Magic in the AncientGreek World

Derek Collins

Magic in the Ancient Greek World

Blackwell Ancient Religions

Ancient religious practice and belief are at once fascinating and alien fortwenty-first-century readers. There was no Bible, no creed, no fixed set of beliefs. Rather, ancient religion was characterized by extraordinarydiversity in belief and ritual.

This distance means that modern readers need a guide to ancient religiousexperience. Written by experts, the books in this series provide accessibleintroductions to this central aspect of the ancient world.

Published

Magic in the Ancient Greek WorldDerek Collins

Religion in the Roman EmpireJames B. Rives

Ancient Greek ReligionJon D. Mikalson

Forthcoming

Religion of the Roman RepublicChristopher McDonough and Lora Holland

Death, Burial and the Afterlife in Ancient EgyptSteven Snape

Ancient Greek DivinationSarah Iles Johnston

Magic in the AncientGreek World

Derek Collins

© 2008 by Derek Collins

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First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1 2008

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataCollins, Derek.

Magic in the ancient Greek world / Derek Collins.p. cm. — (Blackwell ancient religions)

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978–1–4051–3238–1 (hardcover: alk. paper)—ISBN 978–1–4051–3239–8

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Contents

Acknowledgments viiAbbreviations ixIntroduction xi

1 Magic: What Is It and How Does It Work? 1Frazer and Tylor 3Malinowski 5Magic as Communication 5Lévy-Bruhl 7Evans-Pritchard 11Sympathetic Magic 14Magic and the Extended Person 16Magic and Analogy 17Beyond Frazer 20Tambiah and Persuasive Magic 21Conclusion 24

2 A Framework for Greek Magic 27Magic and the Gods 27Divinity and Nature 31The Hippocratics: Magic, Divination, and Epilepsy 33Plato and Greek Psychology 42Magic and Causality 44Greek Magicians 49Magoi 54Gorgias, Mageia and GoBteia 58Other Magical Terms 60Conclusion 62

vi Contents

3 Binding Magic and Erotic Figurines 64Binding the Gods 67Divine Agents 69‘Characters’ 73Body Parts and Health 78Erotic Magic 88Figurines 92ErDtes 97

4 Homeric Incantations 104Pythagoras and Empedocles 105The Mechanics of Homeric Incantations 108Obstetrics and Gynecology 109Verse Combinations and the Power of Metaphor 114Intoxication, Choking, and Gout 118Incantations and Divination 122Neoplatonic Theurgy and Homer 125Conclusion 131

5 Magic in Greek and Roman Law 132Magic in Greek Law and Legal Imagination 133Trials for Erotic Magic 135Theoris, the Lemnian Witch 136Plato’s Laws Against Magic 139Magic in Roman Law and Legal History 141The Twelve Tables 142The Lex Cornelia 145Magia and Maleficium: Magic and Witchcraft 148Apuleius the Magus 150The Opinions of Paulus and Later Law Codes 159Interpretationes Christianae 162The Medieval Inheritance 164

6 Conclusion 166

Notes 170Select Bibliography 191Index 198

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank those who have contributed in large and smallways to the development of this book. I will never remember everyone,for which I apologize in advance. But in particular I would like to thankJan Bremmer, Radcliffe Edmonds III, Christopher Faraone, MichaelGagarin, Fritz Graf, Albert Henrichs, Richard Janko, Sarah Iles Johnston,Gregory Nagy, C. Robert Phillips III, William Race, and James Rives.Several of these scholars were not involved directly in the preparation ofthis book, but over the years have been involved either in helping me topublish my earlier research on Greek magic, or have in other ways gen-erously lent their time and knowledge. In no way should any of these col-leagues be held responsible for any errors or imperfections in this book.

Various portions of the research presented here began their life as lec-tures. I cannot name here all of the participants in those lectures whosestimulating comments helped me to sharpen my views, and correct myerrors, so I will content myself by thanking their institutions. Theyinclude: Bryn Mawr College, the University of Chicago, the J. Paul GettyMuseum in Los Angeles, the University of Michigan and its Institute forthe Humanities, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ohio StateUniversity, and Yale University. In 2003–4, I was a Junior Fellow at theHarvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, during which timeI completed a substantial part of the research for this book. I would liketo thank the Director and Staff for their tireless support, and theUniversity of Michigan for granting me a leave during that academic year.

I owe a separate acknowledgment to the two anonymous readers of theoriginal manuscript provided by Blackwell Publishing. They furnished me with astute and penetrating criticism, which has only helped tostrengthen the final version. I am also especially indebted to Al Bertrandat Blackwell. The impetus for this book began with Al, over a cup of

viii Acknowledgments

coffee at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association inNew Orleans, Louisiana, in 2003. Were it not for his suggestion, and hispatience over the intervening years, the book would not have seen the lightof day.

Finally, I dedicate this book to my parents and my sons, Adam and BryanCollins, who still cannot quite believe that their father studies magic asopposed to practicing it. Boys, may you never lose that sense of wonder.

Abbreviations

AJP American Journal of PhilologyANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin, 1972–)ARW Archiv für ReligionswissenschaftCA Classical AntiquityCML Corpus Medicorum LatinorumCQ Classical QuarterlyDT A. Audollent, Defixionum tabellae (Paris, 1904)DTA R. Wünsch, Defixionum tabellae atticae, Inscriptiones

Graecae 3.3 (Berlin, 1897)FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin,

1923–)GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine StudiesHThR Harvard Theological ReviewIG Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873–present)JHS Journal of Hellenic StudiesLSJ Liddell, Scott, Jones et al., eds., A Greek–English Lexicon

(9th edition, with revised Supplement, Oxford, 1996)MD Materiali e DiscussioniMDAI Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts

(Athenische Abteilung)OLD P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1996)PG J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca (Paris, 1857–89)PGM K. Preisendanz and A. Henrichs, eds., Papyri Graecae

Magicae: Die griechischen Zauberpapyri (2nd edition,Stuttgart, 1973–74)

RE A. Pauly and G. Wissova, eds., Real-Encyclopädie derclassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1894–)

REG Revue des Études Grecques

x Abbreviations

RhM Rheinisches Museum für PhilologieSGD D. Jordan, “A Survey of Greek Defixiones not Included in the

Special Corpora,” GRBS 26 (1985): 151–97TAPA Transactions of the American Philological AssociationThesCRA Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum AntiquorumZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Introduction

Something of the vitality and vibrancy in the study of ancient Greekmagic can be found in the works that have appeared over the last twodecades, and there is no end to the enthusiasm in sight.1 As might beexpected from a burgeoning field, excellent books and articles have beenwritten on everything from the history of the term ‘magic’ to the range ofGreek magical practices attested from Homer down to late antiquity. Thepresent study seeks to contribute to the discussion in a way that is bothaccessible to non-specialists and challenging to specialists. Thus my aimin writing this book is twofold: first, it seeks to introduce non-specialiststo areas of Greek magic with which they may not be familiar, and to con-vey an appreciation for its conceptual and practical complexity; second,each chapter aims to cover both the high points of scholarly consensusand to offer new interpretive frameworks for understanding select Greekmagical practices. Not every type of Greek magic is treated – notably,amulets, although the study of amulets could be assimilated easily to oneor another of the interpretive frameworks offered here. Nor are literary depictions of magical activity treated here in any great depth. Be that asit may, each chapter is meant to be readable and engaging – hence I haveminimized the use of Greek and Latin and either translated or providedtranslations of all texts – and at the same time each chapter ventilates adefinite argument for interpretation.

One of the longest-running debates in anthropology and the history ofmagic concerns the definition of ‘magic’ itself. Despite the lively and attimes brilliant contributions to this debate, it will become evident alreadyin the first chapter of this book that I think that debate is largely irrele-vant, at least to the extent that it focuses on defining the meaning of themodern term ‘magic’, whether it be in opposition to science, technology,religion, or some other term. Ancient Greek terms for ‘magic’, including

xii Introduction

Greek µiγος and the Latin terms magus, magicus, from which our modern term ‘magic’ itself derives, do have an interesting and culturallydiverse history, which we will examine in some depth. But as I hope toestablish early on, a focus on particular historically attested practices is amore productive way to explore ancient behavior, and doing so often drawsinto question what to earlier generations of scholars had seemed clearlyto be, for instance, either magic or religion. From the point of view of thisbook, such a distinction is largely effete.

The heart of this book contains five chapters that consider the method-ological approaches to magic in anthropology; the development of Greekmagic in the classical period; binding magic, curse tablets, and erotic spells,including the use of figurines; incantations derived from Homeric poetryin late antiquity; and the long history of Greek and Roman legislation againstmagic reaching into the early Middle Ages. A treatment of Roman laws onmagic may seem out of place in a book on Greek magic, except that theRomans inherited most forms of Greek magic and in their laws continuedto seek Greek precedents to refine Roman magical terms. On more thanone occasion in this book we will extend our study into the medieval period– naturally, because Roman law served as the basis for prosecuting magicin the Middle Ages, and the practices that were prohibited more often thannot were essentially Greek in character. More rarely, we shall make excur-sions into the early modern period, if only to highlight the commandingplace which Greek, and subsequently Roman, magical concepts andpractices held for later Europeans.

In chapter 1, I offer a history of anthropological theories of magical beha-vior, from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, which derive for themost part from studies of non-Greek cultures. This chapter is required read-ing in order to make sense of my interpretations of the Greek material.Rather than a mere survey of anthropological approaches to magic,instead I outline key concepts of sympathy, analogy, agency, causality, and participation which inform my analyses of particular Greek magicalpractices. At the same time, by tracing the main approaches to magic in anthropology, I show where false steps were made and where under-lying assumptions misled scholars to ask the wrong kinds of questions about magic. Every reader of this book will bring assumptions to the tableabout what magic means – and many of these I hope to explode in chap-ter 1 with the help of anthropology, starting with the nature of belief inmagic itself.

In chapter 2, I outline a framework for understanding ancient Greekmagic. Here we explore the development of Greek concepts of magic inthe fifth and fourth centuries bce, and their underlying basis in causal rela-tionships between the mortal and divine worlds. Next I briefly survey the

Introduction xiii

individuals most associated with magical practice, from Persian priests toitinerant ritual specialists for hire, and finally review the most commonmagical practices associated with these individuals. New arguments areadvanced that Gorgias, who is the first to use the Greek term mageia, under-stood ‘magic’ to be essentially purificatory in character, in line withEmpedocles and the Hippocratic physicians. Moreover, I argue that theHippocratic author of On the Sacred Disease, who offers the most stridentattack against ‘magicians’, misunderstood the relationship between his ownsubject matter, epilepsy, and magic. Instead, I demonstrate that epilepsycould be caused by magical binding, making the remedies offered by thenotorious itinerant specialists peculiarly apt.

In chapter 3, I survey the varieties of binding magic, with a particulareye toward its development in curse tablets or defixiones, and eroticmagic and figurines. Binding the gods in Greek myth is offered as a par-allel to human binding, and the argument is made that binding producesa disability in its victim which inverts Greek notions of physical health.The accumulation of body parts in curse tablets is contrasted with the sin-gling out of body parts in the Greek and Roman practice of manufactur-ing terracotta votives, which were deposited in temples and other sacredsites. Both practices incorporate an extensible notion of the body, whichcan be collapsed or distributed in time and space as needed. Examples ofbinding magic used in erotic spells are then discussed, which leads to atreatment of figurines in Greek magic generally, and in erotic magic in par-ticular. I argue that magical figurines have to be situated within a broaderunderstanding of Greek attitudes toward statuary – since figurines are tinystatues – that view them as social agents which exhibit some, but not all,human attributes. A discussion of Greek and Greco-Egyptian examples ofanimating Eros figurines to attract a beloved, with some attention paid tothe theurgic animation of figurines within Neoplatonism, serves as amodel of social agency and concludes the chapter.

In chapter 4, I explore the late antique phenomenon of using Homericverses as incantations. Incantations (epDidai) have a long history in Greekmagic, starting with references to their use within Homeric poetry itself.But between the first and fourth centuries ce in Greco-Roman Egypt wefind that individual verses are used, sometimes by themselves, some-times with accompanying rituals, to heal specific ailments or to engenderspecific changes in their users. The principles by which verses wereselected and why are exposed, and attention is given to both prevailingmedical and popularly understood theories of ailment to illustrate why certain verses were chosen over others. The practice of using Homeric verses for incantations is then situated within late antique Neoplatonismand theurgy, which I argue provides the most cogent rationale for why