Marco Simón ......................... 1 PART I THE DISCOURSE OF MAGIC Chapter One Magus and its Cognates in Classical Latin ........ 53 James B. Rives Chapter Two Magic in the Roman Historians .......................... 79 Matthew W. Dickie Chapter Th ree Heretical Texts and malefi cium in the Codex Th eodosianus (CTh . 16.5.34) ........................................................ 105 María Victoria Escribano Paño PART II REVISING THE CORPUS Chapter Four Th e defi xiones from the Sanctuary of Isis and Mater Magna in Mainz ................................................................ 141 Jürgen Blänsdorf Chapter Five Religion and Magic at Rome: Th e Fountain of Anna Perenna ................................................................................ 191 Marina Piranomonte Chapter Six Th e Texts from the Fons Annae Perennae ........... 215 Jürgen Blänsdorf vi contents Chapter Seven Cursing a Th ief in Iberia and Britain ............... 245 Roger Tomlin Chapter Eight Prayers for Justice in East and West: Recent Finds and Publications ................................................................. 275 Henk S. Versnel PART III WRITING DEFIXIONES: MODELS, LANGUAGE AND AIMS Chapter Nine How does Magical Language Work? Th e Spells and of the Latin defi xionum tabellae ....................... 357 Amina Kropp Chapter Ten Inversion, Adversion and Perversion as Strategies in some Latin Curse Tablets ........................................................ 381 Christopher Faraone and Amina Kropp Chapter Eleven Execrating the Roman Power: Th ree defi xiones from Emporiae (Ampurias) ......................................................... 399 Francisco Marco Simón PART IV PROTECTIVE, EUDAEMONIC AND DIVINATORY MAGIC Chapter Twelve Nails for the Dead: A Polysemic Account of an Ancient Funerary Practice ..................................................... 427 Silvia Alfayé Villa Chapter Th irteen Magic at Sea: Amulets for Navigation ........ 457 Sabino Perea Yébenes Chapter Fourteen A Prayer for Blessings on three Ritual Objects at Chartres-Autricum (France/Eure-et-Loir) ............. 487 Richard Gordon, Dominique Joly and William van Andringa contents vii Chapter Fift een Mithraism and Magic ....................................... 519 Jaime Alvar Ezquerra Chapter Sixteen A Visigothic Charm from Asturias and the Classical Tradition of Phylacteries Against Hail ...................... 551 Francisco Javier Fernández Nieto Chapter Seventeen Between Orthodox Belief and ‘Superstition’ in Visigothic Hispania ......................................... 601 Isabel Velázquez Soriano Chapter Eighteen Celtic Loricae and Ancient Magical Charms ............................................................................................ 629 Pierre-Yves Lambert Indices General Index ................................................................................. 649 Select Index of Texts and Documents cited ............................. 660 Index of Latin words .................................................................... 669 Select index of Greek words ........................................................ 675 PREFACE Th is volume presents most of the papers given at the conference Magi- cal Practice in the Latin-speaking Empire (Late Republic to Late Antiq- uity)/Prácticas mágicas en el Imperio romano latinoparlante desde fi nes de la República a la Antigüedad Tardía held at the University of Zara- goza (Saragosa) between 30th September and 1st October 2005. It is familiar that contemporary academic interest in the history of magic and witchcraft is a product of the shift s in historiographic prac- tice that occurred in the 1960s, when many western European histo- rians outside France discovered the history of mentalities and social micro-history, prompted by the example of the Annales school, espe- cially Henri Lefebvre and E. LeRoy Ladurie. Th e European archives were full of scarcely-exploited materials on witchcraft and magic, which have fuelled a now vast bibliography: as Robin Briggs recently put it, “witches have . become big business in modern times”.1 Although it took some two decades for this infl uence to make itself felt in the fi eld of ancient history, with the important exception of a famous paper by Peter Brown,2 the topic has become well-established over the past fi f- teen or twenty years, its commencement conventionally marked by the publication of Hans-Dieter Betz’ collective Th e Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (19861), Christopher Faraone and Dirk Obbink’s Hiera Magika (1991) and John Gager’s Curse Tablets and Binding Spells (1992). Since then, a variety of issues and practices that traditionally received relatively little notice because they were held so decidedly to traduce the Hellenic ideal (Wilamowitz notoriously called the study of the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri ‘Botokudenphilologie’, as it were ‘Bongo-Bongo philology’) has been explored from a variety of angles. 1 R. Briggs, Th e Witches of Lorraine (Oxford 2007) 1; cf. W. Behringer, Witches and Witch-hunts: A Global History (Cambridge 2004). Some early reprints/synthetic accounts based directly on archival material include C. Ginzburg, I Benandanti (Turin 1966); R. Mandrou, Magistrats et sorciers en France aux XVIIe siècle (Paris 1968); B. Rosen, Witchcraft (London 1969). 2 P. Brown, Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages, in M. Douglas (ed.), Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations. ASA Monographs 9 (London 1970) 17–45, repr. in P. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine (London 1972) 119–46. x preface Th e majority of this work has however concerned itself with the rich and varied Greek documentation deriving mainly from the east- ern Mediterranean basin. Th e editors of this volume, who have been engaged in a research project ‘Magic, Collective Representations and Power in Rome in the fi rst century CE’ fi nanced by the Spanish Min- istry of Education and Culture (BHA 2002–02584), thought it might be useful to organise an international conference whose aim would be to bring together some of the specialists working on the general topic of magical practice, and ask them to focus, where possible, on materi- als from the western part of the Roman empire, precisely because this area has tended to be perceived as marginal or secondary. Th e issue had become still more topical thanks to the recent discovery of several important new Latin curses: some thirty-four in the joint sanctuary of Mater Magna and Isis at Mainz, datable to the years 80–120 CE; around twenty late-antique items from the Fountain of Anna Perenna at Piazza Euclide in northern Rome; and a number of other texts, mainly in Germania Superior, to say nothing of the numerous British texts from Bath, Uley and other sites. We also wanted to give Span- ish scholars, especially younger ones with a particular interest in this fi eld, an international forum for their work. In eff ect, we had three general aims: to continue the general critique of the traditional ‘grand dichotomy’ between Magic and Religion in antiquity, to explore the implications of the new fi nds, and to suggest and evaluate areas for further research on the theme of the special or distinctive character of magical practice in the western part of the Roman Empire. Given the nature of the subject, and personal predilections and areas