Magic in the Greco-Roman world
Encyclopedia
The study of magic in the Greco-Roman world is a branch of the disciplines of classics
, ancient history
and religious studies
. In the ancient post-hellenistic world of the Greeks
and Romans
(the Greco-Roman world), the public and private rituals associated with religion
are accepted by historians and archaeologists to have been a part of everyday life. Examples of this phenomenon are found in the various state and cult Temples, Jewish Synagogues and in the early Christian
cathedrals and churches. These were important hubs for the ancient peoples of the Greco-Roman world that were representative of a connection between the heavenly realms (the divine
) and the earthly planes (the dwelling place of humanity
). This context of magic has become an academic study especially in the last twenty years. Magic
is generally seen as "any attempt to control the environment or the self by means that are either untested or untestable, such as charms or spells."
However magic seems to have borrowed from religion, adopting religious ceremonies and divine names, and the two are sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish. Magic is often differentiated from religion in that it is manipulative rather than supplicatory of the deities; this is not a hard and fast rule, though, and with many ritual acts it is difficult to tell whether they are coercive or supplicatory. Also, some mainstream religious rites openly set out to constrain the gods. Other rough criteria sometimes used to distinguish magic from religion include: that it is aimed at selfish or immoral ends; and that it is conducted in secrecy, often for a paying client. Religious rites, on the other hand, are more often aimed at lofty goals such as salvation or rebirth, and are conducted in the open for the benefit of the community or a group of followers.
Alongside the more common manifestations of state religion, ancient peoples sought individual contact and assistance, along with influence, with the heavenly realms through other channels. Religious ritual had the intended purpose of giving a god their just due honor, or asking for divine intervention and favor, while magic is seen as practiced by those who seek only power, and often undertaken based on a false scientific basis. Ultimately, the practice of magic includes rites that do not play a part in worship, and are ultimately irreligious. Associations with this term tend to be an evolving process in ancient literature, but generally speaking ancient magic reflects aspects of broader religious traditions in the Mediterranean world, that is, a belief in magic reflects a belief in deities, divination
, and words of power. The concept of magic however came to represent a more coherent and self-reflective tradition exemplified by magicians seeking to fuse varying non-traditional elements of Greco-Roman religious practice into something specifically called magic. This fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire
, in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE
. This article therefore covers the development of this tradition and an evolving definition associated with the term "magic
" in the texts left to us by practitioners and authors of the ancient Greco-Roman world.
Via Latin magicus, the word "magic" derives from Greek magikos, with "magic" being the art and craft of the magos, the Greek word for followers of "Zoroaster" (i.e. either Zoroaster
or Pseudo-Zoroaster). The relationship with "magic" derives from the Hellenistic identification of (Pseudo-)Zoroaster as the "inventor" of both astrology and magic. This was in turn influenced by (among other factors) the Greek penchant for seeking hidden meanings in words; the name "Zoroaster" was presumed to have something to do with the stars (-astr), while magos was perceived to have to do with goēs, the old Greek word for "magic" (in the modern sense). However, in the main, (Pseudo-)Zoroaster seems to have been almost exclusively identified with astrology, and magic then remained the domain of other (real or putative) "magians" such as the synthetic "Ostanes".
Because magos/magikos were influenced by the association with the old Greek word for "magic", Greek magos/magikos accordingly held the same meaning that "magic" and "magician" do today. Although a few Greek writers – e.g. Herodotus
, Xenophon
, Plutarch
– did use magos in connection with their descriptions of (Zoroastrian) religious beliefs or practices, the majority seem to have understood it in the sense of "magician". Accordingly, the more skeptical writers then also identified the "magicians" – i.e. the magians – as charlatans or frauds. In Plato
's Symposium
(202e), the Athenian identified them as maleficent, allowing however a measure of efficacy as a function of the god Eros. Pliny
paints them in particularly bad light.
The History of Animals
, a work attributed to Aristotle
, seeks to establish that the planets and the fixed stars and daemons (nature spirits) influence life on earth, and advocates a concept of sympathies and antipathies applied to the forces of the animal world, under the influence of the stars. The attribution of much of this material may be spurious, since Books 7-10 of the History, in which these ideas mostly appear, are not considered genuine by most scholars (Book 10, for instance, is missing in the oldest extant manuscript). However, according to Lynn Thorndike, the material still probably reflects teachings of the Aristotelian
school, which subscribed to a quasi–stellar theology and entertained natural sympathies and antipathies, that were, at least in principle, animistic beliefs
. Thorndike comments: "Greek science at its best was not untainted by magic".
In Greek literature, the earliest magical operation that supports a definition of magic as a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces (the sympathies and antipathies that make up these forces) of the world (physis) is found in Book X of The Odyssey (a text at least as old as the early 8th century BCE). Book X describes the encounter of the central hero Odysseus
with the Titan
Circe
, "She who is sister to the wizard Aeetes, both being children of the Sun…by the same mother, Perse
the daughter of the Ocean," on the island of Aeaea
. In the story Circe's magic consists in the use of a wand against Odysseus
and his men while Odysseus's magic consists of the use of a secret herb called moly (revealed to him by the god Hermes
, "god of the golden wand") to defend himself from her attack. In the story three requisites crucial to the idiom of "magic" in later literature are found:
These are arguably the three most common elements that characterize magic as a system in the later Hellenistic and greco-Roman periods of history.
Another important element to defining magic is also found in the story. In the story Circe is presented as being in the form of a beautiful woman (a temptress) when Odysseus encounters her on an island. In this encounter Circe uses her wand to change Odysseus’ companions into swine. This suggests that magic is often associated with practices that go against the natural order, or against wise and good forces (Circe is called a witch by a companion of Odysseus). Circe too is representative of a power (the Titan
s) that had been conquered by the younger Olympian gods such as Zeus
, Poseidon
and Hades
. Furthermore she had been banished to the island of Aeaea after having murdered her husband. She is thus quite dangerous: secretive, opposed to the gods, a semi-divine power left over from the older god culture of the Titans. However the internal fact that Odysseus has first to visit her before she becomes a threat suggests that she has a relatively harmless power if one keeps to a distance, but very dangerous if one comes within reach of her magic. Magic then is a second-class power, it does not compare to the powers of tradition or of the gods. It has to work in secret to achieve its ends. Thus, although Circe changes Odysseus's companions into swine, she has no power over Odysseus himself because of his own magic, the herb, moly. Magic is defeatable by other magic. Odysseus's magic is more acceptable because a legitimate god (Hermes) confers the wisdom of its use to Odysseus.
Not even Hermes, however, can protect Odysseus from Circe's physical charms; and the hero does eventually succumb to the power of the magic user. This represents the idea that users of magic are not to be trusted because of the powers they are prepared to pursue and use, in this case the sexual powers associated with witches. This is indicated by the fact that Circe can not only transform men into beasts but is also able to predict the future. This ability is linked in with another magical motif of the Odyssey epic, the necromantic scene in Book XI. Following Circe's instructions on how to journey to the underworld
, Odysseus digs a trench, pours out as an offering to the dead a drink that consists of honey, milk, wine and water, and slaughters two black sheep in such a way that their blood runs into the ditch. This attracts the shades of the dead in flocks and by drinking the blood they regain, for a short time, the ability to communicate with the living (Odysseus) and pass on their knowledge of the future. There is much dread and danger associated with Odysseus performing the act,
Panic drained the blood from my cheeks…while they [Odysseus’ companions] prayed to the gods… But I sat myself on guard, bare sword in hand, and prevented any of the feckless ghosts from approaching the blood before I had speech with Teiresias [the ghost of a prophet].
The magical act appears to be an act of desperation (Odysseus needs to journey to the underworld), there is danger associated with the act, which the text suggests only the fortitude (the morality?) of the character and perhaps also the prayers to the gods by Odysseus’ men can overcome its peril.
, Pythagoras
, and Empedocles
. Orpheus is a mythical figure, said to have lived in Thrace
"a generation before Homer" (though he is in fact depicted on 5th-century ceramics in Greek costume). Orphism, or the Orphic Mysteries, seems also to have been central to the personages of Pythagoras and Empedocles who lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Pythagoras for example is said to have described Orpheus, as, "the…father of melodious songs." Since Aeschylus
(the Greek Playwright) later describes him as he who "haled all things by the rapture of his voice," this suggests belief in the efficacy of song and voice in magic. Orpheus is certainly associated with a great many deeds: the most famous perhaps being his descent to the underworld to bring back his wife, Eurydice. Orpheus’ deeds are not usually condemned or spoken of negatively. This suggests that some forms of magic were more acceptable. Indeed the term applied to Orpheus to separate him, presumably, from magicians of ill repute is theios aner or ‘divine man’. Since magic in the negative sense is often defined by culture, or by authorities against a sub-culture, this suggests that there was a fine line between acceptance and condemnation. This fine line is demonstrated by negative connotations given to Orpheus’ life that do exist (in contrast to the generally positive mythology). Plato claims that Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his wife from the underworld lacked,
…The courage to die as Alcestis
did for love, choosing rather to scheme his way, living, into Hades
. And it was for this that the gods doomed him, and doomed him justly, to meet his death at the hands of women.
There was then a price to pay for meddling with magic, powers that should only be the business of the gods—even for one such as Orpheus—without the proper motivations.
Magical powers were also attributed to the famous mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as recorded in the days of Aristotle. The traditions concerning Pythagoras are somewhat complicated because the number of Vitae that do survive are often contradictory in their interpretation of the figure of Pythagoras. Some of the magical acts attributed to him include: 1. Being seen at the same hour in two cities. 2. A white eagle permitting him to stroke it. 3. A river greeting him with the words "Hail, Pythagoras!" 4. Predicting that a dead man would be found on a ship entering a harbor. 5. Predicting the appearance of a white bear and declaring it was dead before the messenger reached him bearing the news. 6. Biting a poisonous snake to death (or in some versions driving a snake out from a village). These stories also hint at Pythagoras being one of these "divine man" figures, (theios aner), his ability to control animals and to transcend space and time showing he has been touched by the gods.
Empedocles too has ascribed to him marvelous powers associated with later magicians: that is, he is able to heal the sick, rejuvenate the old, to influence the weather and to summon the dead. E.R. Dodds in his 1951 book, The Greeks and the Irrational, argued that Empedocles was a combination of poet, magus, teacher, and scientist. Dodds argued that since much of the acquired knowledge of individuals like Pythagoras or Empedocles was somewhat mysterious even to those with a rudimentary educations, so such might be associated with magic or at least with the learning of a Magus. It is important to note that after Empedocles, the scale of magical gifts in exceptional individuals shrinks in the literature, becoming specialized. Individuals might have the gift of healing, or the gift of prophecy, but are not usually credited with a wide range of supernatural powers as are magoi like Orpheus, Pythagoras and Empedocles. Plato reflects such an attitude in his Laws (933a-e) where he takes healers, prophets and sorcerers for granted. He acknowledges that these practitioners existed in Athens (and thus presumably in other Greek cities), and they had to be reckoned with and controlled by laws; but one should not be afraid of them, their powers are real, but they themselves represent a rather low order of humanity. An early Christian analogy is found in the 1st century CE writings of the Apostle Paul. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians conceptualizes the idea of a limitation of spiritual gifts.
The ascendancy of orthodox Christianity
by the 5th century CE had much to do with this. This is reflected by the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul convinces many Ephesians to bring out their magical books and burn them. The language of the magical papyri reflects various levels of literary skill, but generally they are standard Greek, and in fact they may well be closer to the spoken language of the time than to poetry or artistic prose left to us in literary texts. Many terms are borrowed, in the papyri, it would seem, from the mystery cults; thus magical formulas are sometimes called teletai (literally, "celebration of mysteries"), or the magician himself is called mystagogos (the priest who leads the candidates for initiation). Much Jewish lore and some of the names for God
also appear in the magical papyri. Jao
for Yahweh, Sabaoth, and Adonai appear quite frequently for example. As magicians are concerned with secrets it must have seemed to many outsiders of Judaism
that Yahweh was a secret deity, for after all no images were produced of the Jewish God and God's real name was not pronounced, as the basis of speculation on magic.
The texts of the Greek magical papyri
are often written as we might write a recipe: "Take the eyes of a bat…" for example. So in other words the magic requires certain ingredients, much as Odysseus required the herb Moly to defeat the magic of Circe. But of course it is not just as simple as knowing how to put a recipe together. Appropriate gestures, at certain points in the magical ritual, are required to accompany the ingredients, different gestures it would seem produce various effects. A magical ritual done in the right way can guarantee the revealing of dreams and of course the rather useful talent of interpreting them correctly. In other cases certain spells allow one to send out a daemon or daemons to harm one's enemies or even to break up someone's marriage. There seems to be a self-defining negativity to some of the magical rituals being expressed in the papyri. So, for example, love magic can turn into hate magic if the victim does not respond to the love magic.
This self-defined negative aspect to magic (as opposed to other groups defining your practices as negative even if you don’t) is found in various ‘curse tablets
,’ (tabellae defixionum) left to us from the Greco-Roman world. The term defixio is derived from the Latin verb defigere, which means literally "to pin down," but which was also associated with the idea of delivering someone to the powers of the underworld. Of course, it was also possible to curse an enemy through a spoken word, either in his presence or behind his back. But due to numbers of curse tablets that have been found it would seem that this type of magic was considered more effective. The process involved writing the victim's name on a thin sheet of lead along with varying magical formulas or symbols, then burying the tablet in or near a tomb, a place of execution, or a battlefield, to give spirits of the dead power over the victim. Sometimes the curse tablets were even transfixed with various items – such as nails, which were believed to add magical potency.
Of course for most magic acts or rituals there existed magics to counter the effects. Amulet
s were one of the most common protections (or counter-magics) used in the Greco-Roman world as protection against such fearful things as curses and the evil eye
; which were seen as very real by most of its inhabitants. While amulets were often made of cheap materials, precious stones were believed to have special efficacy. Many thousands of carved gems were found that clearly had a magical rather than an ornamental function. Amulets were a very widespread type of magic, because of the fear of other types of magic such as curses being used against oneself. Thus amulets were actually often a mixture of various formulas from Babylonian, Egyptian
, and Greek
elements that were probably worn by those of most affiliations so as to protect against other forms of magic. It is interesting to note that amulets are actually often abbreviated forms of the formulas found in the extant magical papyri.
Magical tools were thus very common in magical rituals. Tools were probably just as important as the spells and incantations that were repeated for each magical ritual. A magician's kit, probably dating from the 3rd century CE, was discovered in the remains of the ancient city of Pergamon
in Asia Minor
and gives direct evidence of this. The find consisted of a bronze table and base covered with symbols, a dish (also decorated with symbols), a large bronze nail with letters inscribed on its flat sides, two bronze rings, and three black polished stones inscribed with the names of supernatural powers. What emerges then, from this evidence, is the conclusion that a type of permanence and universality of magic had developed in the Greco-Roman world by the Hellenistic period if not earlier. The scholarly consensus strongly suggests that although many testimonies about magic are relatively late, the practices they reveal are almost certainly much older. However the level of credence or efficacy given to magical practices in the early Greek and Roman worlds by comparison to the late Hellenistic period is not well known.
In a typical theurgical rite, contact with divinity occurs either through the soul of the theurgist or medium leaving the body and ascending to heaven, where the divinity is perceived, or through the descent of the divinity to earth to appear to the theurgist in a vision or a dream. In the latter case, the divinity is drawn down by appropriate "symbols" or magical formulae. According to the Greek philosopher Plotinus
(205-270 CE) theurgy attempts to bring all things in the universe into sympathy, and man into connection with all things via the forces that flow through them. Theurgia connoted an exalted form of magic, and philosophers interested in magic adopted this term to distinguish themselves from the magoi or goetes — lower-class practitioners. Goetia was a derogatory term connoting low, specious or fraudulent mageia. Interestingly, goetia is similar in its ambiguity to charm: it means both magic and power to (sexually) attract.
literature dealing with magic are retellings of Greek myths. Virgil
s's (70-19 BCE) Book IV of the Aeneid
for example describes a magical ceremony that the hero of the epic, Aeneas, who has landed on the coast of North Africa after fleeing from Troy, partakes in. Here Aeneas
meets Queen Dido, who has just begun to build the city of Carthage
. Dido falls in love with Aeneas, and wishes him to stay as her prince consort. One is reminded of the Circe episode in the Odyssey and of Jason
and Medea
in Apollonius' Argonautica. In these epics also, a traveling hero meets a beautiful female who is potentially dangerous, although kind and hospitable as long as her love for the hero lasts. Thus the clash is set when Fate decrees that Aeneas leave Dido to found a city of his own (in Italy). Perhaps inevitably Dido's love turns to hate. In her hate she seeks to use a complex magical ritual to bring her former lover back to her. She builds a gigantic pyre in the main courtyard of her palace and prepares an elaborate sacrifice to the powers of the underworld. However Dido soon comes to realize that the love magic is not powerful enough to bring Aeneas back to her, so she kills herself in her despair, which in fact adds to the power and thus backlash to her curse. Dido thus had sealed and extended her curse through her suicide. Aeneas was protected by his gods, but because of Dido's use of magic her curse lingered on leading, according to Virgil, to Rome's near crushing defeat by Carthage many centuries later. This seems to demonstrate quite clearly that the Romans shared the Greek's view of magic as being dangerous and untrustworthy.
The Romans in fact went further than the Greeks in the condemnation and the fearfulness that they generate around their concept of magic. Some avid examples of this are found in the writings of Seneca
, the philosopher and playwright (c. 5 BCE - 65CE), and his nephew, Lucan
(39-65 CE). Seneca selects some of the most gruesome Greek myths for dramatic treatment and he greatly adds to the negative connotations already applied to the theme of magic, necromancy
and the like - where it is given by the mythical tradition (such as Medea
) and sometimes even where there is little negativity indicated towards magic (Hercules
on Mount Oeta for example). From the dialogue in this incident, that is, between Deineira (the wife of Hercules) and her nurse we learn that it may well have been quite common for jealous wives to consult a witch; as it turns out, the nurse, very conveniently, is a witch herself. There is a suggestion in this passage that a great hero such as Hercules should not be able to be influenced by magical means, but in the end he is overcome by the deadly concoction that the evil magic user (the nurse) passes on to Hercules, through deceiving Deianira into the belief that she is giving Hercules a love charm.
So too Seneca
's Medea, in his version her invocations and incantations are not left to the imagination, as they were when Apollonius of Rhodes
wrote his epic three centuries previously. Here Medea's power of hating (crucial to her magic), which she can switch on and intensify at will is still the dominant theme, but Medea is now given a full cupboard of horrors from which to select the most efficient means of magical destruction. Her magic can even, apparently affect the cosmos, as she claims that she can force down the constellation of the Snake. Lucan
in Book 6 of his work, the Pharsalia
, seems to make an effort to surpass his uncle in portraying the horrors and powers of witchcraft. In his play, just before the decisive battle of Pharsalus of 48 BCE, in which Julius Caesar
defeats the forces of Pompey
, the two armies are moving through Thessaly
, the country of witchcraft in Lucan's work. Here one of Pompey's sons consults a famous witch called Erictho about the outcome of the upcoming confrontation. In Lucan's epic, Erictho is the most powerful of witches, and because she is so powerful she is presented as being quite loathsome and disgusting. Such are her powers that she can even compel some of the lesser gods
to serve her and even cause them to shudder at her spells. As exaggerated as these plays are they demonstrate knowledge of magical practices found in the Greek magical papyri mentioned earlier and they demonstrate that the audience these plays are aimed at must have easily understood the concept of magic in a negative sense but also in the sense of being a practice aimed at influencing or controlling the forces of the cosmos, even the gods themselves.
the Christ, Simon Magus
and Apollonius of Tyana
. From an outsider's point of view Jesus was a typical miracle-worker. He exorcised daemons, healed the sick, made prophecies and raised the dead. As Christianity grew and became seen as a threat to established traditions of religion in the Greco-Roman world (particularly to the Roman Empire with its policy of emperor worship) Jesus (and by inference his followers) were accused of being magic users. Certainly Christian texts such as the Gospels told a life story full of features common to divinely touched figures: Jesus’ divine origin, his miraculous birth, and his facing of a powerful daemon
(Satan
) being but a few examples. The gospel of Matthew
claims that Jesus was taken to Egypt
as an infant, this was actually used by hostile sources to explain his knowledge of magic; according to one rabbinical story, he came back tattooed with spells. It is also argued in rabbinical tradition that Jesus was mad, which was often associated with people of great power (dynamis). Scholars such as Morton Smith
have even tried to argue that Jesus was a magician. Morton Smith, in his book, Jesus the Magician, points out that the Gospels speak of the "descent of the spirit," the pagans of "possession by a daemon,". According to Morton Smith both are explanations for very similar phenomena. If so this shows the convenience that using the term "magic" had in the Roman Empire - in delineating between what "they do and what you do".
Simon is the name of a magus mentioned in the canonical book of Acts
8:9ff, in apocryphal texts and elsewhere. In the Book of Acts Simon the Magus is presented as being deeply impressed by the apostle Peter
's cures and exorcisms and by the gift of the Spirit that came from the apostles’ laying on of hands; therefore, he "believed and was baptized". But Simon asks the apostles to sell him their special gift so that he can practice it too. This seems to represent the attitude of a professional magician. In other words, for Simon, the power of this new movement is a kind of magic that can be purchased - perhaps a common practice for magicians in parts of the Greco-Roman world. The Apostles response to Simon was emphatic in its rejection. The early church drew a strong line of demarcation between what it practiced and the practices of magic users. As the church continued to develop this demarcation Simon comes under even greater scrutiny in later Christian texts. The prominent Christian author Justin Martyr
for example, claims that Simon was a magus of Samaria
, and that his followers committed the blasphemy
of worshiping Simon as God. The veracity of this is not certain, but proves the desire of the early Christians to escape an association with magic.
The third magus of interest in the period of the Roman Empire is Apollonius of Tyana
(c. 40 AD-c. 120 AD). Between 217 and 238 Flavius Philostratus
wrote his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a lengthy, but unreliable novelistic source. Philostratus was a protégé of the empress Julia Domna
, mother of the emperor Caracalla
. According to him, she owned the memoirs of one Damis
, an alleged disciple of Apollonius, and gave these to Philostratus as the raw material for a literary treatment. Some scholars believe the memoirs of Damis are an invention of Philostratus, others think it was a real book forged by someone else and used by Philostratus. The latter possibility is more likely. In any case it is a literary fake. From Philostratus’ biography Apollonius emerges as an ascetic traveling teacher. He is usually labeled a new Pythagoras, and at the very least he does represent the same combination of philosopher and magus that Pythagoras was. According to Philostratus Apollonius traveled far and wide, as far as India, teaching ideas reasonably consistent with traditional Pythagorean doctrine; but in fact, it is most likely that he never left the Greek East
of the Roman Empire. In Late Antiquity talisman
s allegedly made by Apollonius appeared in several Greek cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, as if they were sent from heaven. They were magical figures and columns erected in public places, meant to protect the cities from plagues and other afflictions.
Thus Solomon was seen as the greatest scientist, but also the greatest occultist of his time, learned in astrology, plant magic, daemonology, divination, and ta physika (science).
These are the central aims of magic as an independent tradition - knowledge and power and control of the mysteries of the cosmos. Such aims can be viewed negatively or positively by ancient authors. The Jewish historian Josephus
for example, writes that: "God gave him [Solomon] knowledge of the art that is used against daemons, in order to heal and benefit men". Elsewhere however, "…there was an Egyptian false prophet [a magician] that did the Jews more mischief…for he was a cheat…" The idea of magic can thus be an idiom loosely defined in ancient thinking. But whether magic is viewed negatively or positively the substance of it as a practice can be drawn out. That is, that magic was a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces of the cosmos, and the sympathies and antipathies that were seen to make up these forces.
(CE 23/24-79) is a voluminous survey of knowledge of the late Hellenistic era, based according to Pliny on a hundred or so earlier authorities. This rather extensive work deals with an amazing variety of issues cosmology, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, metallurgy and many others. It is interesting to note that Pliny was convinced of the powers of certain herbs or roots as revealed to humanity by the gods. Pliny argued that the divine powers in their concern for the welfare of humanity wish for humanity to discover the secrets of nature. Pliny indeed argues that in their wisdom the gods sought to bring humans gradually closer to their status; which certainly many magical traditions seek – that is by acquiring knowledge one can aspire to gain knowledge even from the gods. Pliny expresses a firm concept is firmly being able to understand this "cosmic sympathy" that, if properly understood and used, operates for the good of humanity. While here lies expressed the central tenants of magic Pliny is by means averse to using the term "magic" in a negative sense. Pliny argues that the claims of the professional magicians were either exaggerated or simply false. Pliny expresses a rather an interesting concept when he states that those sorcerers who had written down their spells and recipes despised and hated humanity (for spreading their lies perhaps?). To show this Pliny link arts of the magicians of Rome with the emperor Nero (who of course is often portrayed negatively), whom Pliny claims had studied magic with the best teachers and had access to the best books, but was unable to do anything extraordinary. Pliny's conclusion, however, is cautious: though magic is ineffective and infamous, it nevertheless contains "shadows of truth", particularly of the "arts of making poisons". Yet, Pliny states, "there is no one who is not afraid of spells" (including himself presumably). The amulets and charms that people wore as a kind of preventive medicine he neither commends or condemns, but instead suggests that it is better to err on the side of caution, for, who knows, a new kind of magic, a magic that really works, may be developed at any time. If such an attitude prevailed in the Greco-Roman world this may explain why professional magicians, such as Simon the Magus, were on the lookout for new ideas. Of interest is the fact that Pliny devotes the beginning of Book 30 of his work to the magi of Persia and refers to them here and there especially in Books 28 and 29. Pliny defines the Magi at times as sorcerers, but also seems to acknowledge that they are priests of a foreign religion, along the lines of the Druids of the Celts in Britain and Gaul. According to Pliny, the art of the magi touches three areas: "healing
," "ritual
," and "astrology
."
To the Platonist philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-125 CE) we owe the treatise On Superstition. Plutarch defines "'superstition
" as "fear of the gods." Specifically, he mentions that fear of the gods leads to the need to resort to magical rites and taboos, the consultation of professional sorcerers and witches, charms
and spells, and unintelligible language in prayers addressed to the gods. Although Plutarch himself takes dreams
and portents
seriously, he reserves superstition for those who have excessive or exclusive faith in such phenomena. Clearly, it is a matter of discrimination. He also takes for granted other magical practices, such as hurting someone by the evil eye. He also believes in daemons that serve as agents or links between gods and human beings and are responsible for many supernatural events in human life that are commonly attributed to divine intervention. Thus, a daemon, not Apollo
himself, is the everyday power behind the Delphic oracle. Some daemons are good, some are evil, but even the good ones, in moments of anger, can do harmful acts. In general then, Plutarch actually accepts much of what we today might define as superstition in itself. So what he is really defining as superstition are those practices not compatible with his own philosophical doctrine.
A later Platonist, Apuleius of Madaura (born c. 125 CE), gives us a substantial amount of information on contemporary beliefs in magic, though perhaps through no initial choice of his own. Apuleius was accused of practicing magic, something outlawed under Roman law. The speech he delivered in his own defense against the charge of magic, in c. 160 CE, remains and it is from this Apologia that we learn how easy it was, at that time, for a philosopher to be accused of magical practices. Perhaps in a turn of irony or even a tacit admission of guilt Apuleius
, in his work of fiction Metamorphoses (or the The Golden Ass
), which perhaps has autobiographical elements, allows the hero, Lucius, to dabble in magic as a young man, get into trouble, be rescued by the goddess Isis, and then finds true knowledge and happiness in her mysteries. Like Plutarch Apuleius seems to take for granted the existence of daemons. They populate the air and seem to, in fact, be formed of air. They experience emotions just like human beings, and despite this their minds are rational. In light of Apuleuis’ experience it is worth noting that when magic is mentioned in Roman laws, it is always discussed in a negative context. A consensus was established quite early in Roman history for the banning of anything viewed as harmful acts of magic. The Laws of the Twelve Tablets (451-450 BCE) for example expressly forbid anyone from enticing his neighbors’ crops into his fields by magic. An actual trial for alleged violation of these laws was held before Spurius Albinus in 157 BCE. It is also recorded that Cornelius Hispallus expelled the Chaldea
n astrologers from Rome in 139 BCE - ostensibly on the grounds that they were magicians. In 33 BCE astrologers and magicians are explicitly mentioned as having been driven from Rome. Twenty years later, Augustus
ordered all books on the magical arts to be burned. In 16 CE magicians and astrologers were expelled from Italy, and this was reinstated by edicts of Vespasian
in 69 CE and Domitian in 89 CE. The emperor Constantine I
in the 4th century CE issued a ruling to cover all charges of magic. In it he distinguished between helpful charms, not punishable, and antagonistic spells. In these cases Roman authorities specifically decided what forms of magic were acceptable and which were not. Those that were not acceptable were termed "magic"; those that were acceptable were usually defined as traditions of the state or practices of the state's religions.
argues in his article "Theories of Magic"" in the Encyclopaedia of Religion that:
Magic is usually defined subjectively rather than by any agreed upon content. But there is a wide consensus as to what this content is. Most peoples in the world perform acts by which they intend to bring about certain events or conditions, whether in nature or among people, that they hold to be the consequences of those acts.
Under this view the various aspects of magic that described, despite how the term "magic" may be defined by various groupings within the Greco-Roman world, is in fact part of a broader cosmology shared by most people in the ancient world. But it is important to seek an understanding of the way that groups separate power from power, thus "magic" often describes an art or practices that are much more specific. This art is probably best described, as being the manipulation of physical objects and cosmic forces, through the recitation of formulas and incantations by a specialist (that is a magus) on behalf of him/herself or a client to bring about control over or action in the divine realms. The Magical texts examined in this article, then, are ritual texts designed to manipulate divine powers for the benefit of either the user or clients. Because this was something done in secret or with foreign methods these texts represent an art that was generally looked upon as illegitimate by official or mainstream magical cults in societies.
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
, ancient history
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
and religious studies
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
. In the ancient post-hellenistic world of the Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
and Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
(the Greco-Roman world), the public and private rituals associated with religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
are accepted by historians and archaeologists to have been a part of everyday life. Examples of this phenomenon are found in the various state and cult Temples, Jewish Synagogues and in the early Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
cathedrals and churches. These were important hubs for the ancient peoples of the Greco-Roman world that were representative of a connection between the heavenly realms (the divine
Divinity
Divinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
) and the earthly planes (the dwelling place of humanity
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...
). This context of magic has become an academic study especially in the last twenty years. Magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
is generally seen as "any attempt to control the environment or the self by means that are either untested or untestable, such as charms or spells."
Terminology
The principal defining factor of magic in the classical world is that it was held in low esteem and condemned by the speakers and writers. According to Robert Parker, "magic differs from religion as weeds differ from flowers"; magic was often seen consisting of practices that range from silly superstition to the wicked and dangerous.However magic seems to have borrowed from religion, adopting religious ceremonies and divine names, and the two are sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish. Magic is often differentiated from religion in that it is manipulative rather than supplicatory of the deities; this is not a hard and fast rule, though, and with many ritual acts it is difficult to tell whether they are coercive or supplicatory. Also, some mainstream religious rites openly set out to constrain the gods. Other rough criteria sometimes used to distinguish magic from religion include: that it is aimed at selfish or immoral ends; and that it is conducted in secrecy, often for a paying client. Religious rites, on the other hand, are more often aimed at lofty goals such as salvation or rebirth, and are conducted in the open for the benefit of the community or a group of followers.
Alongside the more common manifestations of state religion, ancient peoples sought individual contact and assistance, along with influence, with the heavenly realms through other channels. Religious ritual had the intended purpose of giving a god their just due honor, or asking for divine intervention and favor, while magic is seen as practiced by those who seek only power, and often undertaken based on a false scientific basis. Ultimately, the practice of magic includes rites that do not play a part in worship, and are ultimately irreligious. Associations with this term tend to be an evolving process in ancient literature, but generally speaking ancient magic reflects aspects of broader religious traditions in the Mediterranean world, that is, a belief in magic reflects a belief in deities, divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
, and words of power. The concept of magic however came to represent a more coherent and self-reflective tradition exemplified by magicians seeking to fuse varying non-traditional elements of Greco-Roman religious practice into something specifically called magic. This fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...
. This article therefore covers the development of this tradition and an evolving definition associated with the term "magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
" in the texts left to us by practitioners and authors of the ancient Greco-Roman world.
Via Latin magicus, the word "magic" derives from Greek magikos, with "magic" being the art and craft of the magos, the Greek word for followers of "Zoroaster" (i.e. either Zoroaster
Zoroaster
Zoroaster , also known as Zarathustra , was a prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who was either born in North Western or Eastern Iran. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism...
or Pseudo-Zoroaster). The relationship with "magic" derives from the Hellenistic identification of (Pseudo-)Zoroaster as the "inventor" of both astrology and magic. This was in turn influenced by (among other factors) the Greek penchant for seeking hidden meanings in words; the name "Zoroaster" was presumed to have something to do with the stars (-astr), while magos was perceived to have to do with goēs, the old Greek word for "magic" (in the modern sense). However, in the main, (Pseudo-)Zoroaster seems to have been almost exclusively identified with astrology, and magic then remained the domain of other (real or putative) "magians" such as the synthetic "Ostanes".
Because magos/magikos were influenced by the association with the old Greek word for "magic", Greek magos/magikos accordingly held the same meaning that "magic" and "magician" do today. Although a few Greek writers – e.g. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
, Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
– did use magos in connection with their descriptions of (Zoroastrian) religious beliefs or practices, the majority seem to have understood it in the sense of "magician". Accordingly, the more skeptical writers then also identified the "magicians" – i.e. the magians – as charlatans or frauds. In Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
(202e), the Athenian identified them as maleficent, allowing however a measure of efficacy as a function of the god Eros. Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
paints them in particularly bad light.
The History of Animals
History of Animals
History of Animals is a zoological natural history text by Aristotle.-Arabic translation:The Arabic translation of Historia Animalium comprises treatises 1-10 of the Kitāb al-Hayawān .-See also:...
, a work attributed to Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, seeks to establish that the planets and the fixed stars and daemons (nature spirits) influence life on earth, and advocates a concept of sympathies and antipathies applied to the forces of the animal world, under the influence of the stars. The attribution of much of this material may be spurious, since Books 7-10 of the History, in which these ideas mostly appear, are not considered genuine by most scholars (Book 10, for instance, is missing in the oldest extant manuscript). However, according to Lynn Thorndike, the material still probably reflects teachings of the Aristotelian
Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. The works of Aristotle were initially defended by the members of the Peripatetic school, and, later on, by the Neoplatonists, who produced many commentaries on Aristotle's writings...
school, which subscribed to a quasi–stellar theology and entertained natural sympathies and antipathies, that were, at least in principle, animistic beliefs
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
. Thorndike comments: "Greek science at its best was not untainted by magic".
Homeric magic
In Greek literature, the earliest magical operation that supports a definition of magic as a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces (the sympathies and antipathies that make up these forces) of the world (physis) is found in Book X of The Odyssey (a text at least as old as the early 8th century BCE). Book X describes the encounter of the central hero Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
with the Titan
Titan (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....
Circe
Circe
In Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...
, "She who is sister to the wizard Aeetes, both being children of the Sun…by the same mother, Perse
Perse
Perse may refer to:* Perse, Persa or Perseis, an Oceanid, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys in Greek mythology, wife of Helios* The Perse School, an independent co-educational school in Cambridge, England...
the daughter of the Ocean," on the island of Aeaea
Aeaea
Aeaea or Eëa was a mythological island said to be the home of the sorceress Circe. Odysseus tells Alcinous that he stayed here for a year on his way home to Ithaca....
. In the story Circe's magic consists in the use of a wand against Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
and his men while Odysseus's magic consists of the use of a secret herb called moly (revealed to him by the god Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
, "god of the golden wand") to defend himself from her attack. In the story three requisites crucial to the idiom of "magic" in later literature are found:
- The use of a mysterious tool endowed with special powers (the wandWandA wand is a thin, straight, hand-held stick of wood, stone, ivory, or metal. Generally, in modern language, wands are ceremonial and/or have associations with magic but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym of rod and virge, both of which had a similar...
). - The use of a rare magical herb.
- A divine figure that reveals the secret of the magical act (Hermes).
These are arguably the three most common elements that characterize magic as a system in the later Hellenistic and greco-Roman periods of history.
Another important element to defining magic is also found in the story. In the story Circe is presented as being in the form of a beautiful woman (a temptress) when Odysseus encounters her on an island. In this encounter Circe uses her wand to change Odysseus’ companions into swine. This suggests that magic is often associated with practices that go against the natural order, or against wise and good forces (Circe is called a witch by a companion of Odysseus). Circe too is representative of a power (the Titan
Titan (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....
s) that had been conquered by the younger Olympian gods such as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
and Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. Furthermore she had been banished to the island of Aeaea after having murdered her husband. She is thus quite dangerous: secretive, opposed to the gods, a semi-divine power left over from the older god culture of the Titans. However the internal fact that Odysseus has first to visit her before she becomes a threat suggests that she has a relatively harmless power if one keeps to a distance, but very dangerous if one comes within reach of her magic. Magic then is a second-class power, it does not compare to the powers of tradition or of the gods. It has to work in secret to achieve its ends. Thus, although Circe changes Odysseus's companions into swine, she has no power over Odysseus himself because of his own magic, the herb, moly. Magic is defeatable by other magic. Odysseus's magic is more acceptable because a legitimate god (Hermes) confers the wisdom of its use to Odysseus.
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
, Odysseus digs a trench, pours out as an offering to the dead a drink that consists of honey, milk, wine and water, and slaughters two black sheep in such a way that their blood runs into the ditch. This attracts the shades of the dead in flocks and by drinking the blood they regain, for a short time, the ability to communicate with the living (Odysseus) and pass on their knowledge of the future. There is much dread and danger associated with Odysseus performing the act,
Panic drained the blood from my cheeks…while they [Odysseus’ companions] prayed to the gods… But I sat myself on guard, bare sword in hand, and prevented any of the feckless ghosts from approaching the blood before I had speech with Teiresias [the ghost of a prophet].
The magical act appears to be an act of desperation (Odysseus needs to journey to the underworld), there is danger associated with the act, which the text suggests only the fortitude (the morality?) of the character and perhaps also the prayers to the gods by Odysseus’ men can overcome its peril.
Magic in Classical Greece
The 6th century BCE gives rise to scattered references of magoi at work in Greece. Many of these references representing a more positive conceptualisation of magic. Among the most famous of these Greek magoi, between Homer and the Hellenistic period, are the figures of OrpheusOrpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...
, Pythagoras
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
, and Empedocles
Empedocles
Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements...
. Orpheus is a mythical figure, said to have lived in Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
"a generation before Homer" (though he is in fact depicted on 5th-century ceramics in Greek costume). Orphism, or the Orphic Mysteries, seems also to have been central to the personages of Pythagoras and Empedocles who lived in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Pythagoras for example is said to have described Orpheus, as, "the…father of melodious songs." Since Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
(the Greek Playwright) later describes him as he who "haled all things by the rapture of his voice," this suggests belief in the efficacy of song and voice in magic. Orpheus is certainly associated with a great many deeds: the most famous perhaps being his descent to the underworld to bring back his wife, Eurydice. Orpheus’ deeds are not usually condemned or spoken of negatively. This suggests that some forms of magic were more acceptable. Indeed the term applied to Orpheus to separate him, presumably, from magicians of ill repute is theios aner or ‘divine man’. Since magic in the negative sense is often defined by culture, or by authorities against a sub-culture, this suggests that there was a fine line between acceptance and condemnation. This fine line is demonstrated by negative connotations given to Orpheus’ life that do exist (in contrast to the generally positive mythology). Plato claims that Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his wife from the underworld lacked,
…The courage to die as Alcestis
Alcestis
Alcestis is a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her story was popularised in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis. She was the daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and either Anaxibia or Phylomache....
did for love, choosing rather to scheme his way, living, into Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. And it was for this that the gods doomed him, and doomed him justly, to meet his death at the hands of women.
There was then a price to pay for meddling with magic, powers that should only be the business of the gods—even for one such as Orpheus—without the proper motivations.
Magical powers were also attributed to the famous mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, as recorded in the days of Aristotle. The traditions concerning Pythagoras are somewhat complicated because the number of Vitae that do survive are often contradictory in their interpretation of the figure of Pythagoras. Some of the magical acts attributed to him include: 1. Being seen at the same hour in two cities. 2. A white eagle permitting him to stroke it. 3. A river greeting him with the words "Hail, Pythagoras!" 4. Predicting that a dead man would be found on a ship entering a harbor. 5. Predicting the appearance of a white bear and declaring it was dead before the messenger reached him bearing the news. 6. Biting a poisonous snake to death (or in some versions driving a snake out from a village). These stories also hint at Pythagoras being one of these "divine man" figures, (theios aner), his ability to control animals and to transcend space and time showing he has been touched by the gods.
Empedocles too has ascribed to him marvelous powers associated with later magicians: that is, he is able to heal the sick, rejuvenate the old, to influence the weather and to summon the dead. E.R. Dodds in his 1951 book, The Greeks and the Irrational, argued that Empedocles was a combination of poet, magus, teacher, and scientist. Dodds argued that since much of the acquired knowledge of individuals like Pythagoras or Empedocles was somewhat mysterious even to those with a rudimentary educations, so such might be associated with magic or at least with the learning of a Magus. It is important to note that after Empedocles, the scale of magical gifts in exceptional individuals shrinks in the literature, becoming specialized. Individuals might have the gift of healing, or the gift of prophecy, but are not usually credited with a wide range of supernatural powers as are magoi like Orpheus, Pythagoras and Empedocles. Plato reflects such an attitude in his Laws (933a-e) where he takes healers, prophets and sorcerers for granted. He acknowledges that these practitioners existed in Athens (and thus presumably in other Greek cities), and they had to be reckoned with and controlled by laws; but one should not be afraid of them, their powers are real, but they themselves represent a rather low order of humanity. An early Christian analogy is found in the 1st century CE writings of the Apostle Paul. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians conceptualizes the idea of a limitation of spiritual gifts.
Magic in the Hellenistic period
The Hellenistic period (roughly the last three centuries BCE) is characterized by an avid interest in magic – though this may simply be because from this period a greater abundance of texts, both literary and some from actual practitioners, in Greek and in Latin remains. In fact many of the magical papyri that are extant were written in the 1st centuries of the Current Era, but their concepts, formulas and rituals reflect the earlier Hellenistic period, that is, a time when the systematization of magic in the Greco-Roman world seems to have taken place—particularly in the ‘melting pot’ of varying cultures that was Egypt under the Ptolemies and under Rome.The ascendancy of orthodox Christianity
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
by the 5th century CE had much to do with this. This is reflected by the book of Acts where the Apostle Paul convinces many Ephesians to bring out their magical books and burn them. The language of the magical papyri reflects various levels of literary skill, but generally they are standard Greek, and in fact they may well be closer to the spoken language of the time than to poetry or artistic prose left to us in literary texts. Many terms are borrowed, in the papyri, it would seem, from the mystery cults; thus magical formulas are sometimes called teletai (literally, "celebration of mysteries"), or the magician himself is called mystagogos (the priest who leads the candidates for initiation). Much Jewish lore and some of the names for God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
also appear in the magical papyri. Jao
JAO
JAO can refer to:*the Jewish Autonomous Oblast*the Thai language word sometimes transliterated as jao, see Chao - Thailand....
for Yahweh, Sabaoth, and Adonai appear quite frequently for example. As magicians are concerned with secrets it must have seemed to many outsiders of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
that Yahweh was a secret deity, for after all no images were produced of the Jewish God and God's real name was not pronounced, as the basis of speculation on magic.
The texts of the Greek magical papyri
Greek magical papyri
The Greek Magical Papyri is the name given by scholars to a body of papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which each contain a number of magical spells, formulae, hymns and rituals. The materials in the papyri date from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD...
are often written as we might write a recipe: "Take the eyes of a bat…" for example. So in other words the magic requires certain ingredients, much as Odysseus required the herb Moly to defeat the magic of Circe. But of course it is not just as simple as knowing how to put a recipe together. Appropriate gestures, at certain points in the magical ritual, are required to accompany the ingredients, different gestures it would seem produce various effects. A magical ritual done in the right way can guarantee the revealing of dreams and of course the rather useful talent of interpreting them correctly. In other cases certain spells allow one to send out a daemon or daemons to harm one's enemies or even to break up someone's marriage. There seems to be a self-defining negativity to some of the magical rituals being expressed in the papyri. So, for example, love magic can turn into hate magic if the victim does not respond to the love magic.
This self-defined negative aspect to magic (as opposed to other groups defining your practices as negative even if you don’t) is found in various ‘curse tablets
Curse tablet
A curse tablet or binding spell is a type of curse found throughout the Graeco-Roman world, in which someone would ask the gods to do harm to others.-Description:...
,’ (tabellae defixionum) left to us from the Greco-Roman world. The term defixio is derived from the Latin verb defigere, which means literally "to pin down," but which was also associated with the idea of delivering someone to the powers of the underworld. Of course, it was also possible to curse an enemy through a spoken word, either in his presence or behind his back. But due to numbers of curse tablets that have been found it would seem that this type of magic was considered more effective. The process involved writing the victim's name on a thin sheet of lead along with varying magical formulas or symbols, then burying the tablet in or near a tomb, a place of execution, or a battlefield, to give spirits of the dead power over the victim. Sometimes the curse tablets were even transfixed with various items – such as nails, which were believed to add magical potency.
Of course for most magic acts or rituals there existed magics to counter the effects. Amulet
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
s were one of the most common protections (or counter-magics) used in the Greco-Roman world as protection against such fearful things as curses and the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
; which were seen as very real by most of its inhabitants. While amulets were often made of cheap materials, precious stones were believed to have special efficacy. Many thousands of carved gems were found that clearly had a magical rather than an ornamental function. Amulets were a very widespread type of magic, because of the fear of other types of magic such as curses being used against oneself. Thus amulets were actually often a mixture of various formulas from Babylonian, Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, and Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
elements that were probably worn by those of most affiliations so as to protect against other forms of magic. It is interesting to note that amulets are actually often abbreviated forms of the formulas found in the extant magical papyri.
Magical tools were thus very common in magical rituals. Tools were probably just as important as the spells and incantations that were repeated for each magical ritual. A magician's kit, probably dating from the 3rd century CE, was discovered in the remains of the ancient city of Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
in Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and gives direct evidence of this. The find consisted of a bronze table and base covered with symbols, a dish (also decorated with symbols), a large bronze nail with letters inscribed on its flat sides, two bronze rings, and three black polished stones inscribed with the names of supernatural powers. What emerges then, from this evidence, is the conclusion that a type of permanence and universality of magic had developed in the Greco-Roman world by the Hellenistic period if not earlier. The scholarly consensus strongly suggests that although many testimonies about magic are relatively late, the practices they reveal are almost certainly much older. However the level of credence or efficacy given to magical practices in the early Greek and Roman worlds by comparison to the late Hellenistic period is not well known.
High and low magic
Magical operations largely fall into two categories: theurgical and goetic. The word theurgia in some contexts appears simply to try and glorify the kind of magic that is being practiced – usually a respectable priest-like figure is associated with the ritual. Of this, scholar E.R. Dodds claims:In a typical theurgical rite, contact with divinity occurs either through the soul of the theurgist or medium leaving the body and ascending to heaven, where the divinity is perceived, or through the descent of the divinity to earth to appear to the theurgist in a vision or a dream. In the latter case, the divinity is drawn down by appropriate "symbols" or magical formulae. According to the Greek philosopher Plotinus
Plotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
(205-270 CE) theurgy attempts to bring all things in the universe into sympathy, and man into connection with all things via the forces that flow through them. Theurgia connoted an exalted form of magic, and philosophers interested in magic adopted this term to distinguish themselves from the magoi or goetes — lower-class practitioners. Goetia was a derogatory term connoting low, specious or fraudulent mageia. Interestingly, goetia is similar in its ambiguity to charm: it means both magic and power to (sexually) attract.
Magic in the Roman era
Much of the extant RomanAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
literature dealing with magic are retellings of Greek myths. Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
s's (70-19 BCE) Book IV of the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...
for example describes a magical ceremony that the hero of the epic, Aeneas, who has landed on the coast of North Africa after fleeing from Troy, partakes in. Here Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...
meets Queen Dido, who has just begun to build the city of Carthage
Carthage
Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...
. Dido falls in love with Aeneas, and wishes him to stay as her prince consort. One is reminded of the Circe episode in the Odyssey and of Jason
Jason
Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...
and Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
in Apollonius' Argonautica. In these epics also, a traveling hero meets a beautiful female who is potentially dangerous, although kind and hospitable as long as her love for the hero lasts. Thus the clash is set when Fate decrees that Aeneas leave Dido to found a city of his own (in Italy). Perhaps inevitably Dido's love turns to hate. In her hate she seeks to use a complex magical ritual to bring her former lover back to her. She builds a gigantic pyre in the main courtyard of her palace and prepares an elaborate sacrifice to the powers of the underworld. However Dido soon comes to realize that the love magic is not powerful enough to bring Aeneas back to her, so she kills herself in her despair, which in fact adds to the power and thus backlash to her curse. Dido thus had sealed and extended her curse through her suicide. Aeneas was protected by his gods, but because of Dido's use of magic her curse lingered on leading, according to Virgil, to Rome's near crushing defeat by Carthage many centuries later. This seems to demonstrate quite clearly that the Romans shared the Greek's view of magic as being dangerous and untrustworthy.
The Romans in fact went further than the Greeks in the condemnation and the fearfulness that they generate around their concept of magic. Some avid examples of this are found in the writings of Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
, the philosopher and playwright (c. 5 BCE - 65CE), and his nephew, Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...
(39-65 CE). Seneca selects some of the most gruesome Greek myths for dramatic treatment and he greatly adds to the negative connotations already applied to the theme of magic, necromancy
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
and the like - where it is given by the mythical tradition (such as Medea
Medea
Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...
) and sometimes even where there is little negativity indicated towards magic (Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
on Mount Oeta for example). From the dialogue in this incident, that is, between Deineira (the wife of Hercules) and her nurse we learn that it may well have been quite common for jealous wives to consult a witch; as it turns out, the nurse, very conveniently, is a witch herself. There is a suggestion in this passage that a great hero such as Hercules should not be able to be influenced by magical means, but in the end he is overcome by the deadly concoction that the evil magic user (the nurse) passes on to Hercules, through deceiving Deianira into the belief that she is giving Hercules a love charm.
So too Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
's Medea, in his version her invocations and incantations are not left to the imagination, as they were when Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius of Rhodes
Apollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE – after 246 BCE, was a poet, and a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...
wrote his epic three centuries previously. Here Medea's power of hating (crucial to her magic), which she can switch on and intensify at will is still the dominant theme, but Medea is now given a full cupboard of horrors from which to select the most efficient means of magical destruction. Her magic can even, apparently affect the cosmos, as she claims that she can force down the constellation of the Snake. Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...
in Book 6 of his work, the Pharsalia
Pharsalia
The Pharsalia is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great...
, seems to make an effort to surpass his uncle in portraying the horrors and powers of witchcraft. In his play, just before the decisive battle of Pharsalus of 48 BCE, in which Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
defeats the forces of Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
, the two armies are moving through Thessaly
Thessaly
Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....
, the country of witchcraft in Lucan's work. Here one of Pompey's sons consults a famous witch called Erictho about the outcome of the upcoming confrontation. In Lucan's epic, Erictho is the most powerful of witches, and because she is so powerful she is presented as being quite loathsome and disgusting. Such are her powers that she can even compel some of the lesser gods
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
to serve her and even cause them to shudder at her spells. As exaggerated as these plays are they demonstrate knowledge of magical practices found in the Greek magical papyri mentioned earlier and they demonstrate that the audience these plays are aimed at must have easily understood the concept of magic in a negative sense but also in the sense of being a practice aimed at influencing or controlling the forces of the cosmos, even the gods themselves.
Personages of the Roman Empire
There are several notable historical personages of the 1st century CE who have many of the literary characteristics earlier associated with the Greek "divine men" (Orpheus, Pythagoras and Empedocles). Of particular note are JesusJesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
the Christ, Simon Magus
Simon Magus
Simon the Sorcerer or Simon the Magician, in Latin Simon Magus, was a Samaritan magus or religious figure and a convert to Christianity, baptised by Philip the Apostle, whose later confrontation with Peter is recorded in . The sin of simony, or paying for position and influence in the church, is...
and Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him...
. From an outsider's point of view Jesus was a typical miracle-worker. He exorcised daemons, healed the sick, made prophecies and raised the dead. As Christianity grew and became seen as a threat to established traditions of religion in the Greco-Roman world (particularly to the Roman Empire with its policy of emperor worship) Jesus (and by inference his followers) were accused of being magic users. Certainly Christian texts such as the Gospels told a life story full of features common to divinely touched figures: Jesus’ divine origin, his miraculous birth, and his facing of a powerful daemon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
(Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
) being but a few examples. The gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
claims that Jesus was taken to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
as an infant, this was actually used by hostile sources to explain his knowledge of magic; according to one rabbinical story, he came back tattooed with spells. It is also argued in rabbinical tradition that Jesus was mad, which was often associated with people of great power (dynamis). Scholars such as Morton Smith
Morton Smith
Morton Smith was an American professor of ancient history at Columbia University. He is best known for his controversial discovery of the Mar Saba letter, a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria containing excerpts from a Secret Gospel of Mark, during a visit to the monastery at Mar Saba in...
have even tried to argue that Jesus was a magician. Morton Smith, in his book, Jesus the Magician, points out that the Gospels speak of the "descent of the spirit," the pagans of "possession by a daemon,". According to Morton Smith both are explanations for very similar phenomena. If so this shows the convenience that using the term "magic" had in the Roman Empire - in delineating between what "they do and what you do".
Simon is the name of a magus mentioned in the canonical book of Acts
Acts of the Apostles
The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
8:9ff, in apocryphal texts and elsewhere. In the Book of Acts Simon the Magus is presented as being deeply impressed by the apostle Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
's cures and exorcisms and by the gift of the Spirit that came from the apostles’ laying on of hands; therefore, he "believed and was baptized". But Simon asks the apostles to sell him their special gift so that he can practice it too. This seems to represent the attitude of a professional magician. In other words, for Simon, the power of this new movement is a kind of magic that can be purchased - perhaps a common practice for magicians in parts of the Greco-Roman world. The Apostles response to Simon was emphatic in its rejection. The early church drew a strong line of demarcation between what it practiced and the practices of magic users. As the church continued to develop this demarcation Simon comes under even greater scrutiny in later Christian texts. The prominent Christian author Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....
for example, claims that Simon was a magus of Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
, and that his followers committed the blasphemy
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
of worshiping Simon as God. The veracity of this is not certain, but proves the desire of the early Christians to escape an association with magic.
The third magus of interest in the period of the Roman Empire is Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana
Apollonius of Tyana was a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher from the town of Tyana in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. Little is certainly known about him...
(c. 40 AD-c. 120 AD). Between 217 and 238 Flavius Philostratus
Philostratus
Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus , , called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probably around 172, and is said by the Suda to have been living in the reign of emperor Philip the Arab . His death...
wrote his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a lengthy, but unreliable novelistic source. Philostratus was a protégé of the empress Julia Domna
Julia Domna
Julia Domna was a member of the Severan dynasty of the Roman Empire. Empress and wife of Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus and mother of Emperors Geta and Caracalla, Julia was among the most important women ever to exercise power behind the throne in the Roman Empire.- Family background...
, mother of the emperor Caracalla
Caracalla
Caracalla , was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. The eldest son of Septimius Severus, he ruled jointly with his younger brother Geta until he murdered the latter in 211...
. According to him, she owned the memoirs of one Damis
Damis
Damis was a student and lifelong companion of Apollonius of Tyana, the famous Neopythagorean philosopher and teacher who lived in the early 1st up to the early 2nd century CE....
, an alleged disciple of Apollonius, and gave these to Philostratus as the raw material for a literary treatment. Some scholars believe the memoirs of Damis are an invention of Philostratus, others think it was a real book forged by someone else and used by Philostratus. The latter possibility is more likely. In any case it is a literary fake. From Philostratus’ biography Apollonius emerges as an ascetic traveling teacher. He is usually labeled a new Pythagoras, and at the very least he does represent the same combination of philosopher and magus that Pythagoras was. According to Philostratus Apollonius traveled far and wide, as far as India, teaching ideas reasonably consistent with traditional Pythagorean doctrine; but in fact, it is most likely that he never left the Greek East
Greek East
"Greek East" and "Latin West" are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the lingua franca, and the western parts where Latin filled this role...
of the Roman Empire. In Late Antiquity talisman
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
s allegedly made by Apollonius appeared in several Greek cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, as if they were sent from heaven. They were magical figures and columns erected in public places, meant to protect the cities from plagues and other afflictions.
Jewish tradition
Jewish tradition too, has attempted to define certain practices as "magic". Some Talmudic teachers (and many Greeks and Romans) considered Jesus a magician, and magical books such as the Testament of Solomon and the Eighth Book of Moses were ascribed to Solomon and Moses in antiquity. The Wisdom of Solomon, a book considered apocryphal by many contemporary Jews and Christians (probably composed in the 1st century BCE) claims that- God… gave me true knowledge of things, as they are: an understanding of the structure of the world and the way in which elements work, the beginning and the end of eras and what lies in-between… the cycles of the years and the constellations… the thoughts of men… the power of spirits… the virtue of roots… I learned it all, secret or manifest.
Thus Solomon was seen as the greatest scientist, but also the greatest occultist of his time, learned in astrology, plant magic, daemonology, divination, and ta physika (science).
These are the central aims of magic as an independent tradition - knowledge and power and control of the mysteries of the cosmos. Such aims can be viewed negatively or positively by ancient authors. The Jewish historian Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
for example, writes that: "God gave him [Solomon] knowledge of the art that is used against daemons, in order to heal and benefit men". Elsewhere however, "…there was an Egyptian false prophet [a magician] that did the Jews more mischief…for he was a cheat…" The idea of magic can thus be an idiom loosely defined in ancient thinking. But whether magic is viewed negatively or positively the substance of it as a practice can be drawn out. That is, that magic was a practice aimed at trying to locate and control the secret forces of the cosmos, and the sympathies and antipathies that were seen to make up these forces.
Authors of the Roman Empire
The Natural History of Pliny the ElderPliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(CE 23/24-79) is a voluminous survey of knowledge of the late Hellenistic era, based according to Pliny on a hundred or so earlier authorities. This rather extensive work deals with an amazing variety of issues cosmology, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, metallurgy and many others. It is interesting to note that Pliny was convinced of the powers of certain herbs or roots as revealed to humanity by the gods. Pliny argued that the divine powers in their concern for the welfare of humanity wish for humanity to discover the secrets of nature. Pliny indeed argues that in their wisdom the gods sought to bring humans gradually closer to their status; which certainly many magical traditions seek – that is by acquiring knowledge one can aspire to gain knowledge even from the gods. Pliny expresses a firm concept is firmly being able to understand this "cosmic sympathy" that, if properly understood and used, operates for the good of humanity. While here lies expressed the central tenants of magic Pliny is by means averse to using the term "magic" in a negative sense. Pliny argues that the claims of the professional magicians were either exaggerated or simply false. Pliny expresses a rather an interesting concept when he states that those sorcerers who had written down their spells and recipes despised and hated humanity (for spreading their lies perhaps?). To show this Pliny link arts of the magicians of Rome with the emperor Nero (who of course is often portrayed negatively), whom Pliny claims had studied magic with the best teachers and had access to the best books, but was unable to do anything extraordinary. Pliny's conclusion, however, is cautious: though magic is ineffective and infamous, it nevertheless contains "shadows of truth", particularly of the "arts of making poisons". Yet, Pliny states, "there is no one who is not afraid of spells" (including himself presumably). The amulets and charms that people wore as a kind of preventive medicine he neither commends or condemns, but instead suggests that it is better to err on the side of caution, for, who knows, a new kind of magic, a magic that really works, may be developed at any time. If such an attitude prevailed in the Greco-Roman world this may explain why professional magicians, such as Simon the Magus, were on the lookout for new ideas. Of interest is the fact that Pliny devotes the beginning of Book 30 of his work to the magi of Persia and refers to them here and there especially in Books 28 and 29. Pliny defines the Magi at times as sorcerers, but also seems to acknowledge that they are priests of a foreign religion, along the lines of the Druids of the Celts in Britain and Gaul. According to Pliny, the art of the magi touches three areas: "healing
Healing
Physiological healing is the restoration of damaged living tissue, organs and biological system to normal function. It is the process by which the cells in the body regenerate and repair to reduce the size of a damaged or necrotic area....
," "ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
," and "astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
."
To the Platonist philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-125 CE) we owe the treatise On Superstition. Plutarch defines "'superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
" as "fear of the gods." Specifically, he mentions that fear of the gods leads to the need to resort to magical rites and taboos, the consultation of professional sorcerers and witches, charms
Amulet
An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
and spells, and unintelligible language in prayers addressed to the gods. Although Plutarch himself takes dreams
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
and portents
Omen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
seriously, he reserves superstition for those who have excessive or exclusive faith in such phenomena. Clearly, it is a matter of discrimination. He also takes for granted other magical practices, such as hurting someone by the evil eye. He also believes in daemons that serve as agents or links between gods and human beings and are responsible for many supernatural events in human life that are commonly attributed to divine intervention. Thus, a daemon, not Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
himself, is the everyday power behind the Delphic oracle. Some daemons are good, some are evil, but even the good ones, in moments of anger, can do harmful acts. In general then, Plutarch actually accepts much of what we today might define as superstition in itself. So what he is really defining as superstition are those practices not compatible with his own philosophical doctrine.
A later Platonist, Apuleius of Madaura (born c. 125 CE), gives us a substantial amount of information on contemporary beliefs in magic, though perhaps through no initial choice of his own. Apuleius was accused of practicing magic, something outlawed under Roman law. The speech he delivered in his own defense against the charge of magic, in c. 160 CE, remains and it is from this Apologia that we learn how easy it was, at that time, for a philosopher to be accused of magical practices. Perhaps in a turn of irony or even a tacit admission of guilt Apuleius
Apuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
, in his work of fiction Metamorphoses (or the The Golden Ass
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
), which perhaps has autobiographical elements, allows the hero, Lucius, to dabble in magic as a young man, get into trouble, be rescued by the goddess Isis, and then finds true knowledge and happiness in her mysteries. Like Plutarch Apuleius seems to take for granted the existence of daemons. They populate the air and seem to, in fact, be formed of air. They experience emotions just like human beings, and despite this their minds are rational. In light of Apuleuis’ experience it is worth noting that when magic is mentioned in Roman laws, it is always discussed in a negative context. A consensus was established quite early in Roman history for the banning of anything viewed as harmful acts of magic. The Laws of the Twelve Tablets (451-450 BCE) for example expressly forbid anyone from enticing his neighbors’ crops into his fields by magic. An actual trial for alleged violation of these laws was held before Spurius Albinus in 157 BCE. It is also recorded that Cornelius Hispallus expelled the Chaldea
Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
n astrologers from Rome in 139 BCE - ostensibly on the grounds that they were magicians. In 33 BCE astrologers and magicians are explicitly mentioned as having been driven from Rome. Twenty years later, Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
ordered all books on the magical arts to be burned. In 16 CE magicians and astrologers were expelled from Italy, and this was reinstated by edicts of Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
in 69 CE and Domitian in 89 CE. The emperor Constantine I
Constantine I
Constantine the Great , also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine, was Roman Emperor from 306 to 337. Well known for being the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, Constantine and co-Emperor Licinius issued the Edict of Milan in 313, which proclaimed religious tolerance of all...
in the 4th century CE issued a ruling to cover all charges of magic. In it he distinguished between helpful charms, not punishable, and antagonistic spells. In these cases Roman authorities specifically decided what forms of magic were acceptable and which were not. Those that were not acceptable were termed "magic"; those that were acceptable were usually defined as traditions of the state or practices of the state's religions.
Summary
John MiddletonJohn Middleton
John Middleton may refer to:*Sir John Middleton , British colonial administrator*John Middleton *John Middleton, 1st Earl of Middleton, general in the Battle of Cropredy Bridge during the English Civil War...
argues in his article "Theories of Magic"" in the Encyclopaedia of Religion that:
Magic is usually defined subjectively rather than by any agreed upon content. But there is a wide consensus as to what this content is. Most peoples in the world perform acts by which they intend to bring about certain events or conditions, whether in nature or among people, that they hold to be the consequences of those acts.
Under this view the various aspects of magic that described, despite how the term "magic" may be defined by various groupings within the Greco-Roman world, is in fact part of a broader cosmology shared by most people in the ancient world. But it is important to seek an understanding of the way that groups separate power from power, thus "magic" often describes an art or practices that are much more specific. This art is probably best described, as being the manipulation of physical objects and cosmic forces, through the recitation of formulas and incantations by a specialist (that is a magus) on behalf of him/herself or a client to bring about control over or action in the divine realms. The Magical texts examined in this article, then, are ritual texts designed to manipulate divine powers for the benefit of either the user or clients. Because this was something done in secret or with foreign methods these texts represent an art that was generally looked upon as illegitimate by official or mainstream magical cults in societies.
See also
- TheurgyTheurgyTheurgy describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.- Definitions :*Proclus...
- GoetiaGoetiarefers to a practice which includes the invocation of angels or the evocation of demons, and usage of the term in English largely derives from the 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon, which features an Ars Goetia as its first section...
- Religion in ancient Greece
- MagiMagiMagi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...
- Magic and religionMagic and religionMagical thinking in various forms is a cultural universal and an important aspect of religion.In many cases it becomes difficult or impossible to draw any meaningful line between beliefs and practices that are magical versus those that are religious, but in general the term religion is reserved for...
- Greek magical papyriGreek magical papyriThe Greek Magical Papyri is the name given by scholars to a body of papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which each contain a number of magical spells, formulae, hymns and rituals. The materials in the papyri date from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD...
- Curse tabletCurse tabletA curse tablet or binding spell is a type of curse found throughout the Graeco-Roman world, in which someone would ask the gods to do harm to others.-Description:...
- Binding Spells
- Sex magicSex magicSex magic is a term for various types of sexual activity used in magical, ritualistic or otherwise religious and spiritual pursuits. One practice of sex magic is using the energy of sexual arousal or orgasm with visualization of a desired result...
- Ephesia GrammataEphesia GrammataEphesia Grammata are Ancient Greek magical formulas attested from the 5th or 4th century BC. According to Pausanias the Lexicographer , their name derives from their being inscribed on the cult image of Artemis in Ephesus...
- Folk magic