Greece & Rome, Vol. 53, No. 2, ? The Classical Association, 2006. All rights reserved doi: 10.1017/S0017383506000295

DANGEROUS REPUTATIONS: CHARIOTEERS AND MAGIC IN FOURTH-CENTURY ROME

By PARSHIA LEE-STECUM

Roman charioteers had a reputation, and not just for living fast and dying young.' Nor was their reputation solely based on the glamour of their occupation, although it is clear that some charioteers could achieve something approaching celebrity status.2 Roman charioteers (by which I mean charioteers throughout the ancient Roman world) had a reputation of a rather darker stripe. The violence of their occu- pation, reflected and enhanced by the riotous violence of their supporters,3 contributed to the perception of charioteers in general as rough, uncouth characters.4 The gulf between some charioteers' celebrity and their slave status did much to encourage this brutal reputation in the Roman mind.5

1 Commemorative inscriptions and literary evidence suggest a low life expectancy for even relatively successful charioteers with few living beyond 30. See, for example, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6.10050, 6.10049, 6.10055 and 6.33950 which commemorate charioteers who died aged 20, 22, 24, 25 and 29. The successful charioteer Scorpus, to whom Martial devotes several epigrams, died aged 27 (Martial 10.53.3-4), even though an 'old man' if measured by the number of his victories (on Scorpus, see Martial 4.67, 5.25, 10.50, 10.53 and 10.74). A relief of the fatal crash of a charioteer named Florus bears an epigram describing him as infans (CIL 6.10078).

2 According to Martial, Scorpus' fame nets him both cash gifts from praetors (Martial, 4.67.5-8; his fellow charioteer, Thallus, is also a recipient) and gilded statues set up in his honour (Martial 5.25.9-10). Dio refers to a charioteer, Hierocles, around the year 220 who so ingratiates himself with the emperor Elagabalus that he is said to have even greater influence than the emperor himself: Dio 80.15.1-2.

3 On the violence and sometimes full-scale rioting associated with the circus factions, see A. Cameron, Porphyrius the Charioteer (Oxford, 1973), 232-9 and A. Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford, 1976), 271-96. Charioteers themselves some- times acted as 'potent figure-head(s) in urban rioting', P. Brown, 'Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity', in P. Brown (ed.) Religion and society in the Age of Saint Augustine (New York, 1972), 129.

4 As early as Nero's day, charioteers had a reputation for accosting people on the streets of Rome: quibus inveterata licentia passim vagantibus fallere ac furari per iocum ius erat, 'who, by age-old licence, had the right to wander around, indiscriminately cheating and robbing people for a laugh' (Suetonius, Nero 16).

5 On charioteers being typically, although not exclusively, slaves, see G. Wissowa et al. (eds), Pauly's Real-Enzyklopidie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1894-1979), s.v. agitator (1.822.53-4), and H. A. Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome (London, 1972), 207-8. One chario- teer inscription specifies that the two charioteers it honours were 'born slaves' (natione vernae): CIL 6.10049. It seems clear that many began racing as slaves, won their freedom due to their racing prowess, and continued racing as freedmen.

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The dark reputation of charioteers is further stimulated by the reputation of the circus and, by association, the charioteers them- selves, for magic. Enough defixiones have been found in and pertaining to the context of the circus to constitute a category unto themselves.6 Employed freely, so it seems, by fans of the various colour-coded circus factions, and possibly by owner managers of the factions and even the charioteers themselves,7 these items and the texts they bear deal a double blow to the charioteers' reputation. As well as associ- ating them with the always illicit category of 'magic', the texts are among the most violent defixio texts to have survived. One defixio from Hadrumentum, for example, calls upon the daemon to 'torture and kill' (crucies ocidas) the rival teams' horses, as well as 'kill and crush' (ocidas collidas) the opposing charioteers (DT 286). Among other circus tablets from the same site language such as 'may he fall, may he break, may he be torn apart' (cadat frangat disfrangatur, DT 279) abounds.s A fragmentary simile of Cicero's suggests that such body-rending violence was more generally associated with the circus in the Roman mind: ut auriga indoctus e curru trahitur opteritur laniatur eliditur, 'as an ill-trained charioteer is thrown from his chariot, ground, lacerated and dashed to pieces'.9 To the eyes of modern scholars, the dark underbelly of the superficially fast, glamorous life of the chario- teer seems to be exposed.1o

I do not intend to rehabilitate the reputation of the Roman chario- teer. On the contrary, it is essential to my argument in this paper that

6 See, for example, the first section of John Gager's collection of defixiones in translation, entitled 'Competition in Theater and Circus', J. Gager (ed.), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford 1992), 42-77. See also J. Gager 'Curse and competition in the ancient circus', in Of Scribes and Scrolls (Lanham, 1990), 215-28; Harris (n. 5), 234-7; F. Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, translated by F. Philip (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 155-8; and F. Heintz 'Circus curses and their archaeological contexts', JRA 11 (1998), 337-42.

7 While it is usually assumed that it was the fans who initiated the majority of circus defixiones, some scholars have suggested that charioteers themselves may also have been respon- sible for some examples: see Gager (n. 6 [1992]), 45. Segal, for example, suggests that 'Because of the anxiety and charisma associated with such an uncertain life, some charioteers and many of their fans were driven to seek sorcerers.' A. F. Segal, 'Hellenistic magic: some questions of definition' in A. F. Segal (ed.), The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity (Atlanta, 1987), 91; see also Graf (n. 6), 156.

8 See A. Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae (Paris, 1904), 275-84. Compare the defixio found in Rome, and written in Greek, which calls on 'holy angels and holy names' to 'bind, block, strike, overthrow, harm, destroy, kill, and shatter Eucherios the charioteer and all his horses tomorrow in the arena of Rome': R. Wiinsch, Sethianische Verfluchungstafeln aus Rom, (Leipzig, 1898), no. 49; translation and brief discussion in Gager (n. 6, 1992), 73-4.

9 This fragment, preserved by Nonius, is attributed to De republica 2.68 in the edition of Ziegler: K. Ziegler (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero. De republica (Leipzig, 1969). Its encapsulation of the violence of the circus has been noted by Toner: J. P. Toner, Leisure and Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 43.

10 See, for example, Harris (n. 5), 234-7.

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such a reputation for magic clung to charioteers already in antiquity." In the fourth century, the period I focus on here, Ammianus Marcellinus, for example, cites charioteers specifically in association with veneficium ('magic') on three occasions.12 One of those refers in general terms to the class of charioteers (28.4.25). Another tells of a certain Auchenius who, with four men of senatorial rank as accom- plices, was involved with veneficia (28.1.27); and the third tells of a Hilarinus who is convicted of apprenticing his son to a veneficus ('magician', 26.3.3). Interestingly, in none of these cases is the veneficium explicitly said to be employed (or have been intended to be employed) in the context of the circus itself, although Ammianus' brief reporting of the incident does not rule it out in the case of Auchenius. At a later period (in the early sixth century), Cassiodorus states the reputation of charioteers for magic even more explicitly. Of one successful charioteer, Cassiodorus writes:

frequentia palmarum eum faciebat dici maleficum, inter quos magnum praeconium videtur esse ad talia crimina pervenire. necesse est enim ad perversitatem magicam referri, quando victoria equorum meritis non potest applicari. (Cassiodorus, Variae 3.51.2)

From the frequency of his triumphs, he was called a sorcerer - and among charioteers it is seen as a great honour to attain to such accusations. For, when victory cannot be attributed to the quality of the horses, it is inevitably ascribed to magical cheating.13

I do not seek to dispute Roman charioteers' reputation for thuggery in general and veneficium in particular. Instead, through the juxtaposition of two quite different texts from the fourth century, I would like to suggest that these popular associations (whether well-earned or not) may have been exploited by charioteers themselves. Finally, I also want to use these texts to suggest a 'magic' which, rather than an objective category or identifiable set of practices, is a signifier expres- sive of anxiety about social boundaries and the struggle for social power.

11 I am not the first to argue this. See, for example, H. P. D'Escurac , 'Magie et cirque dans la Rome antique', ByzF 12 (1987), 249-67. Harris states simply 'So prevalent was the practice [of magic] in the racing world that charioteers were generally believed to have particular expert- ness in the field': Harris (n. 5), 234.

12 While veneficium is the term most commonly used by Roman authors to describe the legal charge of 'magic' (following the lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis of 81 BCE) and is the most common term for 'illicit ritual' in general, by the fourth century terms such as maleficium and magicae artes are also appearing in imperial legislation.

13 The text is taken from Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 12, the trans- lation is from S. J. B. Barnish, The Variae of Cassiodorus (Liverpool, 1992).

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The later of my two key texts is an edict from the Theodosian Code (also re-collected a century or so later in the Justinian Code). While the collection known as the Theodosian Code dates to the fifth century, it collects together legal texts which are for the most part older.14 Theodosian Code, 9.16.11, dates to August 389 (= Justinian Code, 9.18.9):

Imppp. Valentinianus Theodosius et Arcadius AAA. Albino pu. quicumque maleficiorum labe pollutum auderit deprehenderit occupaverit, ilico ad publicum protrahat et iudiciorum oculis communis hostem salutis ostendat. quod si quisquam ex agitatoribus [id est aurigisj15 seu ex quolibet alio genere hominum contra hoc interdictum venire temptaverit aut clandestinis suppliciis etiam manifestum reum maleficae artis oppresserit, ultimum supplicium non evadet geminae suspicionis obnoxius, quod aut publicum reum, ne facinoris socios publicaret, severitati legum et debitae subtraxerit quaestioni aut proprium fortassis inimicum sub huiusmodi vindictae nomine consilio atrociore confecerit. D. XVII k. Sept. Romae Timasio et Promoto conss.

Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius Augustuses to Albinus, Prefect of the City.

If anyone should hear of a person who is contaminated with the pollution of magic, or if he should apprehend or seize such a person, he shall drag him out immediately before the public and shall show the enemy of the common safety to the eyes of the courts. But if any of the drivers [that is charioteers] or anyone of any other class of men should attempt to contravene this edict or should destroy by clandestine punish- ment a person, even though he is clearly guilty of the evil art of magic, he shall not escape the extreme penalty, since he is subject to a double suspicion; namely, that he has secretly removed a public criminal from the severity of the law and from due investigation, in order that said criminal might not expose his associates in crime, or that perhaps he killed his own enemy by a more atrocious plan under the pretence of avenging this crime.

Given on the seventeenth day before the kalends of September at Rome in the year of the consulship of Timasius and Promotus (August 16, 389).16

Charioteers are here singled out as a 'class of men' (alongside other generes hominum) associated with accusations of magic (here maleficium). But charioteers are not, or are not simply, assumed to be practitioners of magic themselves. Rather they are, at first, described

14 The collection, begun in 429, was promulgated in December 430: C. Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and Simondian Constitutions. A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography (Princeton, 1952) xvii, from the Introduction by C. Dickerman Williams.

15 This gloss appears only in the Justinian Code. 16 The text is from P. Krueger (ed.), Corpus luris Civilis, vol. ii. Codex lustinianus (Frankfurt

am Main, 1967) and the translation from Pharr (n. 14). For brief discussion of this text, see D'Escurac (n. 11), 467.

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as delivering punishment to those who practice maleficium, albeit a form of punishment which deprives the Roman courts of their proper rights to deliver such sanctions. Is this evidence for some form of vigi- lante action against suspected magicians, vigilante action serious or common enough that an Imperial edict needs to be issued to bring it under control? If so, why specify charioteers as the vigilantes? Is it simply that these notoriously thuggish characters are just the sort of people you would expect to find leading a lynch mob?" The answers are suggested by the reasons the edict itself gives for the keeping hidden of that which should be laid bare to the gaze of the courts. The supposed vigilante action may be just a smoke screen (nomen vindictae, 'the pretence of vengeance') to hide the guilt of the vigilante (which the edict has already named as most probably a charioteer). It is further suggested that the action may have been taken because the vigilante himself is an accomplice of the murdered party in maleficium and is doing away with unwanted witnesses. Alternatively, the vigi- lante may be an enemy of the victim taking the opportunity to get rid of him on a trumped up charge that would not stand up even in a Roman court. Given the special mention of charioteers earlier in the edict, the first of these options might suggest the association of the circus with magic (veneficium), while the second (and indeed both) recall charioteers' notorious quickness to violence.

The second text describes a period some twenty years before the date of the edict, although it was probably written close to 389.18

Indeed, while this passage from the history of Ammianus Marcellinus comes from a book (number 28) which deals largely with events of the years 368-70, its immediate context is a long tirade about the various depravities of the Roman nobilitas during the prefectures of Olybrius and Ampelius (368-72). But, in the nature of such moralistic passages, the terms of Ammianus' censure may well have been meant, and taken, to apply more generally than to those years alone.19 In the course of listing the activities of various members of the Roman 61ite ('some did this... others did that... others did other things...' and so on), charioteers make a cameo appearance. The passage in question reads:

17 Such might be suggested by Suetonius, Nero 16, cited in note 4 above, or by the later role of star charioteers as 'potent figure-head[s] in urban rioting', Brown (n. 3), 129.

18 John Matthews argues persuasively for the completion of the extant books of Ammianus' history around the year 390: J. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (London, 1989), 17-27.

19 On Ammianus' moralism in this passage see Mathews (n. 18), 214-15 and 414-16.

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alius si creditorem suum flagitare molestius adverterit debitum, ad aurigam confugit audentem omnia praelicenter, eumque ut veneficum curat urgeri: unde non nisi reddita cautione dispendioque adflictus gravi discedit. et additur huic, debitorem voluntarium includit ut proprium, nec ante eius professionem absolvit.

Ammianus Marcellinus 28.4.25

Another, if he finds one of his creditors demanding his money too vigorously, appeals to a charioteer, who is ready to dare anything, and sees that the creditor is charged as a veneficus. He is not let off this charge until he hands over the IOU and pays heavy costs. In addition, the accuser imprisons the voluntary debtor as if he were his prop- erty, and will not release him until he formally acknowledges the debt.20

In this passage, rather than assuming the (alleged) pretence of vigi- lante action, the charioteer's job is to accuse his boss's creditor with veneficium. In essence, the charioteer is blackmailing the creditor into releasing his senatorial boss from debt, and possibly even placing himself in debt to the senator or (worse) to the charioteer in order to avoid the full legal force of the charioteer's charge of veneficium. Why use charioteers in particular for such a task? Again the twin reputa- tions of charioteers for violence generally and magic specifically are brought into play. As well as being particularly threatening (and thus effective) hired thugs due to their known violent tendencies, chario- teers might also make potentially very credible (and thus effective) accusers in a case of veneficium. After all, they are just the sorts of people to know all about magic and magicians, aren't they?

But by bringing these two texts (Theodosian Code, 9.16.11 and Ammianus Marcellinus, 28.4.25) together it is possible to pinpoint a little more precisely how magic is being used in these cases.21 While it is very tempting to see the edict of 389 as a specific response to the sort of tactics Ammianus describes in the context of 368-72, a direct, explanatory relationship between the two texts cannot be securely established. It is certainly possible that the vigilante excuse was being used to cover up attempted blackmail gone wrong.22 Some creditors may have refused to cave in to threats of prosecution and in the last resort the hired charioteer (or his paymaster) may have chosen to do

20 The text is from V. Gardthausen (ed.), Ammianus Marcellinus vol. ii (Stuttgart, 1966), the translation is my own. For brief discussion of this passage and the others in Ammianus which link charioteers to magic, see Matthews (n. 18), 420.

21 The two texts, while they have previously been cited together, have not been analysed in tandem. See Harris (n. 5), 234-5, Cameron (n. 3 [1973]), 245, and D'Escurac (n. 11), 457-8 and 467.

22 In contrast see Graf (n. 6), 156, who seems to suggest that the excuse is being used to cover up the charioteer's own use of defixiones against rivals by killing off the professional magi- cian who provided the tablet.

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away with that creditor rather than expose the baseless accusation to the scrutiny of a court that might just see it for the sham it was. In such circumstances, the claim that the charioteer was ridding society of a practitioner of maleficium/veneficium may have provided a conve- nient cover for the murder. But while juxtaposition of the two texts renders such scenarios possible, in the end they must remain speculative.

But examining these two texts in conjunction suggests some more general things about how 'magic' could work in the fourth century. These texts may constitute some of the only Roman evidence of the exploitation of a reputation for magic, rather than the exploitation of magic itself or the exploitation of a legal charge of magic against another party. If charioteers were popularly associated with magical practice, this assumed expertise could add weight to their accusation of magical practice against others. In other words, Roman magistrates and juries might be more inclined to believe charioteers about matters magical because they were thought to be especially knowledgeable about those sorts of things. Furthermore, as they were themselves suspected of veneficium, their implication of accomplices in the prac- tice of magic might carry special weight.23 The charioteers themselves (and those who hired them for these purposes) would clearly be exploiting their reputation for their own dark (although entirely un-magical) ends. The relationship between success and a reputation for being a 'sorcerer' (maleficus) which Cassiodorus identifies just over a century later may be illuminating here. According to Cassiodorus, such a reputation is actually seen as something positive (magnum praeconium; 'a great recommendation') due to its association with victory. It is a reputation which reflects the skill and power of the charioteer on the race-track. It is perhaps not so incongruous that this powerful reputation might be used to exert power in other areas. The down side of such a tactic, as the text from the Theodosian Code demonstrates, is that exploitation of your own supposed connection with magic in this way could backfire, confirming in your specific case the general prejudices about your 'type' (your genus hominum). This is made explicit in the threat that the charioteers or others who claim that their victims were malefici will be held under suspicion of being accomplices in the same crime. Even without the edict, the danger of

23 For the naming of accomplices in cases of veneficium in the fourth century see Ammianus 26.3.1, 29.1.44, and 29.2.1. Compare the 'terrible power' to name accomplices bestowed upon accused witches in early modern Europe and North America: R. Briggs, Witches and Neighbours (London, 1996), 360.

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incriminating oneself by implicating others is clear. If the bluff should be called, a blackmailer might well hesitate before carrying out the original threat. Such manoeuvres are a dangerous business, but we should remember that another active ingredient in the appropriate- ness of charioteers for such a task was their reputation for violence (including their willingness to face violent consequences). This was at least as important as their association with magic, as the victim would know that charioteers were not afraid of acting precipitously should push come to shove.

If the association with magic might tell us something about what the charioteers were doing here, the charioteers themselves might tell us something about the uses and meanings of magic (by which I mean the deployment of the charge, or just the label, 'magic') in Roman culture. Most charioteers, like most gladiators, were of slave status.24 Yet they might aspire to a form of elevated social status, as the adula- tion some of these figures seem to have received (even from Romans of elite level) demonstrates.25 They certainly seem to have gained a degree of social independence and even wealth not commonly paral- lelled among slaves.26

This mixture of two apparently incompatible social fields - slave status, and wealthy, celebrity status-blurs conventional Roman social boundaries. As J. P. Toner has remarked:

Charioteers, gladiators, actors, (and later holy men), all came to epitomize the new importance of the popular culture. These icons became strong cross-social forces. Located on the borders of the ancien regime, whose power was based on prestige, and the new society, whose power rested on definable merit, popular heroes became the arbiters of Roman culture. They were the axes around which conflicts revolved, and it was to them that Romans turned for the settlement of their disputes. A new interface was created between the traditional el1ite and the popular, but this also created moral concerns about what such a weakening of boundaries meant for traditional identi- ties.27

24 See note 5, above. 25 See note 2, above. 26 Some charioteers clearly won huge amounts of prize money (the extensive commemora-

tive inscription for the second century charioteer, Diocles, describes prizes totalling 35, 863, 120 sesterces: CIL 6.10048). Assuming that the owner managers of the racing stables allowed the drivers to keep even a portion of their winnings, the more successful charioteers must have been wealthy men. Juvenal observes with disgust (and no doubt considerable hyperbole) that one charioteer can earn as much as one hundred free born causidici (Juvenal 7.113-14). Martial laments that Scorpus earns in a single hour many times more than a cliens such as himself can gather in a day of service (Martial 10.74.1-5).

27 Toner (n. 9), 78.

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This in itself is suggestive of how the perception of magic functions in Roman society. Some historians of magic have argued that it is precisely at the point where such boundaries might be perceived as blurring or collapsing that magic as a socially functional signifier becomes active.28 In part, it operates as a marker of anxiety about boundary collapse. In part, it operates as a tool to assert, re-assert or stabilise the boundary, by marking out a perceived transgression. Marking something as beyond the pale helps to mark out where the pale actually is and police it. Magic signifies the perception or claimed perception (on the part of the person deploying it) of a contested site, and it can be used as a weapon in such a perceived contest. It is one potential manoeuvre in the debate (or debates) about what is socially legitimate or illegitimate. The winning of such a contest (or debate) can of course do many other very practical things like getting rid of one's creditors or other enemies; but while the legal contest may be the consequence, the contest itself is, or at least can be, more than simply legal. Such it is in the case of charioteers' reputation for magic.

Charioteers are not the only example of perceived transgression or blurred social boundaries marked by the deployment of the signifier 'magic'. Two of the best known Roman examples of prosecutions for magic, separated by more than three hundred years, also illustrate this point. The trial of Caius Furius Cresimus, reported by Pliny the Elder (Pliny, Natural History 18.8.41-3), dates from the second century BCE, possibly around the year 190 BCE.29 Cresimus, a farmer of a small land-holding, is accused of veneficium by his neighbours who have seen that he is prospering while they are not, despite their more extensive estates. The episode, as Pliny reports it, possesses a number of the qualities which scholars now often associate with claims of magic in the ancient world. For example, the charge against Cresimus takes place within a context of competition. The accusation of magic is an easy means of attacking a more successful rival who otherwise gives no visible cause for accusation. But Fritz Graf has also

28 See, for example, K. T. Erikson, Wayward Puritans. A Study in the Sociology of Deviance (New York, 1966), 10 (on the New England witch trials); J. Oplinger, The Politics of Demonology. The European Witchcraze and the Mass Production of Deviance (London and Toronto, 1990), 124, and N. Ben-Yehuda, 'Witchcraft and the occult as boundary maintenance devices', in J. Neusner, E. S. Frerichs and P. V. McCracken Flesher (eds.), Religion, Science and Magic. In Concert and Conflict (Oxford, 1989), 237 (on the early modern European 'witchcraze'); and V. Kivelson, 'Patrolling the boundaries: witchcraft accusations and household strife in seventeenth century Muscovy', Harvard Ukranian Studies 19 (1995), 323 (on witchcraft accusations in seven- teenth-century Muscovy).

29 See Graf (n. 6), 63.

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pointed to Cresimus' status as a freedman (a status which Pliny emphasizes: C. Furius Cresimus e servitute liberatus, 'Caius Furius Cresimus, freed from slavery').30 As such, Cresimus is an outsider in the eyes of his neighbours. That a freedman has greater success and wealth than his richer, free-born neighbours might be seen as a disruption of traditional social boundaries and hierarchies ('a reversal of the original gap' as Graf puts it).31 This encourages the perception, and accusation, of magic. The second, even better known, example is Apuleius' trial for magic which took place in the town of Sabrata in North Africa around the year 160 CE.32 Apuleius is accused of using magic to ensnare a rich widow, Pudentilla. Apuleius is an outsider from the point of view of the local community of Oea, Pudentilla's home, and especially from the point of view of his accusers, Aemilianus and Herrenius, who are members of the widow's family. Although Apuleius was himself born in North Africa, he had been educated in Athens and at Rome. As a highly educated philosopher and rhetorician, he was a product of an urban, Imperial Roman culture which, while certainly not entirely alien to the inhabitants of Oea, would have distinguished him even more clearly from the locals. Once more, the one who attracts the charge of magic is an outsider who threatens to disrupt the former structures of community and family, including 'the traditional expectation about inheritance',33 and who obtains a wealth and status considered inappropriate for such a figure.34 As in these individual cases, charioteers could be seen as aspiring to a social power that does not traditionally belong to them. 'Magic' becomes one way of expressing, marking and potentially demonizing the transgression and illegitimacy associated with such figures.

In such a context, the juxtaposition of the two texts discussed here might suggest that the charioteers concerned were turning (or trying

30 Graf (n. 6), 62-5. 31 Graf (n. 6), 63. 32 Evidence for this trial is based wholly on the version of Apuleius' speech in his own

defence, the Apologia, also known as Pro se de Magia, on which see B. L. Hijmans, 'Apuleius Orator: "Pro se de Magia" and "Florida"', ANRW II.34.2 (1994), 1708-84; V. Hunink (ed.), Apuleius of Madaura. Pro se de Magia, vols i and ii (Amsterdam, 1997); and S. J. Harrison, Apuleius. A Latin Sophist (Oxford 2000).

33 Segal (n. 7), 94. 34 '[T]he underlying issue here is a challenge to the social structure', Graf (n. 6), 68. I am

again indebted here to Fritz Graf's analysis of Apuleius' trial: Graf (n. 6), 65-88. Graf is basing his own analysis on the theories of Marcel Mauss concerning the location of magic in the socially marginal: M. Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, translated by R. Bain (New York, 1972), esp. 28-40.

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to turn) a vulnerability into a potential strength.35 Their ambiguous social position might well be just the sort of thing to attract the perception and/or claim of magic, and this could lead to some unfor- tunate consequences for the one or ones so marked out.36 But it also gave them a power that at least some Roman charioteers seem to have exploited. It was a power that had nothing to do with any ritual activi- ties they may or may not have practised. It was a power born of perception-a perception which was born at least in part from their ambiguous social position and the role of magic as a social signifier in Roman culture. Roman charioteers had a reputation, and some of them, at least, were not afraid to use it.37

35 Briggs suggests a similar strategy employed by some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century beggars whose marginal status earned them a reputation for witchcraft: 'others actually used a reputation for witchcraft as a way to extract gifts from reluctant but fearful neighbours', Briggs (n. 23), 155, see also 267.

36 As in the case of Auchenius and others mentioned by Ammianus (28.1.27 and 26.3.3). 37 An early version of this paper was presented at a conference on magic in the ancient world

convened by the late Charles Tesoriero at the University of New England in 2001. I would like to dedicate this paper to Charles' memory in gratitude for his encouragement, scholarship and friendship.