Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World 9780231510967

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Magic, Discourse, and Ideology
2. Barbarians, Magic, and Construction of the Other in Athens
3. Mascula Libido: Women, Sex, and Magic in Roman Rhetoric and Ideology
4. My Miracle, Your Magic: Heresy, Authority, and Early Christianities
5. Caution in the Kosher Kitchen: Magic, Identity, and Authority in Rabbinic Literature
Epilogue: Some Thoughts on Gender, Magic, and Stereotyping
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Citation preview

naming the witch

gender, theory,

+

religion

naming the witch magic, ideology, + st e r e o t y p e in the ancient w o r l d

Kimberly B. Stratton

columbia university press  new york

c olumbia university press Publishers Since 1893 New York  Chichester, West Sussex Copyright 2007 © Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stratton, Kimberly B. Naming the witch : magic, ideology, and stereotype in the ancient world / Kimberly B. Stratton p.  cm. — (Gender, theory, and religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-231-13836-9 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-231-51096-7 (ebook) 1. Magic, Ancient.  2. Magic, Roman.  3. Magic, Greek.  4. Magic, Jewish.  5. Stereotypes (Social psychology)  I. Title.  II. Series. bf1591.s77  2007 133.4'3093—dc22 2007016311 Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c  10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1 designed by vin dang

to pierre, for his patience through all this, and my parents, who made it possible

contents



preface  ix acknowledgments  xiii abbreviations  xvii

one

Magic, Discourse, and Ideology  1

two

Barbarians, Magic, and Construction of the Other in Athens  39

three Mascula Libido: Women, Sex, and Magic in Roman Rhetoric and

Ideology  71

four My Miracle, Your Magic: Heresy, Authority, and Early

Christianities  107

five

Caution in the Kosher Kitchen: Magic, Identity, and Authority in Rabbinic Literature  143



Epilogue: Some Thoughts on Gender, Magic, and Stereotyping  177



notes  181 works cited  247 index  277

preface

N

aming the Witch explores the social background of and motivations behind powerful and enduring stereotypes of the magician, sorceress, and witch. In the ancient world accusations of magic could carry the death penalty or, at the very least, marginalize the person or group they targeted. Accusations, however, always arise from somewhere: they draw on and reinscribe fears of the Other, ideals about the Self, and conceptions of antisocial behavior. By these means, accusations of magic and stereotypes of magicians or witches mirror social values and accepted notions about the way things should be among the group employing this rhetoric. These ideas will vary from society to society and, concomitantly, so will the images and ideas associated with magic. Naming the Witch examines the earliest manifestations of stereotypes of witches and sorcerers in Western literature, seeking to understand the specific contexts that gave rise to these stereotypes in Western history. This book challenges universalizing generalizations and reductionist approaches to magic by seeking instead to understand the factors that contributed to the emergence of specific stereotypes at particular moments in time. In order to uncover the background and motivations for stereotypes of magic, Naming the Witch examines literature from four different historical periods and cultures in the ancient world: classical Athens, early imperial Rome, pre-Constantine Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. Through this comparative and cross-cultural approach, Naming the Witch illuminates certain aspects of ancient magic that have, so far, gone unnoticed—it highlights the differences between patterns of representing magic in various an-

   p r e f a c e

cient cultures and explores the relationship between these stereotypes of magic and the social factors that contributed to shaping them. It reveals magic to be a form of discourse (i.e., a constellation of ideas, practices, and institutions) that functions differently depending on the social context. This discourse, I argue, emerged in fifth-century Athens, following the Persian wars, and contributed to the construction of xenophobic ideas about the un-Greek and uncivilized Other. This discourse of alterity then passed to Rome and the rest of the Hellenized world during the Hellenistic period where it adapted to and reflected local social concerns. In each situation, magic constitutes a discursive formation that negotiates power by operating as a foil for claims to legitimacy and authority. Existing scholarship on ancient magic falls largely into four categories: 1. The first includes works that document material evidence for ancient ritual activities commonly classified as “magic.” Such studies generally present the material without extensively commenting on or evaluating its social history.1 2. Second are works that attempt to reconstruct the social history of ancient magic with reference to either literary descriptions of magic and magicians and/or the material evidence mentioned just above.2 These analyses sometimes uncritically accept representations of magic that have at their base ideological motivations and vilifying stereotypes. 3. Third is scholarship that recognizes the pejorative connotations of magic in both ancient and modern usage and, for this reason, questions the validity of continuing to use magic as a heuristic category in scholarship at all.3 These scholars argue that uncritically accepting magic as a descriptive term in ancient texts reinscribes polemical labels and dangerous stereotypes, but they can also ignore the evidence that certain people did engage in practices perceived as impious, threatening, and antisocial by members of their society. In other words, some ancient people knowingly and perhaps subversively engaged in ritual activities they themselves considered to be magic. 4. The final category of scholarship on magic responds to the conundrum posed by the third group. These scholars attempt to resolve the tension between continuing to study magic, despite the negatively charged baggage (both ancient and modern) that the term carries, and rejecting the term altogether.4 Naming the Witch falls into this final category. I critically read representations of magic with an awareness of their ideological motivations and the rhetorical strategies that support and shape them. That is, I continually ask: “Whose interest do they serve?” But I also take seriously the archaeological evidence for practices that were commonly regarded as magic by people in the ancient world (i.e., rituals that violate social mores and traditions of

p r e f a c e   xi

piety in order to harm or gain control over someone else). Stereotypes do not emerge without reason; they reflect, at the very least, the perception of (real or imagined) danger. To dismiss the existence of magic altogether as just a form of slander ignores the very real relationship between accusations and fear, stereotypes and social tension. It is the source of these stereotypes that preoccupies my attention in Naming the Witch, using representations of magic as the tool to unveil struggles over defining authority and Otherness, legitimate power and unacceptable behavior in the four ancient societies that are the subjects of this study. This research seeks to complicate existing ideas about magic by showing magic to be contingent—existing in different ways in different places— while at the same time I strive to show the continuity of magic as a discourse as it passed from Greece to the rest of the Mediterranean. Certainly, ideas about dangerous supernatural power, evil female demons, or strange foreigners exist in many different cultures in diverse times and places. What I argue is that labeling all these magic or witchcraft and attempting to identify a single explanation for them confuses important differences and cultural distinctions. Instead, I focus on understanding how the particular constellation of ideas and Othering devices known as magic developed in Western culture. I argue that magic has a definite history, the understanding of which will illuminate the process of marginalizing groups of people and negotiating power in culturally determined ways.

acknowledgments

W

hile it is customary to thank one ’s Ph.D. supervisor and committee, I will go further back since the journey to complete a Ph.D., and eventually a book, begins a long time before and many people are responsible for making the journey possible. I would like to thank Paul Raymond, Mark Terry, and Ellen Taussig for founding the Northwest School in Seattle and teaching me at an early age to approach the understanding of history and human society holistically. Timea Szell and Maire Jaanus at Barnard for being smart women and inspiring role models, John Stratton Hawley for encouraging me in the field of comparative religion, Alan Segal (twice wholeheartedly) for introducing me to the fascinating world of Hellenistic religion and later for ushering me through its labyrinths as a doctoral student. Helmut Koester, Kimberley Patten, Margaret Miles, and James Kugel for their support and guidance while a masters student at Harvard Divinity School. Miri Kubovy and Joseph Dan for encouraging me to learn Hebrew and pursue Jewish studies despite a late start. Ruth Fagen for welcoming me into her Talmud class at Jewish Theological Seminary despite my utter lack of background. My colleagues at Carleton University, especially Roland Jeffreys, Josh Beer, and Shane Hawkins, who carefully read and corrected my chapters on Greek and Roman literature. Additional scholars who have volunteered their time to read and offer comments include Gil Anidjar, Stamenka Antonova, Zeba Crook, David Frankfurter, Amy Hollywood, Dayna Kalleres, Jason Kalman, Richard Kalmin, Barry Levy, Todd Penner, Annette Yoshiko Reed, James Rives, Ian Scott, Barbette Spaeth, and Steve Wilson. I benefited

xiv   a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

immeasurably from their criticisms, questions, and suggestions as well as from those of the anonymous readers for the Press, which included Mary Rose D’Angelo, who offered to make herself known to me and has been an unflagging support ever since. I take full responsibility for any shortcomings that remain. Additional thanks go to Elizabeth Castelli for providing useful feedback and helpful advice during the dissertation process. Kristina Milnor loaned me her unpublished dissertation, which was of immense use in formulating the argument of chapter 3. It has since appeared as Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus. Helene Foley gave me the proofs to her book, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, before it appeared in print, which was an excellent resource for drafting my argument for chapter 2. David Kraemer kindly sent me a copy of his 2001 SBL conference paper and, later, the proofs to his forthcoming book on the topic of Jewish eating practices, which helped me develop my argument in chapter 5. Beth Berkowitz, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, and Jonathan Milgram fielded questions on rabbinic materials. Harold Remus continues to offer excellent advice and encouragement. He also gets credit for initially suggesting that I contact Wendy Lochner at Columbia University Press, who has been a wonderful, patient, and supportive editor. Thanks also to Susan Pensak, my manuscript editor, for her helpful suggestions, delicious recipes, and other good advice. My research assistants, Alexander Dearham, Meredith Humphrey Burnett, Schuyler Playford, and the amazingly efficient Simon Gurofsky have helped in numerous ways by proofreading and tracking down research materials. Daniel and Bonita Slunder warmed my toes during cold Ottawa winters with osso bucco and homemade wine. Colleagues in the College of Humanities at Carleton University welcomed me to Canada with unparalleled collegiality and genuine friendship. My husband, Pierre, has been immensely patient and supportive throughout this long process, helping to edit sections of text and discussing the ideas and arguments contained therein. He brings his tremendous analytical skills to bear on unwieldy prose and unformed theories. It is with love and appreciation that I dedicate this book to him and to my parents, who have encouraged and supported me in all my wacky endeavors, including this one. Finally, the warmest thanks go to my long-time mentor, friend, and indefatigable Ph.D. supervisor, Alan Segal, and the rest of my committee, Vincent Wimbush, David Halivni, and Helene Foley, for believing in the project and encouraging me to work across fields despite the challenges this posed.

a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s   xv

Naming the Witch received funding as a doctoral dissertation from the American Association of University Women, which generously granted an American Dissertation Fellowship for the 2000–1 academic year. I also received a Josephine de Kármán Fellowship in 2000–1, contributing muchneeded additional funds. Columbia University kindly supported my graduate studies as well as assisting with summer funds for travel and research. The dean of arts and sciences at Carleton University supplied grant money for the completion of the manuscript and support for research assistants. I am honored and thankful for the financial support and morale-boosting encouragement of these institutions and associations. A portion of chapter 4 was published as “The Rhetoric of ‘Magic’ in Early Christian Discourse: Gender, Power, and the Construction of ‘Heresy’ ” in Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, eds., Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses (Leiden: Brill, 2006). An earlier version of material from chapter 5 appears in “Imagining Power: Magic, Miracle, and the Social Context of Rabbinic Self-Representation,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 73, no. 2 (June 2005): 361–393.

abbreviations

A

ll translations of primary sources are my own except where noted otherwise. Editions of the primary texts can be found in the bibliography. Abbreviations for classical, Jewish, and Christian sources follow the guidelines of The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies, ed. Patrick H. Alexander et al. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999). Additional abbreviations are listed here. aar anf anrw b cp d dk htr jaar lcl Littré m njpsv nrsv

American Academy of Religion Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI, 1956–1962) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt Babylonian Talmud Classical Philology Digesta Justiniani H. Diels and W. Kranz, eds., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1, 6th ed. (Berlin, 1951) Harvard Theological Review Journal of the American Academy of Religion Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press) Emile Littré, ed., Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate, 10 vol. (Paris, 1961 [1839–61]) Mishnah New Jewish Publication Society Version New Revised Standard Version

xviii   a b b r e v i a t i o n s

pg pgm pl rsv sbl t y zpe

J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologia cursus completus [Series Graeca] (Paris, 1857–1886) K. Preisendanz, ed. Papyri graecae magicae: Die grieschischen Zauberpapyri (Berlin, 1928) J.-P. Migne, ed. Patrologia cursus completus [Series Latina] (Paris, 1844–1864) Revised Standard Version Society of Biblical Literature Tosefta Jerusalem Talmud Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

naming the witch

one magic, discourse, + ideology

Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw.— Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter’d venom, sleeping got, Boil thou first i’th’charmed pot. macbeth 4.4– 9

I

n their nocturnal howling, conjuring chaos around a cauldron, the three weird sisters encountered by Macbeth exemplify a type recognizable to almost everyone. Their strange countenances and vile activity connote witchcraft or magic in the Western imagination, where disheveled old women, diabolical cooking, and mischievous manipulation of the human will constitute attributes of magic. But where did this portrait come from, and has it always existed? This book illuminates the emergence of powerful and enduring stereotypes in Western cultural history: namely, the magician and witch. It argues that these stereotypes were constructed over several centuries through repeated representation and coincide with the development of ideas about ritual deviance and illegitimate access to sacred power emerging at the same time. It traces the development of a new discourse of alterity that emerged in Greece in the fifth century bce and persisted as a marginalizing strategy until the modern period. In fact, it continues to operate in modern discussions of foreign cultures and beliefs, where it serves as a foil for notions

   m a g i c , d i s c o u r s e , a n d i d e o l o g y

like rationality, religion, and science.1 In its origin this discourse employed a combination of terms designating foreign, illegitimate, subversive, or dangerous ritual activities and integrated them into a powerful semantic constellation. Through the repeated combination of these terms with each other, the discourse drew on and amplified connotations of each term so that the use of one could harness or invoke a network of meaning created by association with the others. I designate this constellation with the English term magic. In modern parlance magic is most often associated with fatuous sleight-of-hand tricks or with esoteric rituals to harness occult power. Both conceptions reflect, to some degree, ancient aspects of this discourse, which included terms designating charlatans and frauds as well as terms for subversive ritual practices that undermine social order and legitimate channels of divine favor. In order to understand better how these terms function individually and in combination I will close this chapter with a discussion of ancient terminology (Greek, Latin, and Hebrew) and the development of the semantic constellation I label magic. This discussion will also serve to introduce readers to the key terms that appear throughout the pages of this book. Unfortunately, the modern understanding of magic carries conceptual baggage as well, yet, despite its imprecision, I employ magic as the best approximation to this ancient discourse.2 This book will consider the particular shape that representations of magic take in different cultural contexts. By concentrating on the differences that emerge between these patterns of representation, it reveals the degree to which magic was a discourse; it was dynamic, twisting, and contorting to meet the ideological needs of various situations. This book does not, therefore, concentrate on the actual practice of “magic” in antiquity, nor does it try to define objectively what that practice might have been. Rather, it examines how a discourse that includes stereotypes, accusations, and counterlegislation, as well as certain types of ritual practices, emerged and functioned in the ancient world. In the chapters that follow I examine representations of the jilted wife, who uses herbal potions to win back the affection of her husband, and contrast this with depictions of lascivious old hags (apparently unmarried) who stop at nothing—even infanticide—to manipulate and magically control hapless young men whom they desire. These two stereotypes, while distinct, both profile women as practitioners of magic arts. Yet men could also be identified as magicians: namely, the charlatan swindler who uses magic to cajole credulous onlookers and seduce witless women. While these depictions show magic to be constructed negatively in the ancient world, magic could also exhibit positive attributes

m a g i c , d i s c o u r s e , a n d i d e o l o g y    

in some contexts, demonstrating authority and superiority. Certain rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud, for example, are represented as excelling at magic arts. Each of these representations emerges as dominant at a different social and historical moment, demonstrating that the understanding of what constitutes magic is culturally determined and subject to change. Yet, these differences demand that we ask what accounts for them: why does one particular stereotype dominate in a certain culture or historical context? What is the connection between social contexts and patterns of representation? In order to address these questions, each chapter examines a pattern of representation against its historical setting and in light of cultural configurations, thereby illuminating the ways in which depictions of magic function in the social drama of which they are a part. I demonstrate that the particular shape magic assumed in each case reflects the particular issues at stake in that context and, especially, for those deploying the stereotype. This is not to assume, however, that particular representations of magic or the larger stereotypes upon which they draw simplistically derive from the psychological complexes or personal struggles of individuals. Rather, I explore how representations of magic operate within an entire cultural system, which affords their meaning and semantic sense. Individual instances of magic accusation or labeling draw on but also reinscribe the existing body of knowledge that defined and delimited the parameters of what was considered magic in that culture. As we will see, what the ancients regarded as magic does not always correspond with common modern definitions, which is why I adhere to ancient designations whenever possible. Understanding where these stereotypes come from and how they developed can illuminate contemporary acts of Othering as well. While seemingly remote in time and social context, these representations nonetheless continue to figure in demonizing accusations that marginalize certain people, such as, for example, assertive women and communities with different religious practices or beliefs. Contemporary uses of these stereotypes do not necessarily involve accusations of practicing magic, although they can,3 but they do draw on vilifying images and associations that evolved part and parcel of magic discourse in antiquity. Thus assertive women are frequently portrayed as lustful and domineering witches, while foreign religions are commonly painted in terms familiar from ancient representations of magic as threatening and uncivilized. Furthermore, modern conceptions of magic as irrational have played an important role in justifying colonial and imperialist policies on the grounds that “primitive” religious practices resem-

   m a g i c , d i s c o u r s e , a n d i d e o l o g y

ble magic and therefore need to be elevated through rationalist, scientific knowledge brought by Europeans; rationality as construed by European thinkers constituted a prerequisite for self-government.4 Even our modern identity is defined partly in opposition to constructed notions of what constitutes magic. Randall Styers persuasively argues that definitions of magic formulated over the past few centuries contributed to the construction of ideas about modernity by acting as a foil for the conceptualization of distinctly modern concepts such as science, religion, and rationality.5 It therefore becomes ever more pressing to understand the origins of this enduring concept and how magic, variously construed, has emerged as one of the most compelling and powerful strategies of difference in the Common Era, contributing to the construction of identity and maintenance of social control. In order to consider the emergence of these stereotypes and their deployment in various social contexts, it is necessary, first, to address the problem of defining magic, which for over a century has confounded scholars of anthropology, classical history, and comparative religion. It continues to do so today.

magic The modern academic study of magic has revolved largely around oppositions perceived to exist between magic and other aspects of human culture: namely, religion and science. Following Sir Edward Tylor’s discussion of magic in his two-volume anthropological survey, Primitive Culture, the common conception of magic has posited an opposition between religion, on the one hand, and magic and science, on the other.6 Tylor conceived human culture to be evolutionary. It developed through stages from savagery to barbarism and finally to modern educated life (27).7 Since earlier forms of human culture, Tylor thought, persist as “survivals” in primitive or savage cultures as well as, to a certain degree, in European folk culture and superstition (72), studying ethnography was a way to understand the developmental history and origins of human civilization (24). According to Tylor, magic constituted one of the most primitive forms of belief: it was “one of the most pernicious delusions that ever vexed mankind” and “belongs to the lowest stages of civilization and to the lowest races” (112). Despite this extreme opprobrium, Tylor perceived magic to rely in essence on rational functions (115–16). Like science, magic perceived connections to exist between events:

m a g i c , d i s c o u r s e , a n d i d e o l o g y    

Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, having come to associate in thought those things which he found by experience to be connected in fact, proceeded erroneously to invert this action, and to conclude that association in thought must involve similar connexion in reality. He thus attempted to discover, to foretell, and to cause events by means of processes which we can now see to have only an ideal significance. (116)

Magic thus constituted a “pseudoscience,” which mistook ideal connections for real ones (119).8 Religion, on the other hand, Tylor defined minimally as “belief in spiritual beings”—animism constituted the most primitive form of religion and the root from which all religions developed.9 Following Tylor’s lead, Sir James Frazer postulated an evolutionary scheme that incorporated magic, religion, and science in a developmental framework according to which religion superseded magic and science superseded religion. Magic could be distinguished from science by its faulty grasp of cause and effect and from religion by its domineering attitude toward the supernatural. It constituted a “spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science as well as an abortive art.”10 According to Frazer, magical theory claimed that properly conducted spells could alter the course of events automatically or mechanistically.11 Like science, therefore, magic presumes the existence of universal laws of nature that can be manipulated to attain specific ends. Religion, in contrast, involves humble submission to the divine. It worships and propitiates powerful forces that are considered to be beyond human understanding or control.12 While magic does sometimes resemble religion in its use of spiritual beings, Frazer distinguishes them by claiming that magic attempts to coerce or constrain the deity through rites and sacrifices, treating the divine as an impersonal force that can be manipulated to achieve automatic results.13 This distinction between magic and religion has become axiomatic in the fields of religious studies and anthropology.14 It continues to figure in debates over definitions and terminology—cropping up tacitly even in studies that try to avoid use of the term magic altogether.15 Frazer’s approach to understanding magic has dogged the heels of scholars ever since. While some scholars continue to operate within Frazer’s magic/religion categories, others challenge the oppositional bifurcation altogether.16 Marcel Mauss, for example, attempted to break down both sets of oppositions in his A General Theory of Magic. According to Mauss,

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magic resembles scientific techniques in its practical aspects and in the “automatic nature” of its actions.17 It resembles religion in that both are based on communal belief in “mystical forces” and rely on those forces in daily life.18 Bronislaw Malinowski similarly challenged these Frazerian categories. First he rejected the view that “savages” misunderstood causal connections. He proposed instead that magic was a way to reduce anxiety in situations where human skill and technical knowledge were insufficient to ensure success. Malinowski grouped magic with religion as sacred activities and distinguished it from science, which, he firmly believed, the Trobriand Islanders possessed.19 Despite this early endeavor to eliminate the breach perceived to exist between magic, religion, and science, the debate has continued until the present day.20 The latter part of the twentieth century, for example, saw interest concentrated on resolving the magic/science debate, specifically addressing the conceptualization of rationality and irrationality upon which this distinction is founded.21 Much of that debate was sparked by the work of anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who, like Bronislaw Malinowski, looked for an explanation of magical beliefs that honored the rationality of his subjects. EvansPritchard describes belief in “witchcraft” as a “natural philosophy”—it explained events and relationships, provided a means of reacting to such events, and regulated human conduct.22 Certain antisocial behavior, he noticed, attracted suspicions of witchcraft and might lead to accusations.23 By shifting the focus onto accusations of witchcraft and their social motivation, Evans-Pritchard’s research radically changed the study of magic, contributing not only to anthropological studies of magic but also to historical studies, including those of the classical world, and to philosophic discussions of rationality and relativism.24 These studies tended to treat magic as a symptom of social tension and sought to explain it by discovering the social factors that contributed to generating conflict. They succeeded to the extent that they turned a lens on and illuminated sources of social tension that may have gone unnoticed or been smoothed over in the “official” versions of history. They have been subject to criticism, however, for failing to explain why magic, specifically, served in those instances to function as the strategy of social control or marginalization when others might have been available as well.25 More recently the debate has focused on resolving the equally tenacious distinction between magic and religion.26 In 1933 Nock explored the history and meaning of the term magos in Greek writings and determined that the word had a number of connotations and uses: originally, it designated

m a g i c , d i s c o u r s e , a n d i d e o l o g y    

priests of the Persian religion, but later acquired the meaning of religious charlatan, quack, or impostor. He proposed, therefore, that accusations of magic in the New Testament may not actually represent the true activities of those accused but instead reflect a contest over religious authority— those accused of magic in Acts of the Apostles, he argues, were actually contemporary religious figures who competed against the early apostles and missionaries.27 Accusing them of “magic,” Nock claimed, was a way to delegitimate their religious authority: by drawing on the second, derogatory meaning of magos, Luke portrayed them as quacks and swindlers. With this article, Nock opened a decades-long debate over the “real” nature of magic accusations in ancient literature. Increasingly, scholars began to question the basis of these accusations and the assumption that early Christian and other antique writers accurately depicted the world around them. Instead, accusations of magic were seen to be part of a marginalizing strategy, whose deployment indicated the presence of competition and contest rather than the practice of either magic or “superstition.” Alan Segal, for example, addresses this issue in his seminal essay, “Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” where he challenges the commonly held Frazerian distinction between magic and religion. By examining ritual descriptions from self-professed magical documents,28 Segal undermines the perceived differences between magical activities and religious ones: certain rituals in the Papyri Grecae Magicae (hereafter PGM),29 for example, seek the same results as initiations into the mystery religions or baptism in the Pauline churches. They demonstrate the degree to which different Hellenistic religions, including Christianity, shared the same cosmological framework, the same religious goals, and the same religious language as so-called magical texts.30 Thus, the designation magic in ancient (or modern) texts does little to inform us about the actual rites being practiced. Segal notes that in a climate where each religion claimed to be exercising divine power any competing charismatic or miraculous activity needed to be dismissed as fraud or demonic agency.31 Harold Remus draws similar conclusions from his analysis of terminology for miracle and magic employed in ancient documents.32 Like Segal, he notes that context largely determined whether a particular practice or activity was considered to be magic or not: With respect to the Greco-Roman world, part of the difficulty, however, lies in the materials themselves. “Miracle” is not a univocal term. Neither is “magic.” Practices that ancients label with a term associated with what they call “magic”

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may in another context be ascribed to divine power, i.e., regarded as “miracle.” The criteria put forward by moderns to distinguish magic from miracle or from religion often reveal little more that the fact that “magic” has many “religious” elements, and vice versa, and that “your magic is my miracle, and vice versa.”33

By examining the criteria that distinguished miracle from magic in second-century writings, Remus discovers that the distinction emerged most often in polemical situations where the consciousness of we and they was at play.34 In his thoughtful and exhaustively researched article, applying sociology of knowledge to ancient religion, C. R. Phillips similarly argues that “a charge of magic represented a persuasive way to denigrate one’s theological opposition: the opposition would have to ‘prove’ that its alleged powers derived from the ‘right’ cosmic forces.”35 Susan Garrett reinforces this view of magic accusations in her study of magic in the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. She writes, “In the Graeco-Roman world, accusations of magic typically occurred in situations of social conflict. Because the use of magic was regarded as socially unacceptable, labeling someone a ‘magician’ was an effective way to squelch, avenge, or discredit undesirable behavior.”36 Garrett demonstrates that the depiction of Simon as a magician in Luke-Acts functions not so much to reveal anything about Simon’s actual practices but rather as a foil for demonstrating the superior power of the Holy Spirit and Christian authority over Satan in the postresurrection period.37 Garrett’s research further underscores the extent to which magic operated as a trope in ancient writings, revealing less about people’s actual practices than about the author’s desire to delegitimate and denigrate some person.38 As a result of this and similar research, many scholars began to move away from use of the term magic to describe certain types of ritual, employing instead emic definitions that derive from and, it is argued, reflect better the context and conceptions of the culture under study. This approach appeared to avoid the problem of using paternalistic definitions, such as magic and superstition, to describe other people’s ritual practices. Because the concepts magic and religion evolved to make Protestant Christianity more palatable in an age of reason and science (as well as to justify imperialist policies and colonization), neither term, it was argued, accurately applies to ancient or foreign cultures.39 Among classical scholars, who possess precise technical vocabulary to describe a variety of ritual practices (often in original languages), descriptive terms such as sacrifice, libation,

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binding spell, curse tablet, and incantation became preferred. These terms do not carry the pejorative baggage (ancient and modern) or misleading opposition to religion and science that the broader term magic does. Furthermore, they more precisely characterize the practice under discussion without falsely dichotomizing it, allowing for the fact that many of these practices (e.g., libation, sacrifice, curse, and prayer) occur both in officially sanctioned rituals (commonly designated religion) and in marginal or illicit rituals (usually labeled magic).40 Numerous books and articles in the past decade and a half have consequently tended to follow this approach, eschewing the term magic wherever possible.41 The pendulum, however, seems to have swung back in the other direction: many new publications argue for reintroducing the term magic into scholarly discourse.42 H. S. Versnel, for example, argues that scholarship can only be undertaken in etic terms. The attempt to employ emic terminology not only falsely proposes that scholars can shed their own cultural knowledge and ways of thinking but that they can empathically assume those of the culture they study as well.43 Furthermore, Versnel argues, it is impossible to do cultural research without the aid of broad, prototypical definitions, which serve, at the very least, as models of contrast. Instead of rejecting terms such as magic and religion, Versnel suggests that we employ polythetic definitions, which involve a long list of characteristics. When a specific case matches a majority of the characteristics stipulated in the definition, it can be said to “fit.”44 This approach recognizes that not all aspects of the definition will apply to each and every case under study but that most of the time a majority of the characteristics will fit well enough to allow application of the label. Neither magic nor religion exist, Versnel admits, except as concepts in the minds of scholars and, as such, they are helpful for scholarly analysis. C. A. Hoffman similarly endorses the use of magic as a comparative term. He notes, first, that many ancient sources define magic along lines equivalent to Frazer, demonstrating that this definition is not so anachronistic after all: Clement of Alexandria, for example, “posited coercion as a distinguishing feature of magic in his Exhortation to the Greeks.”45 Sources as far ranging as the Hebrew Bible and Pliny the Elder, he argues, conceptualize magic as a form of “performative utterance”—that is, words with the power to accomplish deeds, corresponding to Frazer’s notion of auto-effectiveness.46 Hoffman also criticizes various efforts to avoid the term magic by using alternative terminology. More specialized terms such as divination or execration, he argues, are just as subject to Western history

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and prejudices as magic. Furthermore, he proposes that in their specificity they should be considered “species” within the larger genus magic. Other attempts to supplant magic with euphemisms such as ritual power or unsanctioned religious activity merely repackage Frazerian notions in different language; they suggest that the traditional dichotomies between coercion and supplication or private versus public continue to define magic—even when called by another name.47 Jonathan Z. Smith characteristically complicates this scholarly debate by illuminating problems inherent both in using the term magic and in avoiding the loaded designation altogether. First, he criticizes use of magic as a “substantive term in second-order, theoretical, academic discourse” when more precise and useful categories for comparison exist, such as “healing,” “divining,” and “execrative.”48 Magic is too broad and too amorphously applied to be useful, he complains. To demonstrate the problem, he points to shifting fads in scholarly taxonomy that obfuscate real understanding of phenomena under consideration. “Shamanism,” for example, was “the very type of ‘magic’” in nineteenth- and twentieth-century studies, but later became rehabilitated as “religion” (16). Smith also critiques the exclusive adherence to native vocabulary as equally obfuscating; it at best provides lexical definitions that inhibit comparison and display “little explanatory power” (20). Such narrow use of emic terminology prevents the comparative treatment of phenomena with “the stipulative procedures by which the academy contests and controls second-order, specialized usage” (20). The importance of retaining a theoretical definition of magic, Smith argues, derives from the fact that “every sort of society appears to have a term (or terms) designating some modes of ritual activities, some beliefs, and some ritual practitioners as dangerous, and/or illegal, and/or deviant” (17). While Smith questions whether native terminology for such deviant or dangerous ritual activity can be adequately conveyed by English terms such as magic, sorcery, or witchcraft, he remains committed to finding a “substantive, theoretical definition of ‘magic’ ” (17). Smith also takes aim at social explanations for magic that “shift attention away from the act and actor to the accuser and the accusation” (18). Such approaches, which understand magic solely in terms of the accusation, Smith notes, look for explanations in the relationship between the accuser and the accused. “While the accusation of ‘magic’ may well be a power ploy that marginalized the accused, the accusation may equally well be between members of elite groups, or directed by the marginal against the

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elite” (19).49 Such social explanations, Smith argues, also ignore the possibility that magic can be considered a source of power or prestige in a given society and the fact that “‘magic’ is just one possible option in any given culture ’s rich vocabulary of alterity” (19).50 Smith’s approach represents one of the most sophisticated and nuanced within magic studies—recognizing magic’s social function, on the one hand, while endorsing the search for a cross-cultural heuristic definition of magic, on the other. None of these theories, however, adequately considers the degree to which magic is constructed through shared belief: once the concept exists in a particular culture, it acquires power, forever altering the way certain practices or people are viewed. This new classification consequently changes the way people respond to each other and to those practices, places, animals, and objects that are identified to some degree with the constructed notion. The resulting expansion, through these associations, reinforces the concept’s influence and reality in the minds of people in that society. It also opens a new avenue for people to access power by embracing those practices identified now as magic. In a different culture or at a different time, the same practices may not be labeled magic. Such is clearly the case when previously accepted practices are suddenly forbidden after a regime change or when foreign practices imported into a society are regarded as unacceptable because of their origin. The practices themselves are neutral. They defy a positivist or universal definition of magic that is based on types of ritual activities (coercive or automatic) or social locations (marginal or unsanctioned). Certain practices become magic only by the shared definition or understanding of people in that society. It is important to emphasize that no definition of magic is universal. The construction of magic varies from culture to culture; furthermore, magic does not appear in every society.51 Once an idea of magic does exist, it wields social power—it becomes “real” for people who believe in it. Marcel Mauss comes closest to this understanding of magic when he states: Legends and tales about magic are not simply exercises of the imagination or a traditional expression of collective fantasies, but their constant repetition, during the course of long evening sessions, bring about a note of expectation, of fear, which at the slightest encouragement may induce illusion and provoke the liveliest reactions. The image of the magician grows from story to story.52

Later, he elaborates: “It is public opinion which makes the magician and creates the power he wields.”53 Mauss suggests in these passages that magic is both real—to the extent that people believe in and practice it—and a

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social construct—to the extent that people believe in and practice it. In other words, magic becomes real when the concept of it exists and people in that society live and act in such a way as to realize that concept through their actions. This includes not only rituals performed by people who understand their activities to be a form of magic but also accusations and persecutions that concretize magic in the form of social control or repression. Mauss’s work indicates that the search for a broad heuristic definition of magic must also take into consideration the social drama in which magic functions. This is to say that attention should be paid to emic definitions since what is or is not magic is largely defined by how a particular society understands and classifies certain people and practices. Magic is fundamentally a social phenomenon and needs to be understood in these terms.54

how i defi n e t h e t e r m m a g i c As both Versnel and Hoffman emphasize, magic is not merely a modern construct, reflecting Frazerian biases and colonialist sentiments, but existed as a concept in the ancient world as well. The English word magic, in fact, derives from ancient Greek and Latin terms: mageia/magia. Furthermore, much of what constitutes common sense definitions of magic in the modern period mirrors conceptions expressed by ancient writers. These include the sentiment that magic coerces rather than supplicates the divine.55 Magic employs demonic rather than divine forces.56 It seeks individual goals in private rituals rather than communal goals in public celebrations.57 Magic was practiced for personal gain whereas legitimate priests practiced as an act of devotion or public service.58 Magic sought to harm or constrain another person and was consequently treated as a form of invisible physical assault comparable to poisoning.59 While these observations are true and may point toward the existence of a broad polythetic definition of magic, as Versnel and Hoffman suggest, the observations of scholars who employ sociological methods in their study of magic need to be taken into account as well. They argue that these characteristics were not applied neutrally to ancient persons or practices. Rather, accusations of enlisting the help of demons rather than God or of practicing nefarious rites in private rather than public ceremonies in the light of day or of causing someone to fall in love through the use of love potions were leveled against individuals and groups of people for sociopolitical reasons.60 That is to say, while the characteristics may constitute part of a widely held conception of magic, they cannot be interpreted in simply a

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positivistic manner. They are not neutral. They indicate, most often, the presence of social factors such as conflict, competition, and fear. Cultural sentiments and ideological prejudices, such as xenophobia, also constitute contributing factors—as much to ancient definitions of magic as to modern—returning us to Mauss’s proviso that magic is a social phenomenon. Consequently, I emphasize attention to emic terminology in order to illuminate the ideological prejudices behind representations of magic. By focusing on ancient terminology, one can discern when and how magic was mobilized as a discourse in antiquity. This differs from approaches that impose a universal second-order definition of magic onto other cultures and concomitantly impose modern distinctions and categories as well. Such approaches conceal the presence of ideological factors that may be shaping the representation or determining the choice of terminology. Why, for instance, is one feat of power presented as miracle (thauma) and a similar one magic (mageia or goe¯teia)? Ancient writers deliberately crafted their depictions to conform to one or another set of stereotypes. In Acts of the Apostles (8), for example, Simon’s activities are labeled magic (mageia 8.9, 11), while those of Philip and Peter are described as signs (se¯meia 8.6, 13) or mighty deeds (dunameis megalas 8.13). Similarly Philostratus, a third-century biographer, is careful to depict the miracle worker Apollonius of Tyana according to stereotypes of itinerant philosophers and holy men rather than profit-seeking “magicians” in order to deflect charges of magic against his protagonist (4.45).61 Versnel’s polythetic typology, thus, may obfuscate the object of study rather than illuminate it. Central elements of Versnel’s typology do not apply to the PGM, for example, which, since their discovery, have been consistently treated as examples of ancient Greek magic, as their name would imply.62 Robert Ritner and David Frankfurter, however, argue that the Sitz im Leben of these documents is the late antique Egyptian temple and its officiating priesthood.63 Evaluating these documents, therefore, according to Greek standards of “religious” practice and, on those grounds, designating them magic because of their deviant sacrifices, private rituals, and marginal social location is misleading.64 These documents, Ritner and Frankfurter argue, should be understood in the context of Egyptian temple practices: they were centered around the temple, the priesthood, and age-old ritual methods, involving animal sacrifices, sacrilegious blame, and coercion of the divine. That these practices have a long and venerable history in Egypt, where they were regarded as part of the official, legitimate temple cult, is obscured when one applies the label magic to them. I am not necessarily arguing that the PGM’s designation be changed,

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but rather encouraging scholars who study these documents to do so on their terms (late antique Egypt) and not to ascribe a definition of magic to them based on standards from a different culture (classical Greece or modern science). A similar problem with applying magic as a designation arises in the case of certain types of “mystical” texts from early Judaism known as Sar Torah texts.65 These documents narrate stories of famous rabbis using rituals to invoke an angelic “Prince of the Torah” to grant them mastery of rabbinic learning and scholarship. These rituals involve fasting, prayer, and the recitation of angelic and divine names in order to compel this angel to grant the desired wisdom and knowledge. Are these texts magic? Certain scholars think so and describe the practitioners of this type of ritual practice as “magicians.”66 To my mind, however, there is nothing specifically magical about these texts from the perspective of an ancient practitioner. Fasting, prayer, and recitation of divine names could all be considered legitimate “religious” practices to repent, gain merit, demonstrate self-control, and express piety. These practices do not match ancient stereotypes of magicians but rather modern ones that oppose magic to science. Given the largely pejorative connotations of the concept magic in antiquity it is not at all clear that these texts should be considered magic or that an ancient Jew would have considered them to be a form of magic (kishuf). On the other hand, a similar type of Jewish text from this period that describes the ascension to heaven and view of the divine throne room involves practices that might well have been considered magic by ancient observers and practitioners. Sepher Ha-Razim combines the recitation of angelic names and the use of protective amulets with the invocation of Greek deities (Hermes, Helios, Aphrodite)67 and the violation of Jewish dietary practices (ingesting blood) in order to gain special privileges and powers—such as love and success—on the way to beholding the heavenly chariot.68 This text demonstrates the messiness and indefiniteness of ancient practices, which often cross boundaries between what we consider to be magic and religion. It presents the difficulty of imposing scholarly classifications from a purely etic perspective that import modern categories and conceptions. It is for this reason that I emphasize the importance of paying attention to emic terminology and the discursive strategies employed in local contexts in order to understand if, how, and why the discourse of magic is operating. Another aspect to consider is the material evidence for people practicing magic. Archaeological findings indicate that certain people in the ancient world did engage in practices widely regarded by their society as magic.

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How are we to understand these rituals? Naomi Janowitz argues that no one in the ancient Mediterranean applied the label magic to themselves and their practices.69 This position precludes the possibility, however, that magic could be viewed positively or that people could engage in unsanctioned ritual activities subversively. For example, in the second century ce a philosophy teacher and writer, Apuleius of Madaurus, offers a positive valuation of magus in a defense speech against the charge of using magic.70 His definition of magic in that situation, while clearly polemical and exaggerated, indicates that magia could carry positive connotations of esoteric wisdom and divine power in the Roman world. Similarly, the Gospel of Matthew describes three magoi visiting the infant Jesus as authoritative witnesses to the significance of his birth (2.1). Babylonian rabbis sometimes depict themselves as masters of magic arts, demonstrating their special access to divine knowledge and power. The PGM also employ the term mageia as a self-designation several times, associating their rituals with sacred or holy mysteries.71 All these examples demonstrate that magic could function positively in at least certain circumstances, usually when it connoted ancient Near Eastern wisdom. On the other hand, there is ample evidence that some people deliberately and subversively engaged in practices they understood to be magic. Certain ancient rituals involved transgressing traditional notions of piety by disturbing a grave or sacrificing in an aberrant manner. People practicing these types of rituals may have been inverting expectations of traditional piety as a form of subversive discourse or in order to access power and exert control over their lives when other avenues for self determination appeared closed.72 Of course, the individuals engaged in these types of practices may also have justified their actions as just or warranted in the situation. Given magic’s polyvalent character and shiftiness, how can one attempt to answer Versnel and Smith’s call for a heuristic definition? Is such a thing possible in the face of magic’s contradictory meanings and ideological baggage? My response to this question is to regard magic as a form of social discourse.

magic as dis c o u r s e In formulating my understanding of magic in the ancient world, I have drawn inspiration from the writings of Michel Foucault and others who have adopted his notion of discourse. Fairly early in my research I made the following observations and inferences regarding ancient magic:

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1. Magic is conceived differently in different ancient Mediterranean cultures: despite certain common features and shared mythologies, the details of the representations vary considerably from place to place and over time, forming identifiable patterns or stereotypes. 2. Because these stereotypes exhibit strong marginalizing potential, power is inextricably bound up in their definition and deployment. 3. The differences between these representational patterns can largely be accounted for by understanding the particular social and political context in which they emerged and functioned as strategies for gaining power; conceptions of magic, therefore, can be treated as local and distinct rather than as universal or a priori. Foucault’s notion of discourse provides a useful theoretical approach to articulate these observations and formulate an understanding of magic that bridges the gulf between those who reject the use of magic as a concept altogether and those who seek a universal heuristic definition. Foucault’s theory developed over the course of his career and can be divided roughly into two main periods: the period in which he conceptualized his work as a form of archaeology and the later period in which he developed the method of historical analysis he termed genealogy.73 The notion of discourse figures prominently in both phases of his thought, but how he conceived it evolved. As the object of archaeology, Foucault understood discourses to be constituted by serious statements (énoncés) that carried institutional authority by having passed appropriate “tests” and could thus claim the status of knowledge (savoir)—becoming “objects to be studied, repeated, and passed on to others.”74 Discourses had their own histories and development, which Foucault understood to be somewhat random responses to external and internal constraints or rules.75 He did not see a metahistorical principle at work behind these conceptual shifts, but rather the influence of nondiscursive factors such as events, economic processes, demographic fluctuations, and political decisions.76 Foucault eventually shifts his understanding of discourse from one that focuses on authoritative statements and the creation of “knowledges” to one that places greater emphasis on the role of power and human embodiedness. Significantly, for our purposes, Foucault becomes more attuned to the agonistic aspect of discourse in this later phase of his career: “Subjection, domination, and combat are found everywhere he looks. Whenever he hears talk of meaning and value, of virtue and goodness, he looks for strategies of domination.”77 Foucault realizes that competing discourses can operate at the same time in a given society, reflecting different interests and agendas. History is largely the story of this contest, which leads him to correlate power and knowledge:

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We should admit that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.78

Foucault’s later work increasingly emphasizes the complex relationship of power and the construction of individual subjects through technologies that manipulate the body. For example, he regards the rise of modern institutions such as prisons, schools, and factories to be strategies for producing disciplined workers in the modern capitalist state. Social sciences such as criminology, psychology, demography, and social hygiene arise as discourses part and parcel of these new institutional technologies.79 They support and reify the need for discipline in the creation of the modern state. Foucault’s notion of discourse informs my understanding of magic in the following ways: first and foremost, I consider magic to be a socially constructed object of knowledge. Like madness or sexuality, which Foucault demonstrates have particular histories and arise in particular contexts for particular reasons, so too I will argue that the concept magic arose in a particular social and historical context for specific reasons. Once it emerged, magic acquired reality in the minds (and practices) of people in societies where the discourse functioned. Consequently, the concept magic endures in Western discourse where debates over whether this or that thing can be considered magic continue to exercise contemporary scholars. Second, as a discourse, magic exhibits agonistic characteristics. That is, magic is integrally bound up with notions of power and authority, legitimacy and danger. Magic functions as a discourse among competing discourses where it sometimes overlaps, supports, undermines, or subverts those other discourses. It is important to ask, therefore, at any moment when encountering instances of magic as either accusations, representations, or practices, whom does the discourse serve?80 Third, Foucault’s emphasis on locality versus universality is important to remember when considering magic. As we will see, the specific discursive strategies in which magic is employed vary from culture to culture in the ancient world. There is no one single definition or understanding of magic. The concept magic in Western culture was largely formed by elite Greek writers in the fifth and fourth centuries bce who actively sought to shape the society in which they lived according to their own set of values and prejudices.81 Thus the association of magic with barbarous activities,

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foreign rituals, and dangerous women reflects the precise forms of misogyny and xenophobia circulating among those elite writers and their compatriots at that time. The questions I consider in this book regard how magic operated as a discourse in ancient contexts: who defined magic, which practices were labeled magic, and how was power negotiated through the application of this label? For Foucault, discourse is not only a form of knowledge, it is a practice.82 Discourse confers and regulates power. Once the notion magic exists, it takes on a social reality: it can operate as a form of social control through the fear of accusation. It can also exist as a new form of ritual practice: individuals can decide to do magic once the notion of magic exists and is conceived to be a source of power.83 The construction of the concept enables the performance. Whether it is understood to be subversive or not depends on the intentions of the practitioner, the interpretation of the observer, and the possibilities of interpretation available in that culture.84 Magic constitutes a discursive practice to the extent that naming someone or something magic, performing a ritual understood to be magic, or choosing to promulgate a different understanding of magic (as Apuleius does in his defense speech) all constitute forms of social action. They negotiate power through the construction and possession of knowledge. This understanding of magic as discourse has implications for conventions that distinguish between literary genres, forensic accusations, material realia, and legal codes. A discursive formation constitutes all these; it is dispersed across traditional disciplinary boundaries and conceptions of genre.85 Consequently, magic discourse appears across a range of texts and as a variety of forms of conduct at a number of institutional sites within ancient societies.

plan of th e b o o k The chapters of this book focus on the literary representation and production of magic in antiquity. They take as their primary source material the imaginary and imagined practice of magic and witchcraft in literature from the ancient world. To this end I am not presenting a “history” of ancient magic: it is not my goal to rediscover or reconstruct the practice of magic as an artifact of ancient life. Many excellent scholars have already contributed significantly to this endeavor.86 Rather, I am trying to reveal magic’s role as a discursive practice, which mediates power and social identity in specific ancient contexts. Consequently, this is not an exhaustive survey of all the “evidence” for magic in antiquity, and specialists will certainly find

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important material that I have overlooked. Certain material artifacts, however, do figure in my discussion when they illuminate the construction and deployment of magic stereotypes in literary representations. For example, the discovery of lead binding spells (katadesmoi) dating to the fifth and fourth centuries bce offers interesting evidence for the practice of rituals that, around the same time, are described as harmful magic (pharmakeia).87 This type of concurrence between the archaeological and literary record indicates the presence of a discursive formation that includes naming strategies as well as ritual practices. These rituals or similar ones may have existed before, but they acquire new and sinister meanings with the development of a discourse that labels them foreign, subversive, illegitimate, and dangerous.88 The texts I examine are primarily the products of elite writers. This reflects the nature of education and leisure in antiquity, which were primarily reserved for the upper classes. Further compounding this imbalance in the historical record is the fact that of all the literary products produced in antiquity only a very few survived, and these tended to do so because of their privileged status. These texts, more than others produced at the same time, carried authority and influence. Consequently they were copied frequently and preserved widely. While not representative of a universal point of view on magic in their respective societies, the texts do offer us a picture of what some elite thinkers said and thought about it. Many of these thinkers contributed to shaping later representations of magic, reinscribing their point of view across a variety of texts and genres.89 Some also happen to have been in positions to influence social policy.90 Because of their elite status, therefore, these texts can teach us a great deal about how magic emerged and functioned as a discursive formation in antiquity. They illuminate the intersection of knowledge and power. Not all of the texts considered in every chapter, however, constitute elite texts in an absolute sense. At the time some of them were written (e.g., the New Testament and Babylonian Talmud), the communities that produced them were marginal relative to the dominant culture. Their texts only became authoritative centuries later. This is certainly true of Christian literature written before the fourth century. Increasingly, it is realized to be true of rabbinic literature as well, which did not attain authoritative status until perhaps as late as the seventh or eighth century. The accusation of magic, therefore, in early Christian writings—which is leveled against Rome and the Greco-Roman gods—can be read ironically: it was Christian rituals that closely resembled common stereotypes of magic and were regarded

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to be such by non-Christian observers.91 Thus Christian claims that they perform “miracles” while Romans and Jews perform “magic” invert traditional categories and no doubt resonated subversively at the time. Christianity’s lack of official status and power needs to be considered when reading these texts, since it changes the meaning of the magic accusations in them: the accusation of magic by outsiders or rebels complicates the more common sociological understanding of magic, which sees it as a strategy of social control and marginalization wielded by those with power. The subversive use of magic further demonstrates its pliant character as a discourse. It shifts and adapts, reconfiguring meaning in every context where it operates, allowing the continual evolution and reinscription of itself across historical and cultural settings. This adaptation of magic explains both its widespread use as a discourse of alterity as well as the discreet ways in which its meaning and function change from context to context. It also points to the importance of considering each text and context separately rather than drawing broad definitions or universal descriptions. In order to account for the different ways magic discourses function, I have broken the book down into four chapters. Each focuses on interpreting representations of magic in a Mediterranean culture at a distinct moment of its history: fifth-century Athens, early Imperial Rome, second- and third-century Christianity, and rabbinic Judaism. I selected these particular periods and contexts because they happen to be rich in representations of magic, fairly easy to delineate temporally,92 and are periods of time when the cultures under discussion appear to be at crossroads, where the definition and deployment of authority were being challenged or redefined. This is not to suggest that these societies were static at other times or that authority is not always being challenged in some way. But these chapters focus on points where new forms of government or conceptions of leadership were emerging; consequently, these periods and their rich literatures suggested themselves as particularly fruitful for investigation. I do not intend to suggest by my chapter divisions an artificial separation of “Jews,” “Greeks,” “Christians,” and “Romans.” It has become increasingly evident that identities were complicated and mixed in the ancient Mediterranean. Jews could consider themselves to be followers of Jesus, Greek through education (paideia), or Roman by citizenship.93 Similarly, many early Christians continued to attend Greek festivals and sacrifices or synagogue services.94 The Roman Empire afforded a variety of gods to worship, organizations to join, and rituals to practice; individuals could belong to several different communities at once: ethnic, vocational, and sote-

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riological. Depending on context or situation, people identified themselves by their guild, their ethnic origins, the god they worshipped, or some combination of these.95 Consequently, ancient communities may not have been as separate and distinct as scholars previously thought.96 Nevertheless, the deployment of magic discourse in the texts below indicates that accusations of magic could be used to shore up and defend these boundaries, rhetorically erecting artificial barriers and clearly delineated identities where none in reality stood. As a result of limiting myself to these specific periods, I miss the opportunity to discuss many worthwhile texts that deal with magic from other time periods and cultures of the ancient world. Since the book strives to make a larger theoretical point, however, I hope that some of these oversights can be taken in stride. I have also tried to limit discussion, as much as possible, to texts that employ emic terminology for magic (or indicate clearly from their context that something close to English’s magic is meant). This approach reflects my interest in discerning how magic is deployed by the author and seeks to avoid, as much as possible, retrojecting my own definitions of magic onto ancient writers who may have had different conceptions and categories. Pliny’s discussion of various techniques for healing, for example, includes some that he regards as superstitious or associates with the Magi and many others that he does not. Virtually all of these cures, however, would fit modern Frazerian definitions of magic and have, for this reason, been treated as magic in many modern studies.97 In order to understand how ancient authors like Pliny understood magic one must pay attention to the categories and criteria that they use. In the gospel of Mark, for example, spittle is represented as a legitimate part of Jesus’s miraculous healing powers that identify him as the Son of Man,98 but later gospel writers excised references to the use of physical material or gestures that could be interpreted as magic.99 Similarly, early Christian apologists such as Origen tried to downplay any aspects of Jesus’s miracle working that might attract the accusation of magic, suggesting shifting concerns and ideas about what constituted legitimate or illegitimate healing activities. Paying attention to emic usage also allows one to see when magic discourse is functioning positively and to learn what this means in that context; if the designation magic is self-applied, what does that indicate about the social stance of the author who applies it? While I emphasize the differences that exist between patterns of representing magic in these four contexts, I do not mean to imply that each text, author, or period is separated from others or from each other. On

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the contrary, magic discourse traveled; it crossed linguistic, geographic, and cultural boundaries. Many aspects of each culture’s arsenal of magic stereotypes can be said to have come from the same source and been borrowed.100 To this extent, there are tremendous similarities in aspects of the particular representations. However, even in the similarities there are notable differences. To take one striking example: although women are typed as sorceresses in both Greek and Roman literature, Greek depictions tend to focus on jilted wives abandoned for another woman. This characterization differs from the wizened old hags of Roman literature, who scavenge in cemeteries for body parts to use in love magic. These old women are apparently unmarried (there is usually no mention of a spouse)101 and use magic in a predatory fashion to seduce younger men. While previous studies have remarked on the tendency of Greek and Roman literature to stereotype women as witches (in stark contradiction to the material evidence that indicates men commissioned a significant majority of magic spells),102 no one seems to have investigated the differences between these stereotyping patterns. Because I focus on the how of magic as a form of discourse rather than the what of magic as a social object, this difference presents itself as particularly relevant and compelling. While I concentrate on illuminating the local deployment of magic, I eschew any simplistic, unilinear, causal connection between text and context. As Stuart Clark convincingly argues, explanations that try to show a causal link between outbreaks of magic persecution and a social, political, or economic phenomenon fail: there is too much local variation for such explanations to apply universally. He demonstrates that, with regard to early modern demonological treatises, “the subject of witchcraft seems to have been used as a means for thinking through problems that originated elsewhere and that had little or nothing to do with the legal prosecution of witches.”103 Instead, he shows how intellectual concerns of the day and a tendency toward binary thinking generally contributed to validating theories about witches that had virtually nothing to do with sociological phenomena: witches came to signify something about the world and had very little to do with real events or real women and their occult practices. Clark’s research on the early modern fascination with witchcraft reinforces two aspects of this study: 1. conceptions of magic (or witchcraft) function independently of what people actually do: they are ideological constructs. (The constructed ideas, however, may shape certain people’s activities and, concomitantly, ideas about what people do could influence certain de-

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tails of representations.) 2. Local variation stymies any effort at a universal explanation for magic accusations or persecutions. While Clark supports my contention that magic should be understood as a discourse rather than an objective reality and that it defies universal explanation, his argument that persecution outbreaks or even individual accusations do not have a clear relation to sociological phenomena misses important evidence to the contrary. Recent work on anti-Jewish violence in medieval and early modern Europe demonstrates that, in fact, while very ancient stereotypes of the Jew played a part in fueling or justifying incidents of violence, the choice to use violence or not and which aspects of the stereotype would be drawn upon were locally determined and reflect the particular issues at stake in each context.104 In other words, these studies argue that in response to specific economic, political, or other social tensions certain individuals or communities harnessed existing stereotypes to incite anti-Jewish violence. Thus, while anti-Semitic stereotypes have a long history that is independent of the specific outbreaks of persecution (similar to the demonological treatises Clark discusses), the implementation of the discourse is local, reinscribing relevant aspects of the broader stereotype in specialized and targeted representations. By stereotypes I mean broadly construed reductionist conglomerates of images and ideas about a group or type of people. Stereotypes are diachronic, persisting for centuries; they are amorphous and ambivalent, accruing an eclectic hogdepodge of competing and often contradictory images and associations that conjure both fear and fantasy.105 Homi Bhabha’s description of the colonial stereotype would apply to ancient stereotypes of magic as well: Stereotyping is not the setting up of a false image which becomes the scapegoat of discriminatory practices. It is a much more ambivalent text of projection and introjection, metaphoric and metonymic strategies, displacement, overdetermination, guilt, aggressivity; the masking and splitting of “official” and phantasmatic knowledges to construct the positionalities and oppositionalities of racist discourse.106

Representations, on the other hand, constitute the local and specific deployment of stereotypes. They draw on limited aspects of the broader aggregate—concentrating on those characteristics that are most relevant and intensifying their power to incite action. Most important, representations signify.107 That is to say, they construct meaning and establish it as natural,

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universal, and “true.” This distinction clarifies how patterns of representation emerge at specific times, both drawing on and reinscribing particular aspects of larger, more widely held stereotypes. For this reason, one can say that magic is represented as a feminine practice, contributing to the construction of an enduring witch stereotype. But this observation alone does not explain why old women are depicted as sorceresses in Roman literature and younger women figure more prominently in Greek writings. By focusing on understanding magic as a discursive practice, the local nature of specific representations can be studied while the broader configuration of magic as a stereotype can also be appreciated.

magic and g e n d e r The association of women with magic is axiomatic, appearing already in the pages of ancient literature. As one scholar writes, “The history of witchcraft is primarily a history of women.”108 This sentiment is articulated even more succinctly by a first-century rabbi who claims, “The more women (nashim), the more witchcraft (keshafim).”109 Despite voluminous ancient testimony to women’s involvement with magic, however, archaeological evidence, consisting of curse tablets written on lead or some other durable material, indicates substantial male involvement.110 Approximately 86 percent of erotic binding spells are performed by or on the behalf of men.111 The statistics increase when one includes magic to manipulate political, rhetorical, or athletic competitions. Consequently, the common literary portrait of female sorcery should be questioned; it is not a straightforward mimetic representation of ancient life as some scholars have regarded it.112 The question to ask is what accounts for this discrepancy? Why are women overwhelmingly represented as the practitioners of magic when men, in fact, contributed their fair share to the magic arts? By reframing this question in terms of gender rather than women, one comes to a different perception of the issues at play. Like magic, notions about sexual difference and the appropriate roles for men and women in society are socially constructed; they do not derive from nature.113 Furthermore, the two categories operate in binary opposition to each other; one cannot be thought without reference to the other.114 Thus, when focus is placed on the male, as it usually is, ideas about the female operate as a foil— the proverbial Other—against whom masculine ideals are constructed. Gender also implies networks and systems of power.115 It comes as no surprise, therefore, that magic and gender intersect in ancient representa-

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tions. By ordering human relationships and defining social roles, gender participates in establishing hierarchies of power. Weakness or dependency is conceived to be naturally feminine, while dominance and strength are conceived to be masculine. Consequently, who controls whom financially, legally, and physically is often conceived in gendered terms. This is especially true in the ancient world, where male slaves were feminized by playing the passive role sexually. Their “female” passivity vis-à-vis a male owner was expressed both legally and sexually. Concomitantly, free men who chose to play the “female” role sexually were regarded as having forfeited their “male” authority and citizen rights.116 Conceptions of authority, legitimacy, and power were thus signified largely in terms of gender.117 Regarding magic as integrally related to gender, therefore, does not accept the connection between women and magic as historically true. While some scholars treat ancient representations as mimetic and consequently reinscribe the dynamics of power that used magic to marginalize both women and men, their approach ignores the ideological component of these depictions and assumes a connection between real historic individuals and the women represented in these texts. 118 As Kate Cooper demonstrates, however, women often function as a trope in ancient literature to signify something else: male discourse about women usually has more to do with men and their relationships to power than with actual women and their lives.119 Women’s compliance with gender expectations bears on men’s social position and authority. A man’s female relatives constituted extensions of his political self and could threaten his “masculinity,” and hence authority, if they failed to exhibit proper “feminine” comportment and behavior.120 For this reason, representations of “women’s” magical practices in ancient writings may have little or nothing to do with what women actually did but instead reveal something about concerns and issues relating to men. Even where men are represented as magicians, magic conveys connotations of gender: conceived as an illegitimate and effeminate source of power, accusations of magic can delegitimize men by associating them with women and women’s wily ways.121 Consequently, throughout this study, I regard conceptions of magic as intimately tied up with gender and power. Before continuing to an examination of magic’s discursive role in specific local contexts, I will begin by reviewing briefly the history and different connotations of ancient terminology for magic. This will serve as a further introduction to the chapters that follow and offer readers, who may not be familiar with the ancient languages, an entrée into the different discussions. It is not meant to be exhaustive.

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ancient t e r m i n o l o g y f o r m a g i c Greek The earliest attestations in Greek literature of words that later combine to formulate a concept comparable to magic in English indicate that the vocabulary was originally ambiguous; magic as a discourse of alterity did not yet exist. Words such as pharmakon could signify herbs used for healing as well as harmful drugs or poisons—the difference depended on context.122 In the Odyssey, for example, Circe employs an herbal concoction to bewitch Odysseus’s crew and transforms them into wild boars (10.210–213). The word used to describe her potion, pharmakon, is the same word as that used to designate the antidote Odysseus receives from Hermes (Od. 10:290–292). Pharmakon thus functions ambivalently in the Odyssey. It can serve positive and negative purposes; it can function apotropaically as a medicine or deleteriously as a poison. The herbal antidote Hermes gives to Odysseus is described as “good” (esthlon), while the potion Circe proffers is “evil” (kaka). Odysseus searches for a “poison” drug (pharmakon androphonon) in which to dip his arrows and make them more deadly (Od. 1.261), while Machaon, son of the divinized healer Asklepios, uses “soothing” drugs (e¯tia pharmaka) to treat Menelaos’s wound during the Trojan War (Il. 4.218). Pharmakon in and of itself is neutral. Using pharmaka constitutes a kind of techne¯ or skill that can be employed for good or ill without any inherent indication of its moral valence. So when the adjective polupharmakou is used to describe Circe (Od. 10.276), it does not express the strong negativity that English translations such as “witch”123 or “sorceress”124 do. A more accurate translation would be simply “skilled with all kinds of drugs.” In the Iliad the same adjective describes physicians—ie¯troi polupharmakoi—articulating a positive valuation that attests to the term’s neutrality (Il. 16.28).125 Beginning in the fifth century, however, Greek literature reveals that four terms—pharmakon, epaoide¯, goe¯s, magos—and their derivatives come to constitute a semantic constellation connoting dangerous, foreign, illegitimate, or spurious ways to access numinous power. In its preclassical origin each term bears a distinct, even technical, meaning and often continues to do so in classical literature. However, with time, these terms also come to express more abstractly threatening notions roughly equivalent to magic or sorcery in English as they are combined with one another and with other designations to construct negative associations and stereotypes.126 The

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continual use of these four terms in combinations and in contexts that designate dangerous and antisocial activities, such as poisoning, expands the meaning for each word to convey marginality and danger. By repeatedly associating these words with each other and with women and foreigners, they come to connote a general sense of Otherness and menace. This constellation of terms, and the prejudices they concretize, constitutes the origin or birth of magic as a discourse of alterity in Western culture. Far from being a universal concept, magic emerged at a particular moment in Greek history fulfilling a specific social role. Like other cultural artifacts of the Greeks, magic discourse was adopted and adapted by its heirs. To discover magic in non-Western cultures involves importing Western categories and modes of conception. This does not imply that other societies will not have similar or comparable ideas about legitimate and illegitimate access to numinous power, but the particular formulation of those discourses will differ, reflecting the specific concerns that dominate in those societies. I will discuss each term and its history briefly in turn. In book 19 of the Odyssey a nurse recognizes Odysseus (who is posing as a beggar) by a scar he received as a child. One day while hunting, Odysseus was gored by a wild boar; his uncles stanched the blood with an epaoide¯—usually translated as “charm” or “incantation” (457).127 The word’s etymology relates to singing: it is “a song sung to or over.”128 Epaoide¯ appears again in the fifth century where it continues to mean charm or incantation. For example, Prometheus asserts to the chorus in Prometheus Vinctus that he will not be moved by “the honey-sweet charms of persuasion” (meliglo¯ssois peithous epaoidaisin). Here, epaoide¯ conveys a more negative sense associated with charm—namely, beguilement or manipulation.129 But epaoide¯ also retained its medical connotations: in the Eumenides (649) Apollo remarks that there is no incantation (epo¯das) to return a corpse to life. Evidence from the fifth century shows that epaoide¯ could also include love magic. Pindar, for example, describes how Jason seduced Medea with a ritual he learned from Aphrodite: he tied a bird to a wheel and uttered prayers (litas) and incantations (epaoidas) (Pyth. 4.217).130 Goe¯s derives from goao¯, meaning to groan, weep, bewail, and has been associated with ritual lament for the dead.131 In the Iliad Andromache is said to lead the lamentation (gooio) for her husband Hector (24.723). Even before his death the women of his house are said to mourn (goon) the “still living Hector” (Il. 6.500).132 The noun goe¯s develops a different set of connotations, however, becoming by the fourth century one of the preeminent components of magic discourse, designating a trickster or charlatan. A frag-

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ment from Phorinis (2 6.1 to 2 6.2) may indicate this transition; it describes goe¯tes as mountain-dwelling men from Mount Ida in Phrygia (goe¯tes Idaioi Phruges andres oresteroi oiki enaion) who, among other skills, cultivate a “fabulous plant” (eupalamoi therapontes oreie¯s Andre¯steie¯s).133 Based on this and other evidence, some scholars relate goe¯s to a form of archaic shamanism involving “ecstasy, divination, and healing.”134 In the fifth century goe¯s appears twice, both times in Aeschylus and both times associated with the dead and mourning: a fragment from a lost Aeschylean play, Psychago¯gos, for example, links goe¯tes with leading the souls of the dead.135 In Choephoroe the chorus states that it will sing a positive fair song rather than the plaint of mourners (krekton goe¯to¯n). These examples indicate the continuing association of goe¯s with mourning and death. It is this connection to the dead that may have contributed to the word’s later link with “magic” through Persian magoi. Walter Burkert notes that early information about magoi from the Derveni papyrus (ca. fourth century bce) and other ancient testimony indicates their use of incantations, sacrifices, and libations to control demons and access souls of the dead.136 Thus, an association between magoi and the dead may have led to an identification of magoi with goe¯tes. The link between goe¯tes and magic was then easily made by the use of restless souls (ao¯roi) in curse tablets and binding spells, widely regarded as forms of harmful magic in the ancient world (Plato Leg. 933a–b). Furthermore, it is likely that these ritual practices (katadesmoi) were introduced to Greece from Mesopotamia sometime in the late Archaic or early classical period when contact with magoi first began and led to the association between these spells, magoi, and goe¯tes.137 By the classical and Hellenistic periods, goe¯s came to express notions of fraud or charlatanism in addition to magic and remained the most explicitly negative of Greek terms contributing to magic discourse. The sixth century represents a critical moment in the development of magic discourse due, among other things, to the introduction of the word magush from old Persian, which identified a member of the priestly tribe.138 Magos first appears in Greek documents in the sixth century when Persian expansion and Greek colonialism fostered encounters between the two cultures and an interest in each other’s religious practices.139 Consonant with the original definition in Old Persian, the term magoi (pl.) in Greek writings initially designates Persian priests and, as such, conveyed a technical and specialized meaning.140 For example, one early reference to magoi, quoted by Aristotle (Met. 14.4.10–11), suggests their role as theologians or philosophers:

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according to Aristotle ’s account, a lesser known philosopher and mythographer, Pherecydes (sixth century bce), defines the original generating agent (genne¯san pro¯ton) to be the “Best” (ariston), as do the magi (hoi Magoi), Empedocles, and Anaxagoras. Magoi appear in this testimony alongside early philosophers who speculated on cosmology and metaphysics. Walter Burkert’s recent book supports this understanding of their role; he documents the significant influence of magoi and Persian thought on the development of Greek philosophy, including such important tenets as Platonic dualism and belief in an immortal soul.141 Another possibly early reference to magoi includes them disparagingly in a list of religious practices that the Milesian philosopher Heraclitus (sixth century bce) deems unholy. According to Clement of Alexandria: “Heraclitus threatens ‘night-time roamers, magoi, Bacchoi, revellers, and mystery initiates’ with what comes after death (ta meta thanaton) and he prophesies fire for them. For ‘the things considered among men as mysteries (musteria) they perform impioulsy (anierosti)’ ” (Protr. 2.22.2).142 In this fragment Heraclitus rails against certain ritual practices that he finds objectionable. While his opinion was preserved by like-minded intellectuals and eventually came to dominate Western discourse, it almost certainly did not represent the majority view in sixth-century Ionia where mysteries were more likely to be regarded as “mainstream” than philosophy was.143 By the fifth century these four terms come to construct and convey the notion magic in various ways. They conveyed connotations of subversive power and illegitimate authority. Words that originally occurred independently in extant texts increasingly appear in combination with each other—through intertextual layering their definitions inform each other and confuse categories such as poison, incantation, and Persian religion. Herodotus, for example, uses a verbal derivative of pharmakon (pharmakeusantes) to describe magian rituals during Xerxes’ campaign in Asia Minor (Hist. 7.114.1). Aristophanes describes Circe as mixing drugs (pharmaka) and practicing trickery (manganeuousan) (Plutus 310). While Herodotus attributes the practice of Circe ’s dangerous herbal art (pharmakeia) to the magi, Aristophanes associates pharmacological practices with a verb designating deception or deceit that came to be closely identified with the developing concept of magic (manganeuousan).144 Such juxtapositions of terminology color the meaning of each word. They delegitimate magian priests by linking them to a negatively charged word for “drug” or “poison” and reinforce the negative valence of pharmakon by identifying it as a form of trickery or cheating. This intertextuality amplifies the negative associations

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of each term, gradually conjuring a more amorphous, malleable, and sinister concept that draws on the power of each stereotype yet eludes precise definition.145 Plato reflects the dispersal of this discourse across a broad semantic field: he uses the term pharmakeia to designate both “poisoning,” which harms the body directly “according to nature ’s laws,” as well as certain rituals that “by means of trickeries (manganeiais) and incantations (epo¯dais) and binding spells (katadesesi), as they are called, not only convinces those who endeavor to cause injury that they really can do so, but convinces also their victims that they certainly are being harmed by those who have the power to perform magic” (hupo touto¯n dunameno¯n goe¯teuein, Leg. 933a–b). Plato’s use of these terms together shows how far pharmakeia’s semantic range has extended beyond pharmacology; it can include now a variety of practices Plato believes affect people psychologically—because they believe in them. The use of pharmakeia to classify these other practices reveals the emergence of a complex discursive formation that emerges from the nexus of meaning created by these different terms and their various associations (negative and positive). In this passage Plato combines five terms designating different types of ritual practices (pharmakeia, manganeiais, epo¯dais, katadesesi, and goe¯teuein) into a single constellation that signifies antisocial and destructive behavior. Elsewhere, he combines certain of these terms again when he levels criticism against men who destroy not only individuals but entire families and communities through their claim to evoke the dead and win over the gods through sacrifices, prayers, and “magic incantations” (epo¯dais goe¯teuontes, Leg. 909b). Plato’s promiscuous commingling of these distinct terms to designate inappropriate ritual activities reveals the existence of a discursive formation, which I label magic, operating in Greek thought no later than the early fourth century bce. This discourse subsumes a variety of terms and practices, including certain forms of medicine and pharmacology, but also incantations, curses, and poisoning.146 It was this discursive formation that influenced Latin literature and Roman law through exposure to Hellenistic, especially Alexandrian, literature.147 Latin The first references to something resembling magic discourse come from Rome ’s early law code, the Twelve Tables, which survives only in fragmentary testimonials quoted by later writers or speakers. It remains difficult to determine definitively the original intent and wording of the law,

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however, since the writers who quote it inevitably contribute an element of their own interpretation to our understanding. Nonetheless, a fairly clear reconstruction can emerge.148 The elder Pliny quotes two laws from the Twelve Tables in his Naturalis historia (28.17), an encyclopedia of ancient practices and phenomena: the first law proscribes using incantations to charm a neighbor’s produce into ones’ own field (qui fruges excantassit).149 The second law prohibits the use of harmful songs (qui malum carmen incantassit). In both cases the law seems to proscribe using charms (carmina) to cause harm rather than the practice of incantation itself. Like epaoide¯ in Greek, carmen in Latin seems to function neutrally. For example, the first law specifies using chants to steal someone else’s crops, suggesting that theft is the primary concern rather than magic.150 The term excantare appears here to mean “chant something out.” In this case it is crops or a field’s fertility that is “chanted out,” but it could also be used to chant stars out of the sky (Horace, Epode 5.45)151 or someone ’s sanity out of his head (Lucan 6.457).152 It also appears in medical contexts, where it indicates the use of chants to remove illness from the body.153 The second law forbids malum carmen; it is unclear, however, what exactly this proscription intends to ban. Pliny understands it be harmful curses. Others, however, regard it to prohibit invective or slander: cursing of another sort.154 Augustine, for example, uses a quotation from Cicero to demonstrate that Roman law banned slander; the passage he quotes from one of the now lost books of Cicero’s De republica specifically mentions the Twelve Tables and their law against carmen.155 The term carmen thus carries a double meaning: depending on context and interpretation, it can mean either to charm or to curse. This dual signification reflects the extraordinary power of words—to name something is to have power over it.156 Another term that contributes to the discourse of magic in Roman writing is venenum. Similar to pharmakon in Greek, venenum connotes “potion” or “poison” but comes to express evil or destruction more generally as it develops.157 The two terms venena and carmina occur frequently together, suggesting the combined or juxtaposed use of herbal and verbal technologies. James Rives proposes that, in an unattested law, the Twelve Tables originally included venena along with carmina as a forbidden way to steal someone else ’s crops: he cites the case of a freedman mentioned by Pliny (Nat. 18.41–3) who was accused and brought to trial for using veneficia to make his farm prosper at the expense of his neighbors.158 If this is so, the treatment of venena (potion) and carmina (incantation) as comparable or complimentary technologies may stem from the republican era. Gradually,

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Rives notes, other terms come to replace venena and its related compounds, veneficus and veneficium. Maleficium, for example, which etymologically means a “wicked deed,” increasingly came to express the notion magic. By the fourth century ce, Rives argues, it replaced veneficus almost entirely.159 The term magus, borrowed from Old Persian through Greek, first appears in extant texts in an invective poem of Catullus (90), where it articulates a variety of notorious and derogatory stereotypes about magi that already circulated in the Greek world.160 For example, in his attack on Gellius161 he accuses him of incest with his mother and hopes that a magus will be born of the union if this “impious custom of the Persians is true” (si uera est Persarum impia religio). He then envisions the future misbegotten progeny of incest worshipping his gods with songs of praise and attending sacrificial fires according to the tradition of the magi. Catullus’s mocking portrait corresponds to much of what we know about the magi from Greek sources, such as Herodotus, but draws on it as a disparaging stereotype to marginalize Gellius, indicating that negative associations with magi, which developed in Greece following the Persian wars, were transmitted to Rome and found continuing employment as a discourse of alterity in colorful Latin verse. Cicero provides another early witness for use of this term, which again reveals a negative perception. Referring to magi as Persian priests and diviners, he disparages them for extravagant tales (portenta), which he compares to Egyptian dementia and “the [uninformed] opinions of the masses” (Nat. d. 1.43). Both Catullus and Cicero attest to an early association of magi with bizarre, outlandish, and even blasphemous beliefs, yet in both cases magus remains a technical term for Persian priest. It has not yet acquired broader semantic coverage. This specialized usage disappears, however, by the end of the republican era. In Virgil’s Aeneid Dido employs incantations (carmina) to win back Aeneas’s love and prevent him from abandoning her. She apologizes for resorting to this sordid action, referring to it as “magic arts” (magicas artis) (4.492).162 This passage indicates that by the end of the first century bce magia had exceeded the technical meaning of Persian religion and begun to subsume traditional terms, such as carmina, into a broader discourse. Dido’s apology indicates that she (and we presume her audience) understands the use of carmina to be negative, perhaps even illicit. Two centuries later, Apuleius was accused of doing magic on the grounds that he performed strange rituals and worshipped barbarous idols. The real reason behind this accusation was most likely his marriage to a wealthy widow, whose former in-laws had wanted to keep her estate in their family. His response to the

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charge demonstrates the persistent ambivalence of this term.163 On the one hand, he argues, magus is a Persian priest who possesses great knowledge, wisdom, and piety; in which case magic should be revered rather than proscribed (Apol. 25 and 26). On the other hand, in the more vulgar conception, magus is someone who knows how to perform harmful spells through the power of incantation and communion of speech with the immortal gods. In which case his accusers should be afraid to level a charge of magic against someone they believe to be so powerful and dangerous (Apol. 26). Apuleius’s distinction between these definitions of magus illuminates the conflicting connotation of magia in the second century. Magia could signify either ancient and venerable worship of the gods or dangerous and illicit rituals to cause harm. More often the second, “vulgar,” meaning is the one that held sway.164 Maleficium, literally a “crime” or “evil deed,” becomes increasingly associated with magic until it comes to function as a synonym for it. Rives draws on lexical evidence to conclude that, by the second century, when Apuleius defends himself against the charge of using magic, a broad polythetic conception of magic exists. This conception includes, in addition to incantations (carmina) and poison (venenum), “religious” deviance as well, approximating much more closely the Frazerian understanding of magic.165 One should also include in a discussion of terminology saga, which means “wise woman,” but acquires the connotation of “procuress” as well as “witch.” As Matthew Dickie emphasizes, these two figures appear frequently combined into a single character in Latin elegy. Tibullus, for example, describes the magic ritual performed by a saga for his lover, so she can escape getting caught in adultery.166 Propertius invokes a similar image with a different word, docta, as he angrily portrays his lover’s procuress as an evil sorceress (4.5.5–18).167 Apparently she had encouraged his lover to take better-paying clients rather than the poor, if passionate, poet. Matthew Dickie further notes that saga usually connoted an old woman and was, in this way, employed as a term of abuse.168 It has been argued that Alexandrian poetry introduced the Greek notion of magic into Roman thought.169 Richard Gordon, for example, suggests that a “strong view” of magic (that is a negative one approaching the Frazerian definition) developed only in the Hellenistic period and found its way to Rome from there.170 Matthew Dickie argues even more forcefully that the concept of magic was introduced from Greece to Rome during the Hellenistic period.171 It is in the Augustan era, however, that we see a heightened interest in magic among Romans, manifest both in the rich lit-

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erary output of texts dealing with magic as well as in the application of this discourse as a form of social control. Beginning with the reign of Tiberius accusations of magic, often combined with other treasonable offenses, such as consulting astrologers, figure in politically motivated trials leading to execution or exile.172 Astrologers and magicians were also banned from Italy under Tiberius’s reign and again during the reign of Claudius (Tac. Ann. 2.32, 12.52). By the second century ce, the concept magic had expanded to include religious deviance and could be prosecuted as maleficia under the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis.173 It was also during this period, as Ramsay MacMullen documents, that magicians came to be seen as a threat to the empire, resulting in periodic purges of magicians along with astrologers from Rome.174 Magic in Roman thought thus came to function as a versatile designation for a broad range of ritual practices perceived to be dangerous or subversive.175 The accusation of magic could be launched against various groups including, for example, Christians, who were perceived to be strange or un-Roman but considered themselves to be practicing legitimate forms of piety and claimed to pose no threat at all to the public good.176 Charges of practicing magic in Rome thus reflect social location and the perception of the one leveling the accusation and may not have an absolute or objective referent. Hebrew In the Hebrew Bible many foreign religious practices are proscribed but continue to be regarded as powerful and even attractive. These practices— designated in Deuteronomy 18:9–14 by various terminology such as qosem, menahesh, and mekhashef—all come to connote magic in a sense similar to Greek and Roman semantic constellations by the rabbinic period. The problem with labeling them magic and then distinguishing them from Israelite religion in the biblical period is that, to a large extent, many of these activities resemble legitimate ones observed by Hebrews at the time. In fact, Brian Schmidt argues that many of the practices banned in Deuteronomy (including child sacrifice) were originally part of the Yahweh cult.177 They were proscribed during the Josianic reforms of the seventh century bce, but the prohibition was retrojected backward onto the figure of Moses and the Torah he received at Sinai, according to biblical tradition. By condemning these practices as “foreign” and linking them to Canaanites, who according to the Bible were displaced from the land by the covenant between Yahweh

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and Israel for being idolatrous and immoral, the authors of Deuteronomy granted legitimacy to Josiah’s reforms.178 It is important to note that these practices are condemned for being foreign, not for being magic. Nothing about them, in and of themselves (child sacrifice notwithstanding), warrants prohibition except their alleged association with other deities. Even those practices condoned by the Bible bear striking resemblance to foreign practices. The similarity, however, works strategically to demonstrate Yahweh’s power over and above the competing gods of other nations.179 In Genesis 41:8, for example, Joseph succeeds at interpreting Pharaoh’s dream while the mantic specialists of Egypt (hartummei mitzrayim) fail.180 The RSV and the NJPSV both translate hartummim as “magicians,” however, the context suggests that they are no different than Joseph except that Joseph excels in his interpretation, demonstrating Yahweh’s power to control human destiny through plague, famine, and predictive dreams.181 In the book of Daniel, hartummim again appear as dream interpreters in a story obviously dependent on the Joseph account from Genesis 41. In Daniel, however, they appear in conjunction with other divination specialists (ashafim, mekhashefim, kasdim) including astrologers (gazrin) who comprise the class of “Babylonian wise men” (hakimi bavel).182 This commingling of terminology for different types of foreign religious functionaries suggests that at the time Daniel 1–6 was written (Persian or early Hellenistic period) a process of semantic aggregation, similar to what happened with Greek terms magos, epoaide¯, and goe¯s, is occurring. As Ann Jeffers states: It is striking that the hartummim in this list are mentioned along with other magicians despite the differences of function. The general impression given by such lists (see also Dan 2:27; 5:11) is of a confused intermingling of the various terms.183

Another term, commonly translated as “magic” and more often as “witchcraft” because of its association with women (Ex 11:17), also resists a simple definition. According to Ann Jeffers, mekhashefim “appear in a list of practices and practitioners that are an ‘abomination’ to Yahweh (Deut 18:12) because of their heathen connections (v. 9).”184 From this reference in Deuteronomy the precise nature of the proscribed activity cannot be determined. Some scholars have proposed that mekhashefim are diviners “because of the way the qosemim and me‘onenim are mentioned once again in verse fourteen and are played off against the true prophets.”185 Jeremiah

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(27:9) accuses the keshafim of being false prophets, reinforcing the conception that they are diviners of some sort. Micah (5:12–13) threatens to cut off keshafim along with me‘onenim (soothsayers).186 Mekhashefim served an official function within foreign courts and according to 2 Kings (9:22) were introduced into Israel by foreign queens.187 Interestingly, Exodus 11:17 employs a feminine form—mekhashefa—in its prohibition of the practice, indicating that women could also practice keshafim. Perhaps on account of this gendered identification, the Septuagint translates keshafim most often with the term pharmaka, which was commonly associated with women in Greek thought.188 These biblical terms designate various and specific foreign practices that are forbidden to Israelites, but they do not convey the sense of a discursive formation equivalent to magic. Nothing suggests that these practices in and of themselves were distinct from similar practices of the Israelite priesthood. Rather, Jeffers argues that Israelite and foreign practices seem to have been regarded as roughly equivalent; Israelite priests and prophets functioned in the same capacity and perhaps with the same technology as their neighboring colleagues.189 Peter Schäfer reaches a similar conclusion; he claims that the Hebrew Bible is full of examples where Israelites transgress the boundary between magic and religion, indicating that “the notion of magic as distinct from religion seems to be alien to the Hebrew Bible.”190 This equivalence of ritual practice, no doubt, accounts for the vitriolic denunciation biblical writers level against the foreign competition. It also most likely underlies stories depicting Israelites besting their foreign counterparts with superior divine power (Ex 8) and divinatory ability (Gen 41; Dan 1:20, 2:19–24, 4:16, 5:11–12). When did the concept magic arise in Hebrew thought and language? The book of Daniel suggests that during the postexilic period a discourse of alterity comparable to the Greek discourse magic was developing. Other evidence points to the Hellenistic period: according to Jewish writings from this period, magic is introduced to humankind (specifically women) by the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1–2.191 Significantly, the earliest version of this narrative, the Book of the Watchers (third century bce), does not articulate the forbidden knowledge of the angels in terms of a single category magic, nor is the role of women emphasized.192 Rather, specific sorts of prohibited knowledge are articulated: root cutting, spells, divination. The later Greek translation of the text (ca. first century bce), however, enhances both the element of gender and magic. It is also at this time that notions of false

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prophecy, which are closely tied to magic, appear as a topos in Jewish literature.193 In other words, while the Hebrew Bible includes numerous proscriptions of foreign religious practices, the existence of an Othering discourse that covered a constellation of practices regarded as foreign and threatening did not emerge until the Hellenistic period and, I would argue, suggests Greek influence. Prior to contact with the Greeks “harlotry” (zenut) was the preferred discourse of alterity in Hebrew writings: engaging in foreign ritual practices was denounced as infidelity and adultery.194 In late antique Jewish literature, such as the Babylonian Talmud, a discourse identifiable as magic can be seen to operate. But it is deployed more often in the statements of Palestinian rabbis, who were living in a Hellenistic milieu, than by their Babylonian colleagues. The Babylonian sages, in contrast, express an attitude that more closely resembles the one in pre-exilic biblical writings—namely, our ritual technology is superior to theirs.195 This survey of ancient terminology for magic suggests that while certain types of ritual practices have been prohibited as either foreign or harmful throughout history, the formulation of a broad, polythetic discourse magic to classify and censure people and practices under one heading has a specific history. The concept magic emerged from the complex matrix of Greek culture and thought sometime between the sixth and fifth centuries bce; it is clearly identifiable as a discourse of alterity in fifth- and fourthcentury literature, including drama, philosophy, medical treatises, and forensic speeches. Through the spread of Hellenistic culture, magic became a shared discourse across the ancient Mediterranean, traversing boundaries and languages. It operated not only as a semantic field, subsuming existing terms in different languages, but also allowed for the development of magic as a ritual practice. Extant papyri, curse tablets, and other material evidence suggest that some people did engage in practices that corresponded to their culture ’s understanding of magic. Furthermore, these practitioners sometimes appear to have drawn on stereotyped representations of magic for images and leitmotifs, suggesting that they were adopting a selfconsciously subversive stance in relation to the institutions of authority in their culture.196 This is not to say that all or even most practices labeled magic (by ancient or modern commentators) constituted “magic” for the practitioners. Nonetheless, it seems clear that some people did draw on the discourse of magic to inform and shape their ritual practices.

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Despite the wide dispersal of this discourse across the ancient Mediterranean, representations of magic reflect the particular issues at stake in local sites of deployment. Magic is not universal; it operates in specific and contextualized ways. Thus it is to an examination of local magic representations that I turn in the following chapters.

two barbarians, magic, + construction of the other in athens

O

ur brief review of ancient terminology in the last chapter suggested that the fifth century in Greece constituted a watershed in the emergence of magic as a discursive formation. This historical period was punctuated by two defining wars (with Persia and later between Athens and Sparta), the development of democracy as a form of government, and the rise and fall of Athens as an imperial power. In the context of emergent democracy and imperial prosperity, definitions of citizenship also became pressing, forcing new citizenship legislation into effect and limiting enfranchisement to men who could demonstrate two Athenian parents— mother as well as father. These events, I suggest, contributed to the concretization of magic as a discourse of alterity in Greek usage and to the specific shape that representations of magic took during this period. The consequences of these developments play out in the legacy of magic discourse in Western history.

the emergen c e o f m a g i c a s a discourse o f a l t e r i t y Ionian revolts in 494 bce, backed by Athens, accelerated the conflict between Persian expansion and Athenian independence. In 490 Persia attacked Attica but was driven back by an Athenian army of hoplite soldiers at the battle of Marathon. This victory against the far greater and seemingly undefeatable Persian forces increased Athenian confidence in democracy and mistrust of aristocrats.1 While democratic reforms had been established

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twenty years earlier by Cleisthenes, it was during the period following the second successful victory against Persia at Salamis in 479 that enthusiasm for and confidence in democracy began to grow. As a result, democracy and specific cultural characteristics associated with it (such as rationality, social equality, and justice) played an increasingly central role in Athenian self-identity throughout the fifth century.2 Additionally, in the middle of the fifth century (451/0 bce) new legislation was passed that changed the way citizenship was determined. This law, attributed to Pericles, limited citizenship to men born of two Athenian parents. Women’s sexual chastity and the legitimacy of children increasingly became a public concern and source of vulnerability for various people. Some members of the aristocracy, for example, who had mothers from noble families of other cities suddenly found themselves disenfranchised.3 Similarly, a man who might have publicly acknowledged his children by a foreign mistress suddenly found them excluded from citizenship. It is widely accepted that this law had a profound impact on life in Athens at that time.4 The ongoing wars with Persia also had the effect of souring Athenian attitudes toward Persians and, consequently “barbarians” in general; they became not just strange foreigners but hostile enemies. As Edith Hall states: It is difficult for readers in the late twentieth century western world to imagine either the strength of the emotions which thinking about Persia could stir up, or the depth of the conceptual chasm which was felt to yawn between West and East. Just as importantly, the defeat of Persia approximately coincided with the inauguration of the Cleisthenic democracy; the Athenians’ drive to push back Persia was conceptually inseparable from their desire to protect their political system.5

Hall demonstrates the degree to which a “discourse of barbarism” emerged during this period and found expression on the tragic stage where it also served to authorize an ideology of imperialism.6 Persians became associated with tyranny, decadent effeminacy, cruelty, and chaos.7 Magic discourse, I argue, emerged at this time part and parcel of the new discourse of barbarism. Mageia—the religion of Athens’s enemy, Persia—now also acquired associations with various characteristics and practices that Athenians regarded as un-Greek and barbaric. Thus, at a time when Athenians were promoting and, in fact, forging a new identity in response to their novel political institution and military and economic power, a semantic constellation developed that reflected a new discourse of alterity and oper-

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ated as a foil for expressing and formulating Athenian values and virtues.8 Magic came to signify the threatening Other. According to the archaeological record, it was also during the fifth century that a new kind of ritual practice developed or, if in use already, became more widespread.9 These rituals, known as katadesmoi, constrained a person by binding him or nailing her down (katadein) with the use of an image or other proxy (sometimes merely a folded piece of lead, pierced with a nail). Numerous parallels with Akkadian texts suggest that this type of ritual was introduced from Mesopotamia at the end of the Archaic period when itinerant craftsmen and magi traveled to Greece from Assyria.10 The most common form of this type of ritual consisted of a lead tablet on which the victim’s name had been engraved. In the simplest and most basic form, the act of nailing and the verbal directive to bind the person seems to have been adequate.11 The curse tablet was then deposited in a liminal place associated with chthonic deities, such as a well, or in the grave of a person who suffered a violent or untimely death (biaiothanotos).12 In more elaborate versions specific gods were called upon, the issue at stake was identified, and the petitioner asked that the victim be made cold and useless like the lead or the corpse in the grave.13 These spells were enlisted most often in situations of competition: either lovers competing for the affection and attention of a beloved, business rivals in competition, or political, legal, and athletic rivals seeking to impair a competitor’s ability and thereby gain the advantage.14 Consequently, they have been regarded as a natural expression of the agonistic society that prevailed in ancient Greece, where one man’s or family’s honor rose at the expense of someone else’s and honor determined social standing, political influence, and economic wellbeing.15 Because so much has been written on these rituals already, my discussion is not meant to be exhaustive, rather I introduce these rituals here in order to understand better how a constellation of xenophobic stereotypes and specific ritual practices combined in the fifth-century imagination to form a cultural construct that I label magic discourse. I propose that while the katadesmoi became quintessentially associated with magic in Greek thought, these practices in and of themselves should not be considered a priori to constitute magic.16 Such an approach presupposes the existence and validity of the category that, I hope to demonstrate, developed in response to the advent of these practices in a particular political and social climate. Initially, it would appear that a variety of ancient Near Eastern ritual technologies were introduced to Ionian Greeks during the Archaic period.17 Some of

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these were transformed and absorbed into Greek tradition such as hepatoscopy and the purification of blood guilt through sacrifice of a pig.18 Others were adopted into popular practice but remained peripheral and “foreign,” such as the use of curse tablets and figurines. After the Persian Wars, part and parcel of an ensuing xenophobia, the latter practices were associated (correctly or incorrectly) with stereotypes of the barbarous foreigner that crystallized around the magi. These two ingredients combined with other existing notions in Greek thought, such as pharmakeia, epo¯idos, and goe¯teia, to create a powerful and enduring construct: magic. In addition to their probable foreign provenance, there are many reasons katadesmoi appeared subversive or dangerous to Greeks of the classical period. Many katadesmoi violate cultural mores and taboos, such as desecrating a grave; they consequently transgress respect for the dead, which was an integral component of Greek culture and piety (eusebia).19 Most katadesmoi invoke chthonic deities such as Hecate, who was by the classical period identified with the underworld, sorcery, danger, and death. People would leave sacrifices to her at the crossroads away from domestic civilization in order to keep her and her hordes of restless spirits at bay.20 Theophrastus, for example, mocks a superstitious man who requires ritual purification after seeing figures of Hecate, ringed with garlic, at crossroads (Char. 16). The author of On the Sacred Disease describes night terrors as a fear of assault (epibolas) by Hecate.21 Thus invoking Hecate in katadesmoi was a certain way to engage powerful and potentially dangerous forces that normally one was expected to avert. Rituals in her honor involved placation or purification (katharsion) rather than worship or invocation, seeking to keep her and her itinerant ghosts away.22 Katadesmoi also often invoke souls of those who died violently: motivated by envy or vengeance, the untimely dead in ancient Greece, like ghosts in modern legends, sought to harm the living by causing sickness or plague.23 For all these reasons, katadesmoi engaged dangerous forces, violated cultural taboos, and caused the practitioner to incur ritual pollution (miasma), which cut him or her off from the Olympian gods and the benefits they bestowed.24 Gaining power through this sort of ritual inversion and subversion may have offered a potent way to triumph over rivals in the agonistic contests that characterized Greek life, but, by transgressing piety and civility, practitioners of these rituals were seen to have adopted a deliberately antisocial stance.25 Curse tablets and binding spells for this reason contributed to and constituted an integral part of the emerging magic discourse.

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Plato, for example, lists binding spells (katadesesi) among practices he describes as harmful and should be penalized. Additionally, under the heading pharmakeia (literally “use of drugs”), Plato lists both poison (which harms the body physically) and practices that harm people psychologically, among which he includes: “trickery” (manganeiais), “incantations” (epo¯dais), and “binding spells” (katadesesi) (Leg. 933a). He also describes the frightening practice of leaving wax images at crossroads, doorways, and tombs (Leg. 933b), which were sites sacred to the goddess Hecate and her restless hordes.26 Plato’s description of these activities corresponds largely to what we know about katadesmoi from archaeological finds; they are frequently found in tombs, wells, crossroads, and other liminal places.27 Plato criticizes these rituals on the grounds that they cause psychological harm to people who believe in their power. While Plato’s skeptical opinion certainly does not reflect that of the majority of Greek or even Athenian citizens, his testimony supports the view that, at least among some intellectuals, previously innocuous practices such as incantations (epo¯dais) and pharmacology (pharmakeia) came to be identified with harmful curses (katadesmoi). By the early fourth century bce these practices increasingly became identified with magoi as well, forming a broad semantic constellation: magic. While it is tempting to suppose that this understanding of magic arose in response to and reflected the emergence of katadesmoi as an actual practice in Greece, this approach does not account for the multiple ways in which magic as a discourse of alterity went far beyond merely describing certain ritual practices. Thus to say that rituals of the magi were regarded negatively because they were magic is circular reasoning.28 Rituals to gain power over other individuals had certainly existed prior to these and apparently prior to labeling them magic. Circe, for example, employs an herbal potion (pharmakon) and a wand to transform men into beasts (Od. 10.210–213). While Circe ’s potion is clearly identified as “magic” by the fifth century (Aristophanes Plutus, 310), it is generally agreed that in Homer the concept “magic” does not yet exist.29 Rather, Circe ’s power seems to come as much from her semidivine status as it does from any specific type of ritual. Pharmakon in and of itself does not yet carry a connotation beyond that of “drug” or “remedy.” Hermes, for example, offers Odysseus an antidote to Circe ’s drug, which is also designated as a pharmakon (Od. 10:290–292). The practices in and of themselves therefore were not magic but came to be identified as magic part and parcel of the emergence of this discourse in the

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broader context of Athenian identity, imperialism, and what Hall calls the “discourse of barbarism.” I argue that as a result of developments in Athenian political and social institutions during the fifth century (when most of the influential Greek literature was produced), magic emerged as a powerful Othering discourse, which connoted effeminate treachery, subversion, and oriental barbarism. Early expressions of this discourse, which I will discuss more fully in the next section, appear in fifth-century tragedy. By the fourth century bce, magic constituted a fully established marginalizing device: words such as magos and goe¯s functioned in political invective as terms of denigration. Aeschines, for example, denounces Demosthenes as a magos and goe¯s (Ctes.137). For his part, Demosthenes employs the term goe¯s on several occasions to designate a liar, deceiver, or someone who “bewitches” others with rhetoric and sophistry (Cor. 276; Fals. leg. 102, 109; 3 Aphob. 32). This exchange of invective indicates that magos and goe¯s no longer signify specifically ritual specialists of one sort or another but operate much more generally as terms of abuse, connoting deception, beguilement, and fraud. By the fourth century, therefore, magic as a discourse had subsumed treachery and greed as well as barbarism and charlatanism in its semantic range. This association of magic with political illegitimacy and fraud is evident also in early medical writings. The author of On the Sacred Disease, for example, chastises and mocks certain healers who, he says, claim to be pious and wise but hide their ignorance behind spurious rituals involving purifications and sanctifications. He labels these men magoi and kathartai (purifiers) as well as agurtai (vagabonds or beggars) and alazones (charlatans).30 His representation combines a variety of rhetorical strategies to delegitimate these competitors, including the assertion that they are itinerant, which bore connotations of deception and fraud in ancient Greece.31 He challenges his competitors’ claim to piety, arguing that they actually deny the existence of the gods by blaming them for causing the disease. Furthermore, they are impious, he says, in their claims to know how to draw down the moon (sele¯ne¯n kathairein), control the weather, and accomplish similar prodigies.32 He mocks their attempt to cure an ostensibly “sacred” disease through dietary regime and ritual purifications; if they claim the disease is caused by the gods, he argues, how can such mundane measures be of any use?—only the gods should be able to cure it.33 In contrast, the Hippocratic author proposes that this disease, like all others, has a natural cause; he denies that there is any sacred or divine element to it.34 He attributes the

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malady to phlegm that has collected in the brain, cutting off the supply of air that flows through veins from the liver and spleen.35 Many scholars have relied upon this passage and one from Plato (Resp. 364b–365a, quoted below) among other brief references to reconstruct an image of the magician as an itinerant priest who offered to cure credulous people of their ills and guarantee them a better afterlife with the aid of purification rituals and initiations.36 Consequently, they regard the “magician” to be a charlatan exposed by the “rational” and “scientific” author of this text. G. E. Lloyd, however, highlights the foolishness and fanciful basis of the so-called natural and scientific explanation proffered by the Hippocratic author, exposing instead an episode of competitive name calling. Lloyd notes that this Hippocratic author’s conception of the human body, which forms the basis for his theory, could easily have been verified and disproved;37 the remedies he proposes (based on flawed physiology) would not have been any more successful than those of the magicians (magoi) that he ridicules. Furthermore, the Hippocratic author lacks the authority of a healer connected to an established healing cult or sanctuary, which would have given his prescriptions legitimacy even in the event of failure. Consequently, it appears that the Hippocratic author resorts to the use of invective to legitimize himself by delegitimizing his competitors. Like Demosthenes and Aeschines, he enlists magic discourse to paint the other healers as quacks and charlatans, revealing less about a magic/science debate and more about the construction of a disparaging stereotype. Magic’s employment as a rhetorical device, aimed at delegitimizing an opponent, demonstrates the powerfully negative associations it carried by the late fifth or early fourth century when On the Sacred Disease was written. This denigrating portrait of cathartic healers and ritual specialists resembles what Plato describes in the Republic as begging priests and soothsayers (agurtai de kai manteis); they go to the doors of rich men and convince them that they can expiate any misdeed of the man or his ancestors through the use of sacrifices and incantations (thusiais te kai epo¯dais).38 Additionally, these specialists offer to hinder an enemy through invocations and binding spells (epago¯gais kai katadesmois, 364b-c). Plato furthermore claims that they possess ritual handbooks of the Muses and Orpheus, which they follow for their sacrifices. And they can atone for wrongdoing through purification rituals (katharmoi) and sacrifices (thusio¯n), offering initiations (teletas) that deliver one from suffering in the other world (364e–365a).39 Plato’s testimony here links practices identified with the discourse of magic to mysteries and the promise of some kind of better afterlife. Like Heracli-

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tus, who is quoted as caustically dismissing “night-time roamers, magoi, Bacchoi, revelers, and mystery initiates” for offering an impious initiation (14.2), Plato associates purveyors of cathartic healing and Orphic mysteries with trickery (manganeiais) and the practice of binding spells (katadesi), both of which he identifies with harmful rituals and poisoning (pharmakeia).40 The criticisms these writers lodge against a certain class of itinerant prophet and healer suggest that such a character may in fact have plied his ritual wares (including curse tablets and binding spells) in ancient Greece and have had a relationship with Persian magoi, as some have argued.41 In each case, however, the ancient writers reject what appear to be fairly popular contemporary practices and beliefs.42 For this reason, their pejorative point of view should not be taken to represent the majority opinion or to accurately depict these ritual specialists as charlatans and fakes. Epoaide¯, for example, was an ancient and traditionally recognized form of healing attested as early as Homer (Od. 457) and associated with the cult of Asklepios and legitimate physicians.43 Many early philosophers, such as Empedocles and Pythagoras, combined an interest in cosmology and natural causes with certain practices that resemble those criticized by the author of On the Sacred Disease.44 Empedocles, for example, apparently claimed to know how to control the weather and raise ghosts from Hades (DK 111), while Pythagoras proscribed many foods similar to those ridiculed in On the Sacred Disease.45 Thus, while it would seem that depictions of wandering quacks and charlatans may reveal a certain aspect of ancient culture, these representations also demonstrate that magic, identified vaguely with antisocial practices and impious rituals, could be enlisted in a variety of contexts to delegitimate a competitor. While these writers depict an itinerant magos, who purveyed sacred mysteries and harmful curses, the earliest extant expressions of the emerging magic discourse appear in tragedy, where spurned women employ lethal potions (pharmaka) out of jealousy. In Attic tragedy magic is feminized: it is associated with women, danger, and gender subversion. This identification of magic, specifically pharmakeia, with perfidious females contributes to and, I suggest, reinforces its Othering capacity in other contexts, such as political rhetoric, where (broadly construed and conveyed by a variety of terms such as goe¯s and magos) magic conjured associations of treachery, deception, and danger. In Attic tragedy women’s pharmakeia followed a particular stereotyped form—it sought to resolve love triangles—either by removing the competing party or by restoring amorous desire to the heart of an errant lover. In order to understand how and, perhaps, why

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Athenian drama represents magic in this particular way, I will consider, first, depictions of women’s magic from the Attic stage where tragedy provided its audience with an opportunity to reflect on and articulate ideas about contemporary social concerns. Then I will consider the social context that may have contributed to shaping these specific representations. Finally, I will argue that these representations emerged from and responded to a prestige structure that made male honor at least partially dependent on female behavior.

magic, gend e r , a n d d a n g e r o n t h e t r a g i c s t a g e I will begin with the description of a male magos from Greek tragedy in order to show how magic was associated with gender transgression—feminizing males and masculinizing females. In Euripides’ Bacchae Dionysos (disguised as a priest of his own cult) arrives in Thebes where he seeks revenge for the shameful disrespect shown to his mother and the consequent rejection of his divinity. This description of his costume and ecstatic female followers combines various discourses of alterity, creating a richly layered and composite stereotype of an oriental46 magos reinscribed later, as we have seen, by Plato and the Hippocratic author of the On the Sacred Disease: They say that some stranger, a magician-enchanter (goe¯s epo¯idos), has arrived from the land of Lydia, wearing long hair in fragrant blond curls, with winecolored [cheeks], having the graces of Aphrodite in his eyes; that days and nights he passes in the company of young women, holding out before them the ecstatic cry of initiation. ( bacch . 233–238)

This passage showcases several important topoi. First and foremost, Dionysos is identified as foreign and for that reason suspicious; Lydia, like Persia, was identified with barbarian tyranny.47 Furthermore, he is effeminate, wearing perfume and long hair with flushed cheeks and flirtatious eyes like a girl. Elsewhere Pentheus reveals a latent attraction to Dionysos’s feminine beauty (451–460). As Edith Hall points out, effeminate traits such as flaccid skin, wearing perfume and fancy clothes, were part of the Hellenic stereotype of the barbarian.48 Such traits deviated from one of the principal characteristics held in esteem by Athenian society: self-restraint (so¯phrosune¯), which was regarded as an essential trait for citizen men to possess.49 It is also alleged of Dionysos “that days and nights he passes in the

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company of young women, holding out before them the ecstatic cry of initiation.” This accusation resonates on two levels. First, it evokes an image of oriental promiscuity and the sort of debauchery imagined to have taken place there.50 In the Greek imagination, spending too much time in the women’s quarters, indulging in luxury, contributed to becoming effeminate and morally soft (malakos). For Pentheus, Dionysos combines his weakness for spending time with women with a penchant for mystery initiations. As we saw above, purveyors of mystery initiations could also be associated with vendors of binding spells, katadesmoi, which Plato condemns as harmful. This association of Dionysos with feminine luxury, oriental excess, and harmful magic is borne out through the description of him as a goe¯s epo¯idos. The discussion of terminology in chapter 1 revealed that epo¯idos signified an incantation or verbal charm, while goe¯s originally had connections with the dead and later with harmful magic, fraud, and charlatanry. Euripides’ description of Dionysos in this passage thus combines references to these two types of ritual specialists with a highly charged constellation of feminizing and orientalizing stereotypes that communicate Dionysos’s threatening presence on Theban soil. This foreboding cocktail of imagery and representation captures Dionysos’s uncanny Otherness, foreshadowing the tragic denouement of the play. Not only is Dionysos presented as effeminate and therefore crossing gender boundaries, but, more important, he drives the women of Thebes to throw off their traditional duties and overturn gender roles themselves by running away to the mountains where they live like wild animals in harmony with nature (677–713). This harmony turns macabre, however, when the women discover a spying cowherd and fly into a rage, tearing his cows apart with their bare hands (737–746). Their frenzied violence ominously anticipates the climactic messenger’s speech where, in their ecstatic delirium, the women tear King Pentheus limb from limb (1114–1139). His own mother, Agave, proudly marches back to the palace carrying her son’s head, which she believes to be that of a lion, on a stake as a trophy (1139–1143). In this grisly turn of events the women invert every aspect of social order and gender expectations: their bare-handed hunting perverts the traditional hunting done by men; their violent eating of raw flesh subverts the properly roasted meat eaten following a pious sacrifice to the gods; they flee their traditional places in the home and their own children to breast-feed wild fawns on the wooded mountainsides. Dionysos vengefully instigates this subversion of social order and gender roles as punishment against Thebes.

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Euripides warns here of the danger involved in arrogantly dismissing the god of wine and ecstatic release by declaring oneself to be a devotee to reason and good judgment. This may be a critique of Athens, which prided itself on superior rationality and so¯phrosune¯ even while embarking on a destructive and ultimately ruinous quest for power, wealth, and imperial dominance in the Aegean.51 Such dedication to social control actually results in imbalance, whereas properly observed rites and recognition of Dionysos’s ulterior power allows tempered release followed by a return to order. Euripides’ dramatic representation of Dionysos’s myth also reinscribes Greek stereotypes about women: they were perceived to be more irrational than men and liable to hysterics as well as enslaved by their emotions and sexual nature.52 Euripides thus reaffirms the need for thoughtful and moderate male restraint. By combining the stereotype of the effeminate barbarian with the mystery-mongering magos, as Pentheus perceives it, Euripides contributes to the emerging magic discourse by identifying it with gender subversion and social disorder. Magic and Revenge in the Medea The arch-sorceress of Greek and, later, Roman tradition is Medea. In Euripides’ dramatization of her myth, Medea is recently abandoned by her husband and seeks revenge by killing his new royal bride with a magically poisoned robe. She then murders her own two sons. This story of seduction, betrayal, betrayal again, and finally a double murder followed by infanticide has all the makings of an engrossing thriller even the most audacious Hollywood producers cannot surpass. Yet, that is not how her story always read. Hesiod, for example, makes no mention of her murderous or magical reputation but amiably narrates her return to Iolcus with Jason as his “blossoming” (thalere¯n) wife and notes further only that she bore him two sons, Medeios and Cheiron (Theog. 996–1002). Corinth possessed an epic tradition that portrayed a very different Medea from that of Attic tragedy. Fritz Graf describes a seventh-century Corinthian epic poem attributed to Eumelos, according to which Medea rules Corinth as rightful heir of Aeëtes.53 She accidentally causes her children’s death by taking them to Hera’s temple where Hera promised to immortalize them.54 This Medea, Graf states, “had little to do with the Medea whom epic located in Colchis and Iolcus. Herbal magic was not her concern—and far less magic of any other kind. Just the opposite,” Graf argues, “whereas the Medea we meet in Iolcus could rejuvenate Aeson, the Corinthian Medea failed to immortalize

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even her own children.”55 Martin West has recently argued that Medea’s appearance in the Corinthian epic was a way to harmonize an existing local cult to a goddess named Medea and the infamous sorceress of legend: The underlying fact is a Corinthian cult of the dead children, whose tomb was situated in the precinct of Hera. It is probable that the dead children of the cult were originally sons of a local goddess Medea who had no connection with the Medea of the Argonautic legend. The coincidence of name led to Aietes’ and Jason’s introduction into the Corinthian story. Once the cult is provided for, there is no further role for Medea. She takes her leave, and hands over the throne to the Aeolid Sisyphos.56

Pausanias reports that the Corinthians were the ones to murder Medea’s children in revenge for Medea murdering their princess; they then erected a monument to expiate their crime.57 In fact, some scholars propose that Euripides invented her barbarian origins and introduced the most appalling element—the infanticide—into his presentation of her myth as a way to dramatically underscore her Otherness.58 The most common outline of Medea’s mythic biography includes her descent from Helios and relationship to Circe,59 her childhood as a princess in Colchis, and her expertise at pharmakeia.60 When Jason arrives on her island with his band of heroes, the Argonauts, he seduces the maiden into betraying her family and assisting him to capture her father’s golden fleece.61 Like Circe, Medea is described as being skilled with all kinds of herbs—pampharmakou (Pindar, Pyth. 4.233)—and uses her knowledge to protect Jason with magic unguents and potions during his battle to steal the golden fleece (Pyth. 4.220–223). In order to escape with Jason and his golden prize, Medea murders her brother.62 After their return to Iolcus, where Jason presents his usurping uncle, Pelias, with the coveted prize, Medea deceives Pelias’s daughters into murdering their father with magic arts they believe will rejuvenate him. By the time Medea’s story brings her to Corinth, the scene of Euripides’ tragedy, the maiden already has accrued a long docket of murderous acts and magical interventions. It is on this reputation for magic and violence that Euripides draws for his rendition of her story.63 Euripides takes up the story of Medea and Jason later in their lives; they have already survived the journey back from Colchis, paid their ill-fated visit to Pelias, and have created two children together. They are living as a respectable domestic couple at this point, far from the adventure that marked their early years together. That is, until Jason announces his plans

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to marry the princess of Corinth and abandon Medea. Medea is left an unwelcome exile, bereft of family to which she can return since, on Jason’s behalf, she killed her brother and alienated her father.64 In the legal context of classical Athens, Medea finds herself in the worst possible position for a woman—alone and without any legal protection.65 This provides the context for the opening scene of Medea: the nurse enters from the house lamenting the arrival of the Argo in Colchis and Medea’s flight to Iolcus, “her heart driven mad by love for Jason” (ero¯ti thumon ekplageis’ Iasonos, 8). The nurse describes Medea’s heart as ekplageis, which conveys the sense of “driven out of one ’s senses,” “panic stricken,” or “in shock.”66 Thus, the opening scene introduces Medea as a woman controlled by her emotions and somehow out of control or “out of her mind.”67 The themes of self-control (so¯phrosune¯) and reason unfold, often ironically, throughout the drama, constituting a central element for Athenian reflection. Euripides plays with this notion of so¯phrosune¯ and Athenian preconceptions about who has it and who does not. The importance of such a debate centers on the fact that for democratic Athens so¯phrosune¯ comprised an essential quality of leadership, replacing noble birth and wealth as attributes that qualified one to govern.68 The representation of Medea as ekplageisa, out of her senses and emotionally overwrought, conforms to Athenian discourse about women and foreigners, both of whom were excluded from democratic self-government on the grounds that they lacked qualities such as so¯phrosune¯; for Athenian women so¯phrosune¯ involved obedience and submission to male control.69 The nurse ’s depiction of Medea, therefore, as ekplageisa reinforces this stereotype; her observation appears to be neutral and objective. It is presented as self-evident even to an uneducated slave. Yet, after establishing a conception of Medea that confirms accepted knowledge about women and foreigners, Euripides complicates this construction. He represents Jason as selfish, albeit sensible. Jason (who is also an exile since Medea murdered his uncle and drove them both from his kingdom at Iolcus) has arranged for himself a marriage with the royal house of Corinth, where he and Medea have taken refuge. Unlike Medea, Jason appears to be thinking rationally rather than emotionally. He presents his marital arrangements as a sound plan to secure a more stable future for the whole family: “As for the reproaches you cast upon me with regard to my royal marriage, here I shall explain, first, that I am wise (sophos), and then, self-controlled (so¯phro¯n), and finally, a great friend to you and my children (547–550).” He reasonably negotiates a more secure future for himself and,

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he claims, his family through an auspicious alliance. He contrasts this ability to act rationally and to see beyond one ’s personal desires with Medea’s foolish jealousy: But stay calm! Ever since I moved here from the land of Iolcus, dragging along numerous impossible misfortunes, what more favorable windfall could I stumble upon, being an exile, than to marry the king’s daughter? Not—which is what provokes you—because I detested your conjugal bed (echthairo¯n lechos) and was smitten with desire for a fresh bride; nor out of zeal to compete in the procreation of many children—for the ones born [to us] are plenty and I am not dissatisfied. But in order that—the greatest thing—we might live well and not be in want, knowing that everyone flees far from a penniless friend. (550–561)

In his dismissal of Medea’s anger Jason invokes a common trope of Greek literature—women’s sexual jealousy.70 His marriage, he argues, will secure a better future for his sons and Medea. Medea, however, accepts none of it. She argues that Jason has violated his oaths, sworn by the gods, and abandoned her, his lawfully wedded wife, for personal gain or erotic attraction—it does not matter which (492–515).71 She claims to have the legitimate position in this marital tug-of-war. Throughout their debate, Jason appears rational, yet also cold and calculating. Euripides presents Medea’s claims on Jason in such a sympathetic light that both the audience ’s sentiment and that of the chorus may incline with her. Cold rationality here seems weak in the face of human commitment and sacred oaths; Jason vowed betrothal to Medea when he seduced her back in Colchis and then publicly wed her after their escape.72 To treat her as a foreign concubine now that a royal marriage presents itself seems shrewdly calculating and unvalorous.73 While Medea demonstrated loyalty and devotion to Jason and his crew, helping them capture the golden fleece and escape to Iolcus, Jason has shown none of that virtue to her. Euripides ironically casts the Other—foreign woman and sorceress—as the representative of democratic ideals, while critiquing Jason, who represents an older aristocratic notion of individual glory.74 Once this characterization has been set and the audience is brought to sympathize with Medea as the representative of their commonly shared human values—loyalty, devotion to one ’s philoi, and honoring vows—Euripides inverts the audience ’s expectations yet again. Medea assumes the aristocratic pursuit of personal glory; she decides that she must avenge Jason at all cost to protect her honor—a masculine virtue in ancient

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Greece.75 Medea’s quest for honor and revenge thus inverts gender expectations (previously affirmed by her emotional instability and seductibility) and simultaneously brings her to the horrendous task of murdering her own children—the ultimate inversion of gender norms. That act, she concludes, is the only one that will genuinely harm Jason and cause him suffering, as he has inflicted pain upon her. Medea buries her maternal affections and emotions to execute this mission, which she frames in explicitly heroic and masculine terms:76 But what emotion is overwhelming me? Do I wish to incur ridicule by permitting my enemies to go unpunished? I must dare to do this; but what cowardice is mine, even to admit such timid words into my heart! Go children, into the house! Anyone not permitted to witness my sacrifices (thumasin) should take care for himself; I shall not weaken (diaphthero¯) my hand. (1049–1055)

Medea states that she is unwilling to “weaken” her hand. Diaphthero¯ also carries the moral sense of “seduce” or “corrupt by bribes.”77 Thus Medea refuses to give in to moral temptation and seduction now, as she did in the first instance when she followed Jason’s deceptive promises. Medea’s character evolves from the emotionally womanish and seduced figure, whom the nurse describes in the play’s opening scene, to a woman questing after heroic honor and willing to murder her own children in the process. Furthermore, Medea transforms herself from the recognizable caricature she was as an emotional foreign mistress into an unrecognizable hybrid of infanticidal mother and masculine hero, usurping even the male role of presiding over religious sacrifices (thumasin, 1055). By embracing traditionally epic qualities of the male hero, Medea transforms herself into a monster. She ejects herself from the sphere of empathy, where the audience recognizes in her their own moral values and virtues, and ghoulishly inverts social order. Jason, no doubt, expresses the audience’s opinion at this point when he claims: O hateful creature! O most utterly despicable woman—to the gods, to me and to the entire race of humans—You who dared to cast the sword against your own children, whom you brought into this world, you have destroyed me with childlessness. And having done this, can you gaze upon the sun and earth, having brought yourself to commit this most heinous deed? May you perish! I am thinking clearly now, before I was not in my right mind when I led you from your home and a barbarian land to a Greek house—a terrible evil—betrayer of

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your father and the earth that raised you. But the gods have sent against me your avenging spirit, for it was you who murdered your brother at the hearth and then embarked on the lovely-prowed ship Argo. You began with such deeds; yet even when you were taken by me in marriage and borne me children you killed them on account of the marriage bed. There is no Greek woman who would have dared such a thing, yet I deemed you worthy of marriage above them, and a deadly and hateful wedlock it is to me. (1323–1341) 78

Medea inverts natural order and confirms her position as the ultimate Other, outside everything Greek society upholds. Several critical themes emerge in this quotation. The first and most striking is Medea’s foreignness. Twice, Jason emphasizes that Medea is a barbarian whom he took from her barbarian home and brought to a Greek house. She betrayed her father and murdered her brother—two things a Greek woman would never do, if for no reason other than self-interest since she depended on her natal oikos for legal protection and support.79 Finally, she murdered her own children “because of sex and the marriage bed” (eune¯s hekati kai lechous). Jason again strikes the theme of sexual jealousy, which repeatedly figures in the context of magic, specifically women’s use of pharmaka in Greek tragedy.80 In order to eliminate her rival and punish the royal house for its audacious proposition to her husband—a legally married man in Medea’s view—Medea sends the bride a golden robe on which she has smeared poison unguents (toioisde chriso¯ pharmakois do¯re¯mata, 789). When the princess dons the radiant garb it bursts into flame, engulfing her and searing her flesh.81 When her royal father attempts to rescue her he too becomes ensnared in the resinous burning potion as it grips his flesh and prevents him from rising; he dies glued to his daughter’s fallen corpse over which he laments (1204–1221). Medea’s use of magic (pharmakois) functions here among many marginalizing strategies, including her barbarian origin, inversion of gender norms, violent emotion, and sexual jealousy. While subverting gender expectations in her quest for glory (kleos) and vengeance, Medea affirms stereotypes of women’s behavior, now linking them with women’s treacherous pharmakeia. Magic and Mistake in the Trachiniae The themes of sexual jealousy and women’s magic emerge also in Sophocles’ Trachiniae, which was probably produced about ten years before Eu-

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ripides’ Medea.82 Heracles’ devoted wife, Deianeira, decides to employ a love philter to win back the affection of her womanizing husband. The etymology of Deianeira’s name means “manslayer,” establishing early in her mythic life its telos.83 Yet she does not appear as a cruel or vicious character. She is not at all, in fact, like Medea, with whom she shares many tragic similarities.84 Rather, Deianeira unwittingly causes the death of the man she has faithfully served in marriage despite his long absences and frequent dalliances;85 he is, as she describes, “like a farmer who owns a remote field—he sees it only once when sowing and once when harvesting” (32–33). The situation changes, however, after Heracles’ final task; he falls victim to a greater power than himself—Ero¯s (354–355, 489).86 After a year’s absence during which time Deianeira devotedly waits for her heroic husband without knowledge of whether he is dead or alive, Heracles returns home. Actually, he sends ahead of him his captured war bride for whom he sacked an entire city and murdered its inhabitants. Heracles’ lust for this woman is a destructive force—destructive not only for her natal home and family but proving to be so for Heracles’ family as well. Somehow, for all his strength and cunning, this great hero lacks basic common sense and human awareness—a thoughtfulness that his herald demonstrates, albeit deceitfully, when he attempts to conceal the true nature of Heracles’ captured concubine from Deianeira, realizing the pain such disclosure would cause her (314–319). Repeatedly, the narrative juxtaposes the animal and the human—the monstrous and the civilized.87 Heracles rescues Deianeira twice from monstrous courtship: once from the river god Acheloüs (9–17), who tried to betroth her, and once from the centaur Nessus, who lustfully fondled her while ferrying her across a river (565–568). In both instances Heracles bested monstrous lust with heroic strength. Yet his own lust finally transforms him, the defender of civilization, into a destructive force akin to those his life of burdens had sought to eradicate.88 Sophocles draws into question many of the same issues regarding masculine identity that Euripides addresses in the Medea. The themes of selfcontrol, proper conduct within one’s household, and respect shown to one’s social inferiors and dependents constitute the central elements of this tragedy—what occurs when a man fails to acknowledge the effects of his power over others. Deianeira’s dependence on Heracles and the helplessness of both her and his children without him recur as themes again and again: Ever since he slew mighty Iphitus, we have been driven from our home and are dwelling as the guests of a man here in Trachis, while he has gone some

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place—no one knows where—except that he is absent, striking me with sharp pangs for him. (38–42)

Deianeira’s situation parallels that of Medea in many respects: her recourse to magic similarly responds to the threat of abandonment. Unlike Medea, however, who knowingly commits homicide with her art, Deianeira naively believes she is giving Heracles a love charm (philtre) that will win his affections back from the concubine he has brought home as a war trophy and second wife.89 But, while Deianeira remains feminized in her naïveté and never adopts a masculine language of honor, or vengeance, as Medea does, she nonetheless effects a gender transformation. Her very attempt to win back Heracles’ affection with magic violates social expectations that men alone express erotic desire while wives appropriately exhibit self-controlled affection (philein or stergein) for their rightful spouses.90 Thus, without intending masculine heroism, her acceding to desire inverts the gender dynamics between her and Heracles. He becomes the victim instead of her. He is reduced to wailing and crying like a woman while Deianeira heroically, even erotically, takes her own life by plunging Heracles’ sword—a symbol of masculine valor and virility—into her naked side while sitting atop their bridal bed.91 Having leapt up, she seated herself in the middle of her marriage bed, and bursting into a hot flood of tears, she exclaimed: “O my bed and my bridal chamber, farewell now forever, for you shall never again receive me within the covers of this conjugal berth.” She said only this much, then—with a violent jerking of her hand—loosened her mantle, on which a golden brooch was fastened over her breast, and uncovered her whole side and her left arm. And I [the Nurse] go, running at full speed, with all my strength and informed her son of her intentions. But, by the time we rushed backed to where she was, we saw that she had already stabbed herself in the side beneath her liver and diaphragm with a double-bladed sword. (917–931)

The masculine and sexualized language used to describe her death contrasts with Heracles’ own pitiful description of himself while dying, emasculated, crying like a woman: “Pity me, who am pitiable to many, wailing and weeping like a girl, and no one could claim to have seen this man acting in such a way at any time before. But, without a sigh I always submitted to

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my burdens. Now, from such as this, in my suffering I am discovered to be female!” (the¯lus he¯ure¯mai, 1070–1075).92 Like Euripides in his Medea, Sophocles introduces his audience to a scene of total chaos and inversion; social categories and expected gender roles—predicated on observations of nature and cultural knowledge—get overturned and subverted. A well-intentioned wife accidentally murders her own husband in a tragic misperception that results from her credulous simplicity; Deianeira’s fealty to social expectations that a woman live a sheltered domestic life leads her naively to believe the centaur’s treacherous deception.93 Deianeira thus represents the ideal of feminine simplicity taken to a tragic extreme. Similarly, Heracles’ masculine strength and virility, taken to the point of sacking a city for the sake of sex, extends cultural expectations of male promiscuity to tragic extremes. Deianeira unconsciously attacks her husband in response to his own lack of conscience in bringing a war bride home to share his bed. Sophocles teaches a lesson in moderation and responsible conduct. Heracles’ lack of judgment and enslavement to his animal passions jeopardizes the entire society—beginning with Oechalia, home of his concubine, Iole, and concluding with his own home and family. Deianeira’s situation in many ways parallels that of Medea in that both she and Medea face abandonment for another woman. Legally, however, it constitutes the inverse in that Deianeira was Heracles’ lawful wife and Iole his foreign concubine. Medea claims the rights and privileges of a legal wife but, according to Athenian law after 451/0 bce, she was merely Jason’s foreign concubine. This fact would probably have resonated deeply with an Athenian audience well aware of the disruptions Pericles’ citizenship law introduced. So, although both women face the same matrimonial predicament, their stories would have sounded a different tone in the ears of the audience grappling with this issue.94 In both the Medea and Trachiniae murderous acts involving pharmaka result from crises of infidelity and betrayal, demonstrating how familial disorder can prove fatally dangerous, threatening the stability of an entire society.95 Other tragedies draw on the same theme of jealousy, magic, and marital discord: in Euripides’ Ion the title character asks how many women have murdered their husbands with a potion (pharmako¯n) or the knife (616). In the Andromache Hermione accuses Andromache (who is a captured slave and concubine of Hermione ’s husband Neoptolemus) of using secret philters (pharmakois kekrummenois) to obstruct her fertility (Andr. 32). Later

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Hermione states that by use of drugs (pharmakoisi) Andromache has made her abhorrent to her husband and adds: “for the Asiatic mind of women is clever (deine¯) in such things” (159–160). She thus asserts it as self-evident that barbarian women use pharmakeia, helping to establish and fortify the emerging discourse of magic. Euripides deploys this stereotype of dangerous foreign women ironically, however: Andromache, the barbarian concubine, operates in this play as the ideal wife. She is sympathetic to her husband/master and is virtuous, in contrast to his legitimate wife, Hermione. Since Hermione is herself Spartan (with whom Athens is at war) and the daughter of that infamous wife, Helen (over whom the Trojan War was fought), Euripides plays one set of cultural stereotypes or expectations off another to demonstrate his moral point about female virtue and marital harmony. The antisocial, barbaric, and subversive power of magic functions in these plays to dramatize the intense disorder and chaos that can result from male mis-actions and female reactions, attesting both to the dependence of women on male decisions and the consequent need for men to exercise good judgment and self-restraint.96 These plays represent women resorting to magic out of jealousy or competition. Women appear in these depictions to be motivated primarily by sex. Jason summarizes the attitude well when he accuses Medea of being obsessed with their connubial relationship: “But you women have reached the point that you believe you have everything when marital relations prosper. However, if some misfortune befalls your marriage bed you reckon as most hurtful the things that are [in fact] most desirable and most noble” (569–573). It is this sexual jealousy, Jason claims, that leads Medea unreasonably to resist his “wise” decision to marry into the royal family. The chorus also seems to link Medea’s anger to sexual jealousy, reinforcing Jason’s reductionist view of Medea’s indignation.97 Deianeira’s fear of sharing her marriage with the young war bride, Iole, similarly reflects this picture of wives as driven by jealousy. Deianeira graphically imagines the two women sharing Heracles’ love under the same sheet: a vision that leads her mistakenly to murder Heracles with a love potion: For I have accepted into my presence a maiden (kore¯n)—no, I can imagine that no longer—rather a woman yoked already in marriage (ezeugmene¯n), as a sailor accepts cargo—outrageous freight for my heart! And now the two of us, abiding together, wait for his embrace beneath one blanket. Such is the repayment my so-called good and faithful Heracles sends back to us for keeping his house after such a long time. (536–542)

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Ancient Greek medicine confirmed this conception that women are controlled by their sexual nature.98 For example, according to various medical theories of the time, hysteria and other “female” ailments arise from physical pressures created by the womb’s need to procreate. Plato describes the womb as an animal that craves procreation and that, when it remains “unfruitful” for too long, gets angry and wanders through the body, blocking respiration and causing disease (Tim. 91c). Hippocratic writings expound a similar theory, according to which the womb in women, excessively dry, requires male sexual emission to moisten it and weigh it down.99 When the womb becomes overly dry it rushes up toward the moisture where it impacts other organs, causing suffocation and internal injury (Mul. 1.7).100 Explanations for female ailments tended to identify coitus as the sole cure, making women dependent on men for good health and perpetuating conceptions that women’s sexual physiology controls them. The Hippocratic corpus, for example, explained that women suffering from amenorrhea require sexual intercourse to open a passageway for their menses (Mul. 1.2). This condition particularly afflicted virgins; the pressure of the backed-up blood pressed on their hearts and lungs and drove them into hysterical seizures—even to commit suicide (De virginum morbis). For such young women, the Hippocratic doctors prescribed cohabitation as soon as possible. Greek medical knowledge contemporary with our texts thus authorized the view that women are subject to their sexual anatomy. Medea and Trachiniae seem to draw on and confirm this notion, combining it with themes of magic and danger. While Medea and Deianeira claim that jealousy is not their main motivation and point instead to the social displacement and resulting vulnerability they experience as the result of their abandonment, descriptions of their poisons’ effects reinforce the perception that ero¯s motivates their recourse to magic. Ero¯s, conceived as possessing and burning its victim, appears to infuse the magical poisons. For example, the description of Medea’s fatal potion consuming her rival invites the connection between sexual passion, jealousy, and fire. The princess’s excitement when she receives Medea’s mortal gift also betrays an erotic component to her death. According to the messenger, she donned the many-colored gown and placed the diadem on her head, arranging her locks around it. She coquettishly paraded in front of a mirror, smiling and admiring herself, taking pleasure in her enhanced beauty, no doubt anticipating her connubial bed: “Thereupon, having risen from her seat, she passed through the room, stepping delicately on her pale white feet, rejoicing exceedingly in her gifts, and repeatedly admiring the

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straightness of her tendon with her eyes (1163–1166).” The language used to describe this scene, emphasizing the princess’s daintiness and self-appreciation, evokes sensual arousal. Her confident expectation of marital union contrasts with Medea’s frequently mentioned jealousy over her abandoned marriage bed. The two women, both brides of Jason, are thus dramatically juxtaposed. They each suffer from desire for Jason and each will be a victim of that desire. The princess’s aroused anticipation seemingly transforms into full erotic possession—she falls as if in ecstasy onto a chair, foaming at the mouth—as Medea’s spiteful poison overwhelms her. But what followed was a dreadful sight to see: for she changed color and with trembling limbs fell backwards sidelong into a chair, only just avoiding falling on the ground. And some old woman among the servants, supposing perhaps that a frenzy from Pan or another of the gods had come [upon her], shouted with joy, until she saw white foam issuing from her mouth, and the maiden’s eyes rolling backward, and her flesh without blood. (1166–1175)

Desire and pleasure collapse into paroxysms of pain as the golden robe consumes the princess’s dainty flesh. Anticipating marital union, the princess loses herself in a mortal embrace with Medea’s vengeance. The messenger’s narration of the princess’s fiery death elicits parallels between erotic passion and burning poison. The princess’s swoon at first appears to be that of ecstasy rather than torment, so much so that one of her servants shouts out in jubilant celebration (1171–1173). The princess’s death parallels Medea’s own burning jealousy—her magic effects a transference of that passion onto the princess. Conversely, the princess’s own sexual desire could be understood to have led her so easily into Medea’s snare; she eagerly grasps the gifts and basks in her carnal beauty. Both women are depicted as succumbing to their innate female sensuality, starkly contrasted by Jason’s indefatigable rationality. Deianeira’s desire and jealousy inform both her own eroticized and masculine suicide as well as the inflamed destruction of her errant husband. In her tragic blunder the spell aimed to inspire love and rekindle erotic attraction overshoots its mark and instead destroys the one it sought to retain: “But as the flame for the holy sacrifices blazed forth blood-red from the juicy resinous wood, sweat broke out on his skin and the tunic enclosed him, clinging to his sides and all his limbs as if it were part of a sculpture. Convulsive burning penetrated to his bones. Then, like the venom

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of a murderous and hateful viper it devoured him” (765–771). The poison tunic traps Heracles in its searing embrace much as he traps the conquered war bride, Iole, in his amorous grasp. Like Jason’s princess-bride, Heracles seems to be devoured as much by his own excessive passion as by Deianeira’s jealousy and suddenly realized sexual desire, manifested in her desperate use of a “love” potion. His painful suffering and madness (nosountos, 784) stems from and parallels his former passion (nosos) caused by ero¯s (445).101 Furthermore, the poison’s own origin—venom-infused blood from the dying centaur—reinforces the tragic connection between excessive sexual desire and magic in this play. Heracles created this poison himself when he killed the centaur for molesting his wife, with arrows dipped in the Hydra’s lethal venom.102 These depictions of magical revenge reinscribe belief in the destructive power of women’s jealousy motivated by their uncontrollable sexuality. This latent danger, realized with the aide of magic poisons, threatens society by inverting gender relations—leading women to adopt masculine courage and men to reveal themselves as womanish or cowardly. Significantly, in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon Clytemnestra slays her husband, Agamemnon, when he returns from Troy with a conquered war bride, not through magic but by the sword—she butchers him with a sharp blade in the same way that he slaughtered their virgin daughter, Iphigenia, to pursue glory at Troy.103 But this difference reinforces the connection I wish to draw between magic and ero¯s in Greek tragedy. Vengeance motivates Clytemnestra and her lover to kill Agamemnon, not jealousy (although she does dispatch her husband’s lover, Cassandra, as well).104 Furthermore, she is not abandoned by her husband for a concubine; rather she abandons him first, taking his cousin as her lover. Clytemnestra’s murderous revenge and adultery therefore deviate from the pattern discussed above in which jealous women employ pharmakeia to win back (or avenge) the love of an errant man, usually with lethal consequences and always by subverting male prerogatives and social dominance. As in the Bacchae, magic discourse emerges in these texts to express a sense of danger and Otherness in representations of women transgressing gender roles and threatening society. Hall and others have argued that tragedy presented a forum for Athenians to think about and assess their social and political structures by projecting contemporary issues and concerns onto a remote and mythologically distanced drama.105 This distance safely allowed tragedians and their audiences to reflect on, critique, and reaffirm

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Athenian values. It is to a discussion of the way in which magic discourse participated in this self-reflection and formulation of democratic ideals that I now turn.

magic disc o u r s e a n d p o w e r i n athenian p o l i t i c s Gender inversion and jealousy emerge as prominent themes in tragedies that depict the use of magic. Magic is associated in these dramas with feminine subversion of male decisions and sexual freedom, driven by women’s perceived addiction to their marriage bed. While both Euripides and Sophocles suggest that it is men’s irresponsible disregard for their wives’ feelings that leads ultimately to the tragic results that follow, magic nonetheless constitutes the form that women’s emotional reaction takes in these plays. Magic (pharmakeia) becomes essentially women’s weapon. Yet, as we saw with Plato, pharmakeia is also identified with binding spells (katadesmoi), incantations (epaoide¯), and sorcery (goe¯teia) used by men.106 Aeschines and Demosthenes demonstrate the deployment of magic discourse in political invective, accusing each other of being a magos or goe¯s (or both). Magic discourse thus emerges by the fourth century as a blending of these associations and representations, forming a powerful stereotype of feminine/barbarian Otherness and danger that persists until the modern period. Magic discourse, drawing as it does on the two poles of barbarian and feminine alterity, functions as a foil for the formulation of civic identity in democratic Athens. Magic represents illegitimate power and subversive practices. It demonstrates unmanly weakness—operating covertly and indirectly. It is identified with overwrought or uncontrolled emotion and lack of self-control, which Plato defines as one of the essential qualities of a good city and its citizens (Resp. 4.427e 10–11).107 The conception represented in tragedy that magic subverts traditional or expected gender roles, catapulting women (willingly or unwillingly) into the part of heroic male while reducing men to simpering weak “women,” has political ramifications that go beyond the private sphere of matrimonial relations. Male honor was expressed frequently in sexual terms. To play the passive role sexually constituted a form of assault (hubris) that not only dishonored a man but could lead to his disenfranchisement as well.108 To be penetrated sexually was the role of the politically weak and powerless: slaves and women (for whom it was considered natural), but also the conquered enemy.109 This understanding of penetration is graphically repre-

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sented on an Athenian vase, which depicts a vanquished Persian soldier offering his hinder parts to a triumphant Athenian who approaches him with his erect phallus, ready for the chance to humiliate him.110 Whether the sexual violation of conquered warriors was acted out in fact or merely symbolically on vase paintings is not relevant to this discussion since in either case it shows that political domination and honor could be conceived and expressed in sexual terms.111 The sexual violation and shame of a man also occurred vicariously through the seduction of his female relatives. A man’s honor was thus expressed not only in terms of his own sexual dominance but through the chastity and sexual purity of the women in his family as well.112 This included women directly under his authority, namely, his wife and daughters, but also his mother and sisters by extension. Their sexual violation or indiscretion damaged his reputation and raised questions about his ability to control those under his authority. Furthermore it opened his household (oikos) to suspicions of illegitimacy. Consequently, magic, which was associated both with female sexual assertiveness (expressing women’s erotic desire and subjectivity) as well as with women’s efforts to curtail men’s sexual freedom, constituted a direct challenge to masculine honor and sexual prerogative.113 Sophocles expresses this well: Deianeira’s heroic and erotic suicide atop her bridal bed is juxtaposed with Heracles’ whimper that he “finds [himself] female” (the¯lus e¯ure¯mai, 1070–1075). Similarly, Dionysos’s orientalized femininity, combined with his disruption of gender roles and civic harmony, demonstrates the association between magic, barbarian effeminacy, and the violation of proper social order. Greek masculinity was exhibited, among other ways, through the control of women. The actual degree to which Athenian women were or were not controlled and sequestered has been debated recently by historians. Some scholars have noted the relative “seclusion” of well-born Athenian women of the classical period compared with women represented in Archaic literature, who seem to have exercised more social “liberty,” at least in the literary representations. Noble women depicted in Archaic literature, for example, dine with their husbands and socialize with male nonrelatives, whereas well-born Athenian wives did not participate in the primary social pastime of Athenian elites—the symposium. Respectable Athenian women were said to stay away from unrelated men except at public gatherings like religious festivals and funerals where, it turns out, they were also vulnerable to seduction.114 Chaste women were said to avoid contact even with their male relatives, and for a man to enter a house without invitation was

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tantamount to hubris since it violated the privileged inner sanctum of the women’s quarters.115 For their part, men took pride in the control and supervision they exercised over young wives, keeping a vigilant eye on potential threats to their social position.116 Men’s discourse about women’s behavior, however, may not accurately reflect the reality of women’s comportment—how women negotiated the social constraints on their lives, which is always more complex than men’s representations of it. Consequently, such statements and depictions may better illuminate men’s fears and perceived sources of vulnerability than any kind of social “reality.”117 This is especially true given the fact that extant Greek literature reflects the social customs and ideals of wealthy and elite minorities. In other words, much Athenian discourse on women may be prescriptive rather than descriptive, describing how women ought to behave (and the social chaos that ensues when they do not) rather than how they actually did behave. For this reason, public discourse demands attention not for its historical veracity but for what it reveals about underlying ideals and self-conceptualization. Magic and Marriage Laws Since Greek literature locates women’s use of magic in situations of infidelity—the tragedies discussed above, for example, all depict conflict stemming from marital triangles—the most likely place to find an ideological impetus for the stereotype of “women’s magic” is in an examination of marriage laws, specifically changes instituted during this time, which may have produced new sources of social reflection or negotiation. In 451/0 bce Pericles decreed that only sons of two Athenian parents—mother and father—would be regarded as legal citizens and enfranchised in the democracy.118 Pericles’ citizenship law had serious repercussions for many elements of the population.119 Athens had been a cosmopolitan center for at least a century, and many foreigners had come to reside in Athens as tradesmen, craftsmen, and freed slaves.120 Women, especially, were brought from abroad as slaves or wives of travelers and colonists, producing children regarded as “illegitimate” (nothoi) under Pericles’ new law.121 Among the aristocracy, exogamy had a long tradition, fostering alliances between aristocratic families scattered across the Greek world.122 By defining more stringently the category “citizen,” Pericles effectively limited the number of people who benefited from Athens’s burgeoning empire.123 Concomitantly, as citizenship became increasingly identified with Athenian birth,

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Athens’s ideology focused on nationalistic themes such as the autochthonous birth of the Athenians and the superiority of Athenian nature.124 Additionally, Pericles’ law opened a new avenue for litigious Athenians to attack and delegitimate their legal and political opponents.125 By accusing a man of either passing illegitimate children off as Athenian or of being illegitimate himself, one could eliminate a political rival or legal opponent.126 Similarly, in cases of contested inheritance, the accusation of “illegitimacy” frequently made an appearance in an effort to secure patrimony.127 These cases show that men were vulnerable politically and legally through their womenfolk—mothers, wives, and daughters.128 The social invisibility of “respectable” Athenian women contributed to the possible confusion over a woman’s status or legitimacy.129 Witnesses who had seen a woman participate in religious festivals as part of an oikos or who had witnessed her husband’s declaration of their marriage needed to be called to testify to her status as a legitimate daughter of Athenian parents lawfully wedded to an Athenian man.130 Doubt could still arise, however, regarding her sexual exclusivity and consequently the legitimacy of her husband’s children. Illegitimate births constituted a popular theme in New Comedy of the fourth and later centuries.131 It also factors in the defense speech of a husband, arrested for the murder of his wife ’s lover, whom he claims to have caught in flagrante delicto. He justifies killing the adulterous seducer with the argument that such men violate not only the sanctity of the marriage bed but the integrity of the oikos and, through it, the stability of Athenian society (Lysias 1.32–33). Part and parcel of Pericles’ new citizenship law, therefore, an increasing anxiety over women’s sexual comportment and the ability to demonstrate legitimate ancestry seems to have developed or become exacerbated.132 This anxiety, dramatically displayed in New Comedy, appears also to have affected women’s social liberty in the fifth century.133 Lacey, for example, writes: The importance of being able to prove legitimacy had two principal results; it made adultery a public as well as a private offense, and it made the Athenians excessively preoccupied with the chastity of their womenfolk, with the result that they were guarded in a manner nowadays thought to be intolerable.134

While this statement may be exaggerated,135 it seems that some Athenian women did experience greater restriction on their freedom of movement and association; these were “the wives, daughters, and mothers of

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free and prosperous Athenians.”136 Since men in the public eye were most likely to attract accusations of illegitimacy, it was well-born women who needed to exercise the greatest caution and restriction.137 The behavior of the most noble, however, may have been emulated by other classes desiring to raise their social status.138 The central role that women played in securing and guarding male honor as well as a man’s fundamental rights of citizenship, following Pericles’ new citizenship requirements, may have contributed to representations of women’s dangerous magic in Greek tragedy at this time.139 In her introduction to Sexual Meanings, an edited collection of articles on anthropology and gender, Ortner suggests that societies in which men’s status depends on women are also those societies most likely to attribute powers of pollution and danger to women.140 “Prestige structures”—namely, social systems that determine relative status and power—rely on “symbolic associations” or “ideologies” to make a particular ordering of society appear sensible and natural, “compelling the ordering of human relations into patterns of deference and condescension, respect and disregard, and in many cases command and obedience.”141 Like all social systems and ideologies, prestige structures are not “given” but rely on the acceptance of culturally determined conceptions. Gender constitutes one such system of structuring prestige, which will often be coordinated with other systems such as kinship or economic exchange. Ortner notes that in societies where male prestige depends heavily on women, such as women’s productive labor, beliefs about female danger or pollution “tend to flourish.”142 While there is virtually no evidence for a fear of female pollution in fifth-century Greece, Ortner’s theory suggests that anxieties over male status manifested in other ways, such as, perhaps, fear of women’s dangerous magic. Ortner’s findings seem to have direct relevance for understanding Athenian concerns over women’s sexuality and the representation of them using magic in the post-Periclean era.143 With men’s citizenship status, ability to inherit ancestral property, bring a lawsuit, and vote in the assembly dependent on legitimacy, women’s sexual comportment became a central feature of the Athenian prestige structure and consequently of male concern at this time. An Athenian man’s honor and civic identity hung on the sexual conduct of his womenfolk. A single woman could destroy the viability of an entire oikos through sexual misconduct or even the suspicion of it. This dependence on women and vulnerability to their behavior contributed, I suggest, to shaping the emerging stereotype of women’s dangerous magic that I outlined above.

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Fear of women, specifically wives, practicing magic on unfaithful husbands, arises at least partly, I suggest, from this women-dependent prestige structure in several possible ways. First, the fear of women doing magic may be an expression of anxiety over men’s vulnerability to women, as Ortner suggests. Archaic women were thus less likely to be identified as sources of magical danger because civic identity and prestige did not depend on them in the same way.144 Second, the fear of women’s magic may in fact be justifiable; socially secluded and deprived of self-determination, Athenian women may have employed rituals of power in an effort to control certain aspects of their destiny, especially when faced by betrayal and abandonment.145 For example, around the year 420 bce, a young man brought a case against his stepmother in which he accused her of plotting his father’s murder with poison/magic (pharmakeia). According to the accusation, this woman convinced another woman, who was the concubine of her husband’s friend, to administer a “love” philter to both men. This potion (pharmakon) was designed to win back each man’s affection for his respected partner—the concubine in one case and the accused stepmother in the other. The plaintiff claims that his stepmother knew all along what she was doing; she deliberately intended to murder her husband (his father) and did not mistake, as Deianeira did, a love potion for poison.146 The outcome of the trial does not survive, nor is it known whether this forensic speech, attributed to Antiphon, was ever actually delivered in a court of law. Some scholars for example, believe the speech was “a rhetorical exercise built on an imaginary case.”147 The speech does, however, articulate what, on the basis of Greek literature, seems to have been a concern among some Athenian men—that women will use magic against them.148 The congruence between literary imaginings and real fears comes to the fore in this example, especially since it is unknown whether Antiphon is drawing on and reinscribing stereotyped imaginings or a real historical incident. Even in the case that the suit was actually brought to court, one can not know whether he is using the power of a stereotype to strengthen a false accusation or whether the case itself points to some reality behind the dramatic depictions. Whether or not the speech was used in a real trial or as a rhetorical exercise, it indicates the deployment of magic discourse. His speech naturalizes “knowledge” about women’s surreptitious activities and utilizes it to defame the accused (whether fictional or historical). The public presentation of these tragedies suggests that social discord stemming from Pericles’ new law needed to be addressed and problematized on the dramatic stage, that tensions around this law troubled many

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Athenians.149 For example, this law was abrogated on behalf of Pericles himself when both his legitimate sons died leaving only a son by Aspasia, his famous foreign mistress, as a descendant and potential heir.150 Additionally, a speech attributed to the great orator, Demosthenes, shows that evasion of this law may not have been altogether rare; the prosecutor accuses a woman, named Neaera, of being a Corinthian prostitute who bought her freedom, came to Athens, and was now passing as a respectable Athenian matron.151 Furthermore, his accusation alleges that her Athenian husband claimed Neaera’s daughter by prostitution to be his own child and gave her in formal marriage to an Athenian man, who believed her to be “legitimate” and allowed her to perform sacred cultic duties while he was archon.152 Another speech records a case brought against two men by their brothers-in-law, claiming that these men were illegitimate sons of a slave mistress and had been falsely presented to the phratry as legitimate heirs (Isaeus 6.18–24). They strengthen their claim by asserting that the mistress seduced the man with pharmaka, thus enlisting magic discourse to explain why he would leave his legitimate wife in favor of a slave and former prostitute (Isaeus 6.21). All these cases indicate the complexity of implementing Pericles’ law, the litigious opportunities it provided, and, perhaps, evidence of quiet resistance to it. Both Medea and Trachiniae explore the anxiety and pain Pericles’ law appears to have provoked on the personal level—rupturing families, displacing wives, and forbidding certain kinds of love. No doubt many men in Athens found themselves caught between a beloved foreign wife or mistress and the requirement to produce legitimate Athenian heirs. Some may have skirted the law, as in the case of Neaera, trying to pass off children of foreign women as Athenian. Even in cases where the children were legitimate, anxiety lingered over one ’s ability to prove their Athenian heritage. While it is impossible and inadvisable to reduce an entire discourse to one social factor or condition, the combination of women’s poisonous magic with love triangles involving foreign women in fifth-century tragedy suggests that magic discourse was enlisted in the public contemplation of tensions resulting from Pericles’ citizenship law. Furthermore, in the context of Athenian ideology, imperialism, and democratic rhetoric, women’s threat of pharmakeia merged with notions of barbarian religion (mageia), trickery (manganeia), charlatanism (goe¯teia), and harmful curses (katadesmoi), producing a potent discourse of alterity that characterized anything opposed to proper Athenian piety and masculine self-control. Magic dis-

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course thus emerged in this social-historical context and reflected the specific concerns and ideological exigencies of the Athenian polis at that time. Like so much of Athenian culture, magic discourse was inherited by the Hellenistic world: the constellation of representations and associations that made up the discourse in its original setting was adapted and augmented, responding to different social and ideological situations. Magic discourse thus displays surprising tenacity and endurance; it contributes to stereotypes of the Other right down to the modern era. The following chapters demonstrate that, while this discourse surfaces at various times and in various ways, its particular manifestations change, mirroring the particular social dramas in which it is deployed. “Witches” in Latin literature, for example, only barely resemble their Greek counterparts, even when the characters themselves are borrowed directly from Greek mythology, as in the case of Medea.

three mascula libido Women, Sex, and Magic in Roman Rhetoric and Ideology

C

avorting in cemeteries, committing infanticide, transforming former lovers into beavers, or themselves into predatory birds, animating the dead and stealing their body parts for use in necromantic rituals—these are merely some of the practices attributed to sorceresses in Roman literature. As the list suggests, women’s magic in Roman imagination evolved beyond the dangerous yet largely defensive pharmakeia employed by women in Athenian literature. It became grotesque, predatory, and cruel. In this chapter I consider the factors that contributed to shaping the Roman deployment of magic discourse, arguing once again for local contributing factors rather than universal patterns. In the previous chapter I proposed that the discourse of magic develops part and parcel of the emerging discourse of barbarianism in fifth-century Athens: representations of women doing magic in Attic tragedy acted as a foil for the construction of Athenian identity at the height of Athens’s imperialism and democracy. In those depictions magic is nearly always employed by women in contexts of competition resulting from infidelity and marital love triangles, possibly expressing tensions generated by Pericles’ citizenship law. The magic is thus presented as being restorative and defensive rather than predatory or aggressive. Furthermore, the women respond to relationships they are in already; that is, they do not employ magic in these depictions to seek out or attract a new lover. Even when retaliatory, as in the case of Euripides’ Medea, the magic reacts to a sense of injustice, one that the audience most likely would have recognized.1 Consequently, while women’s magic may be deliberately or accidentally injurious, it is

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defensive in nature.2 In the Hellenistic period sorceresses continue to be portrayed according to the model of jilted lover, which we saw in Attic tragedy, even while becoming more powerful and predatory.3 This Greek pattern of representing magic thus contrasts dramatically with that of Roman writings. By the first century bce hags prowling cemeteries, looking for body parts of crucified criminals to use in nefarious nocturnal rites, was becoming a stock motif of Latin literature. These “witches” (sagae) employ magic primarily for erotic love—adopting a predatory stance, they use magic to satisfy their “masculine lust” (mascula libido). What accounts for this difference in representation? It is possible that developments in ritual technology contributed to some of the more detailed depictions of women’s magic, such as that found in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, where Pamphile is said to have used lead tablets and pulsating innards in her magic to attract a lover (3.18).4 Other scholars have suggested that a universal archetype of the “night-witch” is at work in these portraits,5 or that these representations express anxiety over patrolling the boundaries of legitimate Roman religion and identity.6 These suggestions, while illuminating on a certain level, suffer from overgenerality: they do not account for the particular characteristics of Roman magic stereotypes or explain why certain representations predominate over and above others, such as the male magician, at this time. Consequently, I attempt to explain the specific features of Roman magic discourse by situating them in their social context. I argue that long-standing societal concerns about female sexual license combined with Augustan political ideology to shape the deployment of magic discourse in both literary representations as well as political indictments during the imperial period. The portrait of predatory, lustful, and violent sagae presented in Roman literature draws on and dramatically reinforces a parallel discourse of women’s dangerous independence that circulated as early as the third century bce.7 The particular form these combined discourses take reflects the specific legal and social factors that shaped the lives of elite women in Rome. A few women, under these conditions, gained tremendous wealth, independence, and political influence, which was threatening to and critiqued by some Roman men. At this time a discourse of wicked women emerges that censors independent women by portraying them as licentious, power grasping, and overly masculine. Catherine Edwards further reveals that this discourse of female immorality served to express anxiety about men’s social and political power, the status of patriarchy, and, ultimately, the health of Rome as a whole.8 Magic was added to the mix in

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the Augustan period, heightening the demonizing power of this rhetoric. The combined discourse, wicked women and witch, operates throughout the imperial period and forges a powerful stereotype that undergirds criminal accusations among the aristocracy and, later, accusations of heresy and witchcraft in Christianity. In order to understand the particular function of magic as a discourse in Roman literature and politics, it is necessary first to consider the social conditions that shaped this discourse and made it meaningful in its context.

the discour s e o f “ w i c k e d w o m e n ” A number of different factors contributed to creating what one author has called the “paradox of elite Roman women,” referring to the astonishing power, wealth, and influence that some Roman women were able to command during the last century of the Republic and into the empire.9 While this phenomenon was restricted to a minority of women who comprised the elite, a discourse about women’s dangerous power, influence on politics, and immodest involvement in male affairs emerged, possibly, as early as the third century bce.10 In order to understand the basis for these concerns, it is necessary first to consider how Roman law and custom contributed to creating a climate in which some women from elite families were able to become influential socially and politically despite laws excluding their official participation in government.11 Roman women, like Roman men, were under the legal authority of their fathers (or grandfathers if still alive) until the latter died. This control was total, encompassing the ability to own property as well as basic human concerns such as whom to marry.12 The power of the father (patria potestas) terminated for both men and women, however, once the oldest male in the agnate (paternal) line died. Men would then become the paterfamilias or head of the household for their own children and grandchildren, while women would become legally independent (sui iuris) if they had remained under their father’s legal control during marriage, which was common practice by the late Republic.13 Certain types of economic and legal transactions by women required the consent of a legal guardian (tutor), who was assigned to the woman at her father’s death.14 In other respects, however, women who were sui iuris were able to conduct their lives, contract marriages, and manage financial decisions largely according to their own will and without male supervision or interference.15 Such women also maintained a large degree of autonomy within their marriages while their

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fathers were still alive, since it was the father who legally looked after his daughter, her property, and financial affairs, even while she resided under her husband’s roof.16 While men controlled their wives’ dowries, in all other respects the property of husband and wife remained separate during marriage, fostering wealthy women’s autonomy from their husbands both legally and financially.17 Many women from elite families inherited substantial wealth during their lifetimes, which they controlled with the oversight of a tutor.18 The oldest code of Roman law, the Twelve Tables, granted sons and daughters equal shares of their father’s estate in the absence of a will.19 This legal parity contributed to women’s financial equality and influence within the family. By inheriting equally with brothers, daughters were recognized as economic players not only in the family but in the society at large, where their wealth could support a large client base and contribute toward political and social endeavors.20 Judith Hallett argues that, in addition to legal and economic privileges, Roman daughters had a special relationship with their fathers, expressed publicly through their shared nomen.21 Even after marriage, Roman women continued to operate in the interest of their agnate family and were recognized as influential and powerful brokers in Roman politics, based as it was on kinship and patronage.22 Not only did daughters inherit from their fathers, but they could inherit from their brothers or uncles as well if these men died without leaving heirs of their own.23 Husbands also could leave substantial legacies to their wives.24 This ability to inherit, which distinguished Roman women from many others in the ancient and modern world (including Athenian women), contributed to making some Roman women very wealthy and powerful as Rome’s wealth and power itself increased.25 There is evidence, however, that some men perceived women’s independence and wealth to be a danger to the state. Livy, for example, records the fierce debate over repeal of the lex Oppia, which was imposed during the heat of the Punic War and restricted women’s possession of gold to an ounce or less, forbidding them from wearing particolored clothing or riding in a carriage within the city or nearby town.26 Passage of this law suggests that during the turmoil and uncertainty of war ostentation and luxury were regarded as inappropriate—with women’s costume, in particular, being singled out for interdiction. The law was challenged and overturned twenty years later. Livy’s rendition of events, especially Cato’s speech opposing repeal of the law, reflects a concern over women’s dangerous power and shows how women’s excessive luxury became a symbol for the ailing

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health of the body politic.27 According to this speech, women have too much independence already and are seeking to increase their dominance over men.28 In his effort to defeat the bill, Cato, in Livy’s account, employs a variety of rhetorical techniques to belittle the women’s concern, demonize them as seductresses, and accuse them of trying to take over the government and enslave their husbands: wealth and luxury combined with unbridled immodesty and a desire to control men’s vote constitute women’s threat. His speech skillfully exaggerates the women’s goal, suggesting, for example, that they desire to ride in chariots through the city as if to celebrate a triumph (triumphantes) over the law and over the votes they have captured from the men: What explanation, the least bit respectable, is presented for this female insurrection (seditioni muliebri)? “In order that we may shine in gold and purple,” they say, “and that we may be borne through the city in carriages on festival and nonfestival days as though celebrating a triumph over the vanquished and abrogated law and, even more, over the votes seized and torn away from you.” (34.3.8–9)

By presenting the women as victorious soldiers returning from battle, he conjures a powerful and frightening image of women usurping male power. In this rhetorically rendered scenario, the women assume the masculine role of a victorious general (triumphator) who exercises the right of command over others, celebrating a triumph over foreign foes. In this case, however, the foes are Roman men and their laws—that is, the Republic itself. Women usurp male prerogatives in another way also. According to Livy, mobs of women flooded the streets around the Forum to protest the law—physically invading male political space, these women sought to interfere in male decisions and, in so doing, forsook their proper domain in the home.29 Cato’s speech, according to Livy, combines this accusation of trying to usurp male space and privileges with insinuations of sexual license. He asks the women whether they have come out into the streets because they are more attractive in public and to other women’s husbands than to their own (An blandiores in publico quam in privato et alienis quam vestris estis? 34.2.10). He thus accuses the women of using their beauty to manipulate men as well as insinuates that the women are interested in adultery—approaching men to whom they are not married rather than merely addressing the issue with their own husbands at home. Furthermore, he characterizes women categorically as uncontrollable creatures (indomito animali), who have an

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immoderate nature (impotenti naturae, 34.2.13–14). It is for this reason they seek to have not just liberty but complete license (licentiam). They will not be satisfied to attain parity with men: “As soon as they begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors” (Extemplo, simul pares esse coeperint, superiores erunt, 34.3.3). Many aspects of Cato’s speech, as presented by Livy, reflect what I call the discourse of wicked women: it targets elite women (or certain of them) as licentious, seeking control over men, acting in inappropriately masculine ways, and forsaking their modesty and proper place in the home. This discourse, which rhetorically inverts the ideals of the chaste domestic wife, served to demonize individual women as well as groups. To these charges can be added an additional one: poisoning. Allegations of using poisons (venena) were made against a variety of women from the early period of Roman history into late antiquity. The most high-profile and dramatic accusations emerge during the aristocratic rivalries in the early empire; the precedent, however, was established already in 331 bce when a group of matrons was tried for poisoning after a number of prominent citizens died of some unknown pestilence (Livy 8.18.2). A serving-woman informed on them, claiming that these patrician women were concocting noxious poisons (venena) in their homes (Livy 8.18.6). When the women were confronted with their crime, they chose to drink their own potion (medicamento) and die rather than confess and suffer punishment (Livy 8.18.9). Richard Bauman sees in this obscure event an early form of feminist activism.30 If the incident occurred as described, it suggests that these women were taking matters into their own hands, but the goal of their sedition is uncertain. Even if it did not happen, however, legend of the episode established a precedent for accusing well-born women of using poison to achieve political ends.31 It thus contributed to the emerging discourse of wicked women and, later, to the accusation of using magic/poison (venena) in political contexts.32 These two accounts come to us from Livy, who wrote centuries after the events are said to have taken place. His narrative may therefore reflect the concerns and attitudes of his own time, the Augustan era, as much as the period in question.33 On the other hand, there is evidence from other sources that the discourse of wicked women operated during the late Republic.34 Cicero’s treatment of an influential aristocrat, Clodia Metelli, for example, reveals the use of this discourse in a court of law. In his speech on behalf of Caelius (56 bce), Cicero leverages his defense with an explic-

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it attack on Clodia, an opposing witness, referring to her as a prostitute (meretrix) whose feminine libido must be restrained (muliebrem libidinem comprimendam putet, 1).35 Cicero undermines the credibility of her charges by alleging that they are motivated by Clodia’s jealousy and anger over her breakup with his client, Caelius; he thus concentrates on discrediting her for his defense (31–32).36 He launches an effective smear campaign on her character, alleging that she poisoned her husband (60), was sexually promiscuous (literally “everyone ’s mistress,” amicam omnium, 32), and insinuates that she committed incest with her brother (36) (which was alleged earlier about a younger sister, also Clodia, during a divorce proceeding with her husband).37 Cicero invokes images of aristocratic luxury degenerating into dissolute indulgence (35, 38), stirring up first envy and then censure against Clodia among the jury.38 Importantly, he emphasizes Clodia’s sexual freedom as a widow without male restraint (si vidua libere, proterva petulanter, dives effuse, libidinosa meretricio more viveret, 38). Furthermore, Cicero maligns Clodia by referring to her as the “Palatine Medea” (Palatinam Medeam, 18), identifying her with the infamous sorceress of Greek mythology who is driven by passion to kill her own kin. In this speech Cicero combines central features of what I have designated the “wicked woman” discourse: he charges Clodia with excessive luxury, sexual misconduct, as well as poisoning. Additionally, by comparing her to Medea he adds an allusion to “magic,” invoking magic discourse for the first time (known) in a legal context in Rome. As Cicero’s speech, pro Caelio, demonstrates, accusations of poisoning were often coupled with charges of adultery or licentious misconduct; concern over women’s immodesty went hand in hand with charges that they sought to dominate men. It is no surprise, therefore, that influential women were frequently maligned as libidinous seductresses and/or adulteresses. Another woman stands out for the vicious treatment she receives at the hand of Sallust in his account of the Catiline conspiracy. Sallust claims that Catiline had gained the support not only of men but of some women as well. These women, he claims, had contracted enormous debts through dissolute luxury, which they could no longer support through prostitution (stupro corporis), having advanced in age (Bell. Cat. 24.3). Presumably this explains their desire to join the sedition. Among these women was Sempronia, whom he describes as abundantly favored in birth and beauty as well as with a good marriage and children. She was well educated (docta) in the literature of both Greece and Rome; she could play the lyre and dance better than

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necessary for a virtuous woman (quam necesse est probae). She possessed many other talents as well, which, Sallust claims, are instruments of luxury (Bell. Cat. 25.2). For example, he attributes to her a gift for writing, wit, and charm. His description of Sempronia confirms what we know to have been true of many elite women. She was wellborn, well-bred, and well educated. Sempronia’s role in the actual conspiracy is not at all clear. Her crimes, according to Sallust, include breaking her oath and repudiating debts as well as being an accessory (or witness) to murder (caedis conscia fuerat, Bell. Cat. 25.4). To this he adds a desire so impassioned that she sought men more frequently than she was sought by them (lubido sic accensa, ut saepius peteret viros quam peteretur, Bell. Cat. 25.4). Like the women accused in Cato’s speech against repeal of the Lex Oppia, she forsakes appropriate feminine pudor (modesty) to chase after men to whom she is not married. In fact, Sallust claims that anything and everything was worth more to her than honor and chastity (Sed ei cariora semper omnia quam decus atque pudicitia fuit, Bell. Cat. 25.3). His depiction of Sempronia draws on the discourse of wicked women to disparage, not just Sempronia and the other women allegedly involved in the conspiracy, but Catiline as well. The association of men with dissolute women recurs frequently as a trope in Roman invective, where it demonstrates the man’s lack of good judgment and self-restraint. As Anthony Marshall notes, the treatment of women often “serves to reinforce the bad impression that we are given of the character and career of ” men with whom they are associated.39 Similarly, Catherine Edwards argues that the discourse about women’s immorality shows their male relatives (especially husbands and fathers) to be politically weak and effeminate.40 Insinuations and accusations about women’s sexual misconduct and luxury thus often concealed political and social contests between men and should not be accepted as a straightforward portrayal of women’s behavior.41 Women’s conduct also functioned as a metaphor for political and social order in Roman rhetoric. Sempronia epitomizes the characteristics of the discourse of wicked women in Roman writing: she is beautiful and seductive, uses her charms to indulge an intemperate lust, and her behavior is masculine in its assertiveness and audacity. As Sallust writes, she committed acts of masculine daring (virilis audaciae facinora commiserat, Bell. Cat. 25.1). For these reasons, Sempronia provides an excellent entrée to Roman representations of magic: while she is never accused of using magic herself, Sallust’s depiction enlists many of the attributes found later in portrayals of villainous sagae

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performing baleful magic. In fact, no depictions of women using magic appear in extant Roman writings before the second century bce.42 Consequently, it appears that magic discourse, which was introduced from Hellenistic sources sometime during that century, combined with the existing discourse of wicked women to create a powerful strategy of demonization and delegitimation that spoke to specific Roman values and concerns.43 It is to an examination of this combined discourse of magic and predatory women that I now turn.

mascula lib i d o : m a g i c a n d p r e d a t o r y w o m e n i n latin liter a t u r e Virgil represents one of the first Roman authors to develop women’s use of magic as a literary motif.44 His eighth Eclogue, for example, depicts a lovestruck maiden performing incantations (carmina) to win back the affections of her strayed lover. Following the poetic inspiration of Theocritus’s second Idyll,45 Virgil presents in great detail the ritual manipulations and private comments of a young sorceress and her assistant: Bring out water, and wreathe these altars with tender fillets; and burn rich cypress and male frankincense, that I may try to remove the sanity of my betrothed (coniugis) through magical rites (magicis sacris): nothing here is missing except incantations (carmina). (64–67)

By employing magic to win back an errant lover, the young woman of this poem adheres to the pattern of representation analyzed in chapter 1: magic is used to protect a threatened relationship. Like Deianeira and Medea (who were both married to the men who abandoned them),46 the sorceress in Virgil’s eclogue perceives herself to be in a formal relationship with Daphnis and refers to him as coniunx (66).47 Some differences in Virgil’s depiction, however, anticipate the more striking characteristics of Roman representations of magic. For example, she adopts a form of erotic magic that archaeology suggests was practiced most often by men.48 In this way Virgil masculinizes the sorceress, depicting her engaged in sexual pursuit— a virile activity in Roman thought. Furthermore, Christopher Faraone has proposed that the ritual she performs itself inverts gender roles; Virgil’s sorceress stages a sympathetic ritual according to which she becomes hard and masculine while Daphnis becomes soft and effeminate.49

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As this clay hardens, and as this wax melts in one and the same flame, so Daphnis will melt in love for me. Sprinkle grains of spelt, and kindle brittle bay leaves in bitumen pitch. Disloyal Daphnis burns me; I burn this laurel on Daphnis. (80–84)

The girl seeks to inflict on Daphnis the same burning desire that afflicts her.50 In this goal she follows the model of ancient ago¯ge¯ rituals, which nearly always request that the gods or demons inflict injury and pain on the beloved until she comes to the lover and gratifies his sensual desires. This girl’s ritual diverges, however, in that the victim of extant ago¯ge¯ spells is nearly always female and the petitioner of the spells male.51 Virgil’s sorceress, therefore, adopts a typically masculine position according to ancient idealizations of love; she assumes the role of pursuer to her beloved, who is configured as passive. An interesting shift, therefore, seems to have occurred between fifth-century Athenian portraits of wives, desperately employing magic to win back straying husbands, and this portrait of a sexually assertive young woman adopting practices associated with male courtship behavior.52 Beginning with Virgil’s eighth Eclogue, women practicing predatory erotic magic figure prominently as a topos in Roman literature. One of the more shocking early representations is Horace’s eighth Satire of book 1. In this bawdy depiction, two old women dig in a forgotten pauper’s cemetery on the Esquiline (at the time it had been turned into a park), searching for bones and other necromantic ingredients to use in their love spells. A statue of Priapus narrates the following nefarious scene: I have seen Canidia, myself, walk with black robe tucked up, feet bare, and hair wild, shrieking with the elder Sagana: their sallow tone had made them both dreadful to look upon. They began to scratch the earth with their nails and to tear apart a black lamb with their teeth; the stream of blood was poured together in a furrow, so that from that place they might draw out spirits who would deliver an answer. There was a woolen effigy and another of wax; the larger one of wool sought to restrain and punish the smaller one; the one of wax stood like a petitioner, who at that moment awaited death in a slavish manner. One [hag] invoked Hecate, the other savage Tisiphone. You might also have seen snakes and infernal hounds roaming about and the moon, blushing, hide behind the great tombs so as not to be a witness to this event. . . . Why should I relate the individual details? How the shades, speaking alternately with Sagana sounded mournful and shrill? Or how they secretly hid in the earth a wolf ’s beard with

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the tooth of a dappled serpent? Or how much larger the flame burned because of the wax image, and how I shuddered at the voices and deeds of the two Furies but took vengeance for what I had witnessed? For as loud as the sound of a burst bladder, I split my fig-tree rump with a fart. And those two ran into town. You might have seen with great laughter and joking the [false] teeth of Canidia together with the lofty wig of Sagana fall down along with herbs and enchanted cords tied in a knot from their arms. (23–36, 40–50)

This poem typifies many aspects of the discourse of magic that surfaced during the Augustan era. Like Virgil’s sorceress in Eclogue 8, Canidia and her accomplice Sagana perform a sympathetic ritual that enacts the desired relationship between besotted hag and beloved victim. They take two figures, one of wool and one of wax, the larger wool figurine commands the suppliant smaller wax one, which slavishly expects death (maior lanea, quae poenis compesceret inferiorem; / cerea suppliciter stabat, servilibus ut quae iam peritura modis, 30–31). This description resembles the ritual melting and hardening in Virgil’s imagined ritual. Although not expressly stated, Horace implies that the dominant figure represents Canidia while the compliant wax figure stands in for her desired lover. A spell similar to this, which prescribes ritual binding and torturing of an image to gain a lover, exists from the fourth century ce. PGM 4. 296–466 proclaims itself to be a “wondrous spell for binding a lover” (philtrokatadesmos thaumastos). According to this spell, one fashions two figures out of wax or clay: “make the male in the form of Ares fully armed, holding a sword in his left hand and threatening to plunge it into the right side of her neck. And make her with her arms behind her back and down on her knees.”53 This spell parallels the ritual imagined by Horace: the two figures represent the lover and beloved, whose relationship the magician seeks to alter and control through manipulation of the two figurines. Significantly, the PGM recipe scripts the passive victimized position for the female partner, while the male assumes the dominant, commanding, position of her attacker.54 So, like the sorceress of Virgil’s Eclogue, Canidia inverts the gendered norm by assuming the role of aggressive conqueror, casting her male partner as the passive “female” victim. Like Sempronia, the two women exhibit a masculine lust in their aggressive pursuit of male lovers. Their amorous desire, however, is rendered both more dangerous and more depraved by the addition of magic to their hunt.

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In another poem, Epode 5, Horace less humorously describes a homicidal ritual that employs the liver of a young boy for use in an erotic potion. Once again Canidia and her faithful friend Sagana perform the rite, this time accompanied by Folia of Ariminum, who is described as masculae libidinis—possessing a “masculine libido.” The women dig a hole in the ground where they bury a youth up to his neck and, setting a plate of food before his face, starve him to death—desiring but unable to satiate his hunger. The boy’s liver will somehow distill this power of mortal desire and function as the potent ingredient to match the magic of her rival, whom Canidia believes is keeping her lover away: That, the boy buried with head protruding, like people in water suspended by the chin, might die from the sight of a meal changed twice or thrice during the day, in order that his marrow and parched liver, cut out, can be employed as a love potion (amoris poculum), once his pupils, fixed on the forbidden food, will have wasted away. (32–40)

In this epode Horace employs many of the same topoi to portray demonic hags as he did in his satire, but he exaggerates them to increase their baneful effect. Canidia’s hair is not only disheveled but entwined with vipers (brevibus implicata viperis / crines et incomptum caput, 15–16). Sagana also has streaming hair (horret capillis, 27) like some kind of sea urchin (ut marinus asperis / echinus, 28). The women employ dangerous potions (venena) of Medea, whose reputation for evil and disruption was becoming heightened in Roman literature, reinforced by attributions such as this.55 They utter Thessalian incantations that control cosmic forces, including the stars and moon. Horace thus links these women with Greek mythology and with “magic” as it had come to be construed in Hellenistic thought. He aligns Canidia and her cohort with a genealogy of women practicing magic that extends into the hoary mythological past, naturalizing the constructed stereotype by attributing to it an ancient origin. This portrait even more emphatically demonizes the women: by committing infanticide, they join the ranks of Medea as aberrations, even inversions, of the female ideal.56 Furthermore, they perpetrate this diabolic ritual with amorous intentions. They are driven by an insatiable lust that can only be cured by the distilled desire of a murdered child, whose own

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inability to satiate the natural desire of hunger led to his demise. Thus, like her cohort Folia, Canidia can be described as masculae libidinis. Stopping at nothing to fulfill her carnal urges, Canidia assumes the predatory role typically taken by men in Roman culture and in the majority of extant attraction spells recovered archaeologically. Ancient authors speculated on the identity of Canidia and her relationship to Horace while certain modern authors have tried to reconstruct her magical activities on the basis of Horace ’s description.57 Eugene Tavenner, for example, theorized the reasons behind certain aspects of Canidia’s ghastly nocturnal rites, such as her choice to dig bare-handed (scalpere terram unguibus, Sat. 8.26–27) rather than use a tool: If, as seems probable, Horace in this Satire is following the actual order of events, their first act was to dig a trench with their fingers, probably because of a taboo on iron implements, or possibly merely to add savageness to the general concept.58

Tavenner reads Horace ’s satire as descriptive of “actual” events and attributes this aspect of the ritual to a possible taboo on the use of metal in magic rituals rather than to Horace ’s desire to demonize Canidia with bestial images of her clawing in the dirt.59 More recently, Matthew Dickie has argued that Canidia presents “evidence” for the use of magic by prostitutes. While admitting that some satirical exaggeration may be involved in Horace ’s account, Dickie nonetheless assumes that behind the character stands a “real” person and uses her as an exemplum on which to build his theory of the prostitute-witch.60 Furthermore, he largely takes Horace’s portrait at face value, accepting, for example, the depiction of Canidia as old and sexually unappealing, and hypothesizing that Canidia and women like her (i.e., old, used-up prostitutes) employed magic to retain or punish errant clients.61 What Dickie only barely acknowledges is that both old age and sexual promiscuity (including prostitution) constituted invective tropes in Roman discourse along with magic.62 To accept that Canidia is a prostitute based on Horace ’s satirical smear campaign is the equivalent of accepting Cicero’s insinuation, in his pro Caelio, that Clodia Metelli practiced openly as a meretrix.63 Sexual slander constituted a central feature of ancient invective and should only be accepted as historical fact with great caution.64 Horace ’s satire demonstrates the colorful use to which the combined magic/wicked woman discourse could be put. He dramatically enhances the satire ’s realism by employing descriptive details that reflect popular

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conceptions of magical practices. Walking barefoot and wearing the hair loose (pedibus nudis passoque capillo, 24), for example, occur in other contemporary depictions of magic rituals: Virgil’s Dido performs her suicidal curse/love spell barefoot (Aeneid, 4) and Ovid’s Medea is said to supplicate her patron deity, Hecate, the goddess of magic, barefoot and in a flowing robe (Met. 7.183). In all these cases the narrative details confer a verisimilitude to the scene described by the poet. They may in fact reflect the way certain kinds of rituals were actually practiced in the ancient world.65 In any case, these literary representations contribute to a developing discourse of magic; by repeatedly enlisting stereotyped portrayals, the poets both harness and reinscribe magic’s demonizing power. Interestingly, there is some evidence that certain rituals drew inspiration from literary depictions rather than vice versa, indicating a circle of discursive influence and ideological deployment.66 Fritz Graf correctly writes that poetic depictions of magic ritual follow laws internal to literature, consequently, “their interest bears less on the understanding of magic than that of literature. . . . These authors make [use] of the motif of magic for their own poetic and sometimes psychagogic objectives.”67 Horace ’s work most clearly demonstrates the power of combining magic discourse, drawn from Greek writings, with the existing discourse of wicked women, which demonized independent women as lascivious and cruel, seeking to overthrow male dominance.68 The widespread use of this trope demonstrates the popular adoption of this discourse across a variety of literary genres. The work of two elegiac poets from this period, for example, also enlists the combined magic/predatory woman discourse. Like Virgil, whose work reflects the strong influence of Hellenistic literature, Tibullus and Propertius follow Greek models by choosing erotic themes and mythic or pastoral settings for their work. They extol love as the only enduring and meaningful thing in a world beset by the dangerous and destructive vicissitudes of war.69 This dedication to the theme and pursuit of love takes each poet into contact with magic, which becomes increasingly associated with love, sex, and seduction in Roman literature. In at least a couple of poems by each author, practitioners of magic make an appearance.70 In each case the character described resembles the figure of the wicked hag depicted by Horace. She employs disgusting and diabolic ingredients in her magic and is said to control cosmic forces or the souls of the restless dead. Propertius, for example, angrily curses his lover’s procuress, Acanthis, for encouraging her to take on more economically advantageous clientele and to turn him, the poor poet, away:

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But this witch (docta)71 can soften even Hippolytus’s resistance to Venus ever an unlucky omen for marriage and harmony Penelope, also, she might have driven to marry lustful Antinoos neglecting rumors of her husband[’s return]. When that woman determines, a magnet will not be able to draw iron And a bird will be a stepmother to her own nestlings. And certainly if she would place herbs from the Porta Collina in a ditch, sturdy things would be dissolved in running water. Audaciously, she would impose her laws on the enchanted moon and conceal herself at night in the skin of a wolf, so that she might blind determined husbands with her cunning. She digs out the innocent eyes of crows with her fingernail and consults the screech-owls concerning my blood, and against me she combines the effluence of a mare in heat with the seed of a pregnant mare. (4.5.5–18)

In his poetic tirade Propertius’s description of Acanthis paints her as a witch in increasingly familiar terms. She possesses powers of erotic magic so strong she could corrupt the mythically chaste. Instead, she uses her powers to deceive husbands (intentos astu caecare maritos, 15), destroying the sacred marital bond that Propertius elsewhere idealizes in his treatment of a free-spirited Cynthia.72 Furthermore, he associates Acanthis with violent animal imagery, visually drawing her bestial Otherness in the reader’s imagination.73 Acanthis tears out crow eyes with her nail (cornicum eruit ungue genas) and consults screech owls (consuluitque striges). She can disguise herself as a wolf (fallere terga lupo) and employs the effluence of pregnant mares (hippomanes fetae semina legit equae) in her magic.74 Although less severe and demonic than Horace ’s depiction of Canidia, Propertius draws on the same stock themes of the witch-hag to vilify and curse Acanthis for interfering with his love life. Similarly, the poet Tibullus describes a magic ritual performed by a sorceress so his lover, Delia, can deceive her husband and commit adultery: With a magic rite (magico ministerio), not even your husband will believe this [rumor], so the witch (saga) has promised me in truth. I have seen this woman pull down constellations from the sky, she reverses the course of a rapid river with her incantation,

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she cleaves the ground with a chant, she lures shades out of their tombs, and summons bones from a still-warm funeral pyre. Now she holds the infernal throng with a magic hiss, now she commands them to turn back again after they have been sprinkled with milk. When it pleases her, she expels the clouds from a mournful sky; when it pleases her, she summons snow in the summer season. She is said to be the only one possessing malignant herbs of Medea, alone to have subdued the feral hounds of Hecate. This woman composed for me incantations to enable you to deceive: chant three times, the incantation thus spoken, spit three times. That man will be able to believe no one in anything [he says], he will not be able to believe [even] himself if he sees us on a soft bed! You, nevertheless, must abstain from other men: for that man will perceive all the rest; of me alone will he detect nothing. (1.2.41–58)

In his portrait of this wise woman (saga) Tibullus employs mythic themes encountered previously—namely, Medea’s noxious pharmaceutical skills (malas Medeae herbas) and allusions to Odysseus’s meeting with the shades in book 11 of the Odyssey, where he pours milk as part of the chthonic offerings.75 All of this helps to establish a pedigree for his saga and evoke the imagined world of nefarious magic. That this ritual is imaginary and not the description of an actual magic rite can be ascertained from the constellation of vague ritual actions, like hissing and sprinkling with milk, which lack concrete referents or any ritual logic.76 They are what they seem: allusions to actions or people that are associated with magic in the poetic imagination. Tibullus’s poem thus reinscribes the association between these substances or actions and the fictitious world of magic.77 Both poems demonstrate the link between unchaste women, either mistresses or adulteresses, and magic. Magic is used in the second poem to assist Tibullus’s lover in deceiving her husband. In the first poem Propertius accuses the procuress of using magic to destroy chastity and marital harmony. Magic functions in both cases to deceive husbands, facilitate female infidelity, and ultimately to subvert patriarchal control over the domus.78 It thus naturally combines with elements of the wicked women discourse, which also regarded women as trying to subvert male control.

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In this elegy by Tibullus and in Horace’s Epode 5, Medea’s name is invoked to describe the harmful herbs being employed. Medea has, by the first century ce, come to signify women’s deadly magic in the Roman imagination. Invocation of her name alone conjures allusions to women’s unrestrained passion, subversive desire to control their husbands, and penchant for using dangerous poisons and magic rites. Two depictions of Medea from this period develop her mythic image more fully, highlighting the differences between Greek and Roman magic discourse as it was developing in the first century. Ovid’s depiction of Medea in his Metamorphoses, for example, emphasizes her magical powers by concentrating on two episodes from myth in which sorcery is central—the rejuvenation of Aeson and the murder of Pelias.79 Ovid enhances these scenes of enchantment with sinister elements drawn from but also reinforcing the emerging stereotype of wicked sorceresses in Latin literature. Like Canidia and Sagana in Horace’s satire, Ovid’s Medea performs her magic barefoot with hair uncovered, flowing over her shoulders (nuda pedem, nudos umeris infusa capillos, 7.183). In this respect she resembles an ecstatic maenad whose disheveled demeanor visually attests to her wild lack of restraint. As Albert Heinrichs has argued, by the Roman period maenads were associated with sexual license and drunken debauchery, having very little if any relationship to the chaste Hellenic worshipers of Dionysos.80 Later, when Ovid describes Medea’s spell to rejuvenate Jason’s aging father, he explicitly compares her to a Bacchant: . . . with unbridled hair like a Bacchant, Medea circles the blazing altars and dips multi-clefted torches into the dark pit filled with blood and, once stained, she kindles them on the twin altars, three times purifying the old man with flame, three times with water, three times with sulfur. (7.257–261)

Ovid thus draws the connection between Bacchanalian excesses and Medea’s powerful magic. He follows his description of this dark ritual by narrating in quick succession the murderous deeds perpetrated by Medea from the time she flees her barbarian home in Colchis until her attempt to poison Theseus in Athens. In stark contrast to Euripides’ treatment of Medea’s story, where she appears as a complex figure grappling with conflicting social and human values—mother love versus honor and revenge—Ovid paints Medea flatly.81 She never struggles or feels the pull

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of emotion (either loving or vengeful).82 Instead, Ovid reduces her story to a series of ghastly episodes—whose interest lies more in the description of brutality than in her humanity. The reader no longer comes to identify with Medea, to sympathize with her predicament. Rather, she is wholly Other. Her saga becomes just another spectacle to be consumed and forgotten. In the appropriation of Medea as a sign for female danger and social chaos, she becomes unidimensional: she loses her humanity. Another depiction of Medea similarly uses her as a trope for feminine emotion and violence. In writing a tragedy that depicts the destructive power of overwhelming passion, the great writer and Stoic philosopher Seneca had a ready character in Medea. She functions in his version of her tragedy to convey the destructive power of erotic desire, anger, and excessive love.83 Already linked in the popular imagination with violence, excessive pride, and crafty magic, Medea represents in this tragedy the human soul tormented by uncontrolled emotion. Seneca reinforces his philosophical message by, among other things, rewriting the character of Jason.84 In earlier renditions of the myth, such as Euripides’ Medea, Pindar’s fourth Pythian Ode, and Apollonius’s Argonautica, Jason appears to be a cad. He is insensitive and opportunistic, seeking alliances with whichever woman will enhance his status and further his immediate goals.85 Seneca’s Jason, in contrast, appears to be motivated by justifiable fear—of Medea (102–103) and also of Creon (415–416, 414, 529)—rather than by ruthless ambition. Claiming to marry the princess Creusa under compulsion, Jason presents himself as thoughtful, considerate, and emotionally faithful to Medea (note his triple repetition of fides in 434–437).86 Medea, however, is justifiably suspicious (529). Nevertheless, her jealous anger and spiteful revenge appear incomprehensible and incommensurate with Jason’s claim to be devoted to her and concerned for her well-being. By rewriting Jason as a “nice guy,” Seneca casts Medea as an “evil woman”; her anger has less justification in this depiction. Instead of steeling herself to perform the ultimate act of sacrifice and revenge (infanticide), as she does in Euripides’ version of her story, Seneca’s Medea seeks blood lust for its own enjoyment. Furthermore, she is proud of her crimes and revels in violent revenge: It delights me, delights me to have torn off my brother’s head, to have carved up his joints and stolen my father’s hidden sacred [fleece]; it delights me to have armed daughters for the destruction of an old man.

(911–914)

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Medea exhibits only momentary regret for slaying her children, the description of which Seneca prolongs for twenty-eight lines and finalizes in front of Jason’s own eyes despite Jason’s pleading that he is the one guilty and deserving of death (997–1025). Seneca thus demonizes Medea as brutally inhuman to the core. Seneca uses this depiction of Medea to demonstrate the danger of uncontrolled emotions: love, especially, in Seneca’s perception is a violent and destructive force.87 In order to accomplish this philosophical and moral agenda, Seneca draws on many of the same topoi we have seen previously to depict dangerous magical women. For example, Medea aligns herself almost immediately with death and disorder when she invokes chaos, the infernal deities, and restless dead to witness her complaint even as they witnessed her wedding (9–18). Her ritual draws on the now expected list of mythic ingredients associated with magic: Hydra’s serpents (701–702), herbs splattered with Prometheus’s gore (709), and a variety of barbarian herbs and poisons. Like Canidia and Sagana, she loosens her hair maenadlike and goes barefoot, calling forth infernal deities of death. Medea also wields cosmic powers that control forces of nature; she can change the order of the seasons (759) and stop the movement of the heavens (768–769). She even uses her own blood as a sacrifice to the goddess of death and magic: To you [Hecate] we offer this sacred rite on the bloodied altar of sod, to you a torch, snatched from the midst of a funeral pyre has raised its fires; with my head tossed [back] and neck bent88 I have uttered the invocation for you; for you my wild hair is encircled with a fillet in the funerary way, for you I rattle a gloomy branch caught from a wave of the Styx; for you with breast uncovered Maenadlike, I shall slash my arms with a consecrated knife. Let our blood flow upon the altars: accustom yourself, O hand, to draw the blade and to be able to endure the stream of precious gore.

(797–810)

Seneca draws on the stereotyped character of Medea as a cosmic witch to communicate his stoic ideal of emotional equilibrium and acceptance of fortune. Medea represents the counterideal; she dismisses Jason’s sage ad-

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vice to accept her lot as he has grudgingly accepted his (forced to marry a royal virgin). Instead, driven by erotic love and jealousy, Medea brings ruin on a kingdom, her husband, and her children. Like the Medea of Euripides’ tragedy, Seneca’s Medea manages to flee without harm, but unlike the Athenian version, where Helios’s winged chariot commends her skyward, there is no sense of divine acquittal. Her coach in Seneca’s play confirms her bestial, demonic nature—it is pulled by serpentine dragons, suggesting the source of Medea’s poisonous venom (686, 694–706) and possibly her uncontrolled libido.89 Seneca’s nephew, Lucan, similarly draws on the trope of nefarious female sorcery in his civil war epic, Pharsalia. In this work he recounts important episodes in the bloody struggle between Pompey and Caesar that eventually led to the rise of Augustus and the end of the Roman Republic. Book 6 of his epic narrates a fictional episode in which Pompey’s younger son, Sextus Pompey, visits a Thessalian witch, Erictho, in order to divine the future events of the war and the fate of the Pompey party. Lucan’s portrait of Erictho and her necromantic ritual enlists the developing stereotype of the Roman witch: Emaciation consumes the face that is repulsive with filth, and her dreadful countenance, unseen by bright skies, is oppressed by a Stygian pallor and weighed down with matted hair; if a rain-storm and black clouds hide the stars, only then does the Thessalian [witch] go forth from the abandoned tombs and try to catch nocturnal lightning flashes. Her step has burnt the seeds of fertile ripened corn, and her breath has destroyed the air, which previously was not fatal. (515–522)

Not only is she ugly, as Canidia and Sagana are described to be by Horace, but Erictho also collects body parts from cemeteries and funeral pyres for her necromantic rituals: But, when [the dead] are laid to rest in stone, by which their internal fluid is drawn off, and the decayed marrow is absorbed, the bodies ossify; at that time, she eagerly rages on all the joints and plunges her hands into the eyes, delighting to dig out the congealed orbs, while she gnaws the pale fingernails of a desiccated hand. She has broken the lethal knot of a noose with her teeth, and has picked at the suspended bodies and has scraped the crosses; she has torn away the entrails battered by heavy rain and the marrow cooked down by exposure to the sun. (538–546)

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To describe such a passage as pornographic in the lurid explicitness of its details would not be an overstatement.90 Lucan here capitalizes on the negative associations of magic—necromantic ingredients and employment of the restless dead—and exaggerates them in the full glory of their grotesqueness. But why? The easiest answer would be to say that Roman society demanded such vivid and brutal entertainment, accustomed as it was to the arena and to the gratuitous violence displayed there.91 No doubt this partly accounts for the increasing tendency to portray violence and degeneration graphically. Roman sexual humor was equally graphic and indulged in prurient pleasure.92 On an ideological level such a narration serves to marginalize Sextus Pompey, the petitioner seeking to know the fate of the war, as well as the violent civil war itself.93 When a society divides against itself in combat, civilization crumbles, leaving the necromantic prowlings of a witch the most apt portrait of human society and the depths of depravity to which it can fall.94 Shadi Bartsch summarizes Lucan’s attitude well when she writes, “[the] torn and bleeding forms he seems intent on exposing to our view [function] as a metaphor for the collapse of the self in civil war.”95 This stereotype of the predatory and nefarious witch persists in Latin literature. Approximately one hundred years after Lucan wrote Pharsalia, Apuleius of Madaura drew on many of the same topoi in his famous novel Metamorphoses. Apuleius, who was himself accused of using magic to seduce a wealthy widow into marriage,96 narrates the adventures of Lucius, a self-described novelty seeker, who is accidentally turned into a donkey through the mismagic of a sorceress’s apprentice. The novel constitutes a bawdy tale of magic, sex, and murder until Lucius is redeemed from his bondage to the whims of Fortune by the goddess Isis (book 11). The book thus represents a tribute to this goddess and testimony to her grace and saving power. The novel opens with a chilling tale of magic and murder. While traveling to Thessaly, that infamous land of witches, Lucius hears a story about a man destroyed by the wanton lust and possessive jealousy of an innkeeper witch. This narrative within a narrative establishes the main themes and tone of the entire novel, whose plot is propelled forward by witches’ lust and unscrupulous magic. While it is Lucius’s own interest in the occult and curiosity about magic that leads him into his eventual predicament of being turned into an ass, the real magicians in the story are primarily women, and it is to women that Lucius turns in his desire to witness magic and experience the miraculous.97 When he discovers that his host’s wife is a

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consummate witch (maga primi nominis, 2.5.4), Lucius seduces her servant in the hopes of gaining access to secret magic arts. Throughout the book the descriptions of magic draw on the same stock themes delineated so far in Roman literature. The first witch encountered in the novel, the one of the traveler’s tale, is described as an old woman who uses magic to disguise herself and seduce hapless men on whom her desire lands.98 Like other witches encountered in Roman literature, she wields power over nature: she can lower the sky, suspend the earth, raise up ghosts, and bring down gods (1.8).99 She uses magic to make men fall madly in love with her and to punish them if they ever offend her or misbehave. One man she turned into a beaver for sleeping with another woman and a competing innkeeper she transformed into a frog (1.9). Her victim in the traveler’s tale tried to escape her lust but was fiendishly murdered in a jealous fit (1.13). The witness to the deed barely lived to report her crime. Thus the familiar topoi of lustful women using magic to seduce younger men, necromantic rituals, and control of nature make appearances in the Metamorphoses. Lucius’s hostess performs a rooftop rite to summon her lover, according to the stock themes of literary magic: First, she assembled her infernal workshop with the customary apparatus, filled with every sort of herb and metal tablets inscribed with unknown languages and the ruined remains of an unlucky ship; on display were a great variety of body parts from corpses mourned and even buried; here some noses and fingers, there some flesh-covered nails of a crucified criminal, elsewhere the preserved gore of victims butchered, and a mutilated scalp wrenched from the teeth of wild animals. (3.17.4–5)

This description resembles Lucan’s portrait of Erictho in Pharsalia, especially in the graphic enumeration of the various body parts stolen from cemeteries or places of execution. Unlike Lucan’s description, however, Apuleius’s portrait is meant to entertain, not shock.100 It does not marginalize war nor express the degeneration and inhumanity of Roman society as Lucan does. Rather, by the time Apuleius writes his novel, roughly a hundred years later, these details form a common stereotype that Lucius parodies: each witch is more insatiable and cruel than the last. He continues to describe her ritual: Then she pronounced an incantation over still-living entrails and made offerings with various liquids, now spring water, now cow’s milk, now mountain

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honey and mead. Next, having fastened those borrowed hairs together in a knot, she delivered them to living coals to be incinerated along with various scented [herbs]. Suddenly, through the irresistible force of magic arts (magicae disciplinae) and the hidden violence of coerced gods, those bodies, having been summoned by their smoking hairs, borrow human breath and perceive and hear and walk to the place where the odor of their clippings was drawing them. Instead of that young Boeotian, it was they [the inflated wineskins] who came, leaping and bounding, and eagerly assaulted our gates. (3.18.1–4)

What begins as an apparently earnest description of a magic ritual, drawing on stock themes—such as offerings of milk and honey, knotted hair, exotic herbs and body parts—rapidly becomes a farce. Apuleius plays on the reader’s expectation of a magic rite to stage a joke. Since the hair had been taken from shaved wineskins made of boar hides, the “lover” invoked by the witch’s powerful magic is none other than those inflated wineskins. The witch’s magic is thus so powerful she can accidentally endow life to inanimate objects (spiritum mutuantur humanum et sentiunt et audiunt et ambulant), drawing those with her lust-induced necromantic rites. By depicting Pamphile ’s ability to bind and control inflated boar hides, Apuleius draws on a credulous belief in magic’s efficacy to entertain his audience. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses attests to the endurance and tenacity of magic discourse, which in Roman hands contributed to shaping the familiar Western witch stereotype. Although many aspects of the portrait have parallels in other ancient and premodern cultures,101 the particular constellation of themes that we have examined appears with dramatic flourish in the Augustan period and continues to develop well into the second century ce. Notions of predatory older women, witches with cosmic powers, and a fixation on necromancy and lurid violence characterize Roman portraits of women’s magic and distinguish them from their classical Greek predecessors, as well as from early Christian representations of magic and those found in rabbinic literature. While the differences may point to a development in technology related to the practice of magic,102 or to Roman tastes for the gruesome and exotic, the preoccupation with women’s sexual predation suggests that we need to look at social and ideological factors to understand these particular depictions and the stereotypes that underlie them. I suggested above that this portrayal reflects concern over the perceived sexual license and dissolute luxury of elite Roman women combined with an ideal of female chastity as an indicator of social order and stability. Two

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texts highlight this connection between wealthy, libidinous women and the stereotype of magic in Roman literature. In his eighth epode, for example, Horace unleashes a vitriolic attack on an apparently old woman with whom he is trying to have intercourse. The significant element of this epode, for our purposes, is that many of the qualities he mocks present this woman in terms reminiscent of those portrayed doing magic—she is sexually willful as well as bestial:103 You, foul by your long century, ask what unmans my strength, when you’ve a black tooth, and old age plows your brow with wrinkles, and between your dried-out cheeks gapes filthy an asshole like a dyspeptic cow’s? But your chest and decaying tits arouse me, like mare’s udders, and your soft belly and your skinny thigh on top of swollen shins. Congratulations, and may images of great men precede your funeral train, nor may there be a wife who walks laden with rounder pearls. And so what if Stoic booklets like to lie between your silk pillows? Do unlettered cocks harden less for that? Or does that phallus droop less, which you have to work on with your mouth to raise from its proud crotch?104

Numerous descriptive details of this ribald poem suggest that the woman is affluent and from an influential family: she wears round pearls (nec sit marita, quae rotundioribus / onusta bacis ambulet) and will have the busts of her illustrious ancestors escort her funeral train (esto beata, funus atque imagines / ducant triumphales tuum).105 Furthermore, she is identified as a bluestocking who associates with the cultured and literary set—Stoic booklets, Horace claims, lie between her silk pillows (quod libelli Stoici inter Sericos iacere pulvillos amant). She epitomizes, therefore, the qualities I identify as the source of the magic/wicked woman discourse: she is sexually independent and desiring, she possesses wealth and therefore, presumably, some autonomy as well as social and political influence. Furthermore, with

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these qualities she threatens a sphere of male activity and achievement.106 Richlin, for example, cites other examples of old women who are satirized for using money to buy sexual favors. In so doing, these women flaunt their disposable income and, more important, usurp the traditional prerogative of men to buy sex, drawing the entire patriarchal system into question.107 Later Roman writers demonstrate a similar discomfort with elite women’s autonomy and perceived unchastity, linking them explicitly with magic. Juvenal’s sixth satire, for example, attacks Roman women for being unchaste (passim), unfaithful (passim), cruel (219–223, 480–493), and insatiably libidinous (329–334). According to this comic rant, women seek sexual gratification anywhere and from anyone they can—although rarely from their husbands. These poor men they merely deceive (271–278), dominate (209–218), and ruin financially (508–511). Additionally, Juvenal mocks women who transgress gender boundaries by playing the intellectual and legal scholar (434–440, 448–456, 242–245) or who dabble at sport and practice sword games. These women don the armor of gladiators, wrestle in mud, and humiliate their husbands with a display of masculine daring despite requiring a chamber pot to urinate (246–264). He crowns his tirade against the “fairer sex” with an accusation of magic. According to Juvenal, Roman women stop at nothing, not even the use of incantations, love potions, and poisons, to achieve their devious and subversive goals: This man provides magical incantations, that one sells her Thessalian love potions with which she can impair the mind of her husband and spank his rump with a slipper. To the extent you are going mad, [my friend], that is the cause. That is the reason for your foggy mind and great forgetfulness of things you did just recently. Yet, this is tolerable as long as you don’t begin to go stark raving mad like Nero’s famous uncle,108 to whom Caesonia administered the entire frontal lobe of a trembling foal. What wife will not act in the same manner as an empress? (610–618)

Well-born women, he claims, especially hate stepchildren and think nothing of murdering them with poison. In fact, he sardonically declares that it is now lawful to murder a stepson (priuignum occidere fas est, 628) and warns everyone to mistrust their food, even when served by your own mother (631).

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Juvenal’s diatribe against Roman women combines the main elements of magic discourse with the discourse of wicked women. He identifies wealthy women as sexually promiscuous, encroaching on male territory, overly assertive, dominating, and, finally, engaging in magic. Such a tirade, while clearly meant to be satirical, reveals the link between elite women’s imagined libido and Rome ’s particular form of magic discourse. The association between women, magic, and the violation of sexual decorum persists until well into the modern period, informing ideas about witches and the writing of demonological treatises.109 Richlin suggests that the invective against old women represents a type of “apotropaic satire” that seeks to conquer and control the power of death by belittling old women who personify chthonic forces of sterility and decay.110 This symbolic reading may apply on some level to the fear and disgust of old women, articulated so well by these poems. I argue, additionally, that the preoccupation with sexually predatory old women and women with money reflects a particularly Roman concern that women who were economically independent and socially emancipated threatened male control over the domus and the very structures of society.111 Coincidentally, at approximately the same time that men of the senatorial class were losing power under Augustus’s new Principate, the image of the libidinous witch burst upon the literary scene.112 These two poems indicate an ongoing concern with elite women’s sexual behavior and the perception that they are increasingly debauched. Women’s sexual license and dissipation had long been tied to social decline and moral decay in Rome.113 Already in the late Republic concern was expressed that women’s decadence threatened the stability and honor of the state.114 In the next section I explore how this idea was harnessed by Augustus as part of his imperial ideology.

gender dis c o u r s e a n d i m p e r i a l i d e o l o g y In the preceding representations of magic the discourse of wicked women that circulated already in the republican era emerges strong and clear. The women in these portrayals appear as sexually aggressive and independent— that is, they are either not obviously married or, if they are, they use magic to assist their adultery. In addition to sexual predation and unchastity, these women often appear cruel or bestial—harbingers of social chaos. What accounts for the emergence of this demonizing discourse that vilifies women as witches and paints them as sexually predatory and uncontrolled: why combine magic discourse with the discourse of wicked women at this time?

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Certainly the blending of these two discourses was a logical development once magic was introduced as a discourse of alterity during the second or first centuries bce.115 I suggest that it may also be seen as part of a larger discourse about gender and social order that operated already in republican Rome but was amplified by Augustus as part of his moral and religious reforms following the civil wars. Ideals about feminine domesticity and virtue had existed since the republican era and served as a topos for representing the relative health of the Roman state.116 Augustus enlisted this existing preoccupation with women’s perceived sexual license and violation of proper gender roles, making it a matter of state concern and legal regulation. In 18 bce Augustus enacted the first of a series of laws intended to renew Roman morality and restore the integrity of the family, which was perceived to have fallen into disrepute.117 The lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus exhorted men and women to marry, offered economic inducements to those who wed, and penalized those who did not. For example, widows were required to remarry within two years and divorcees within eighteen months. Those who did not marry met with penalties, such as restrictions on their ability to collect an inheritance. On the positive side, certain inducements were offered to those who married and bore children. Men with children more easily attained promotion. Women with children (three if she was freeborn or four if she had been a slave) received the right to control their own legal and financial affairs without a tutor, granting them a greater degree of autonomy and self governance.118 While Augustus’s marriage law targeted primarily the wealthy (with its emphasis on inheritance and control of property), it also provided the basis of a moral ideology that reached far beyond the scope of the law’s actual application.119 Scholars have speculated on the purpose behind the law. Some propose that the marriage law was intended to check the increasing dissolution of Roman society prompted by decline into excessive luxury following the civil wars.120 Writers of the early Principate, for example, such as Livy and Horace, present their society as degenerate and enslaved to luxury, desperately needing Augustus’s timely moral intervention. Livy, especially, seemed concerned to delineate proper behavior for women.121 Later, Juvenal attributes the luxury and dissoluteness of elite women to excessive wealth and leisure generated by the empire (Sat. 6.292–295). Poverty and hard work, he claims, keep women chaste (Sat. 6.287–290). While decadence may have contributed to these legal decrees, population decline and the extinction of many noble houses have also been proposed as possible incentives.122

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A year following passage of the lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus, Augustus passed an additional law aimed even more explicitly at improving the moral rectitude of Rome ’s population—targeting, especially, free women.123 In 17 bce he outlawed adultery, turning what had previously been a family concern into a criminal offense and an affair of the state.124 According to the lex Julia de adulteriis, sexual intercourse with free women, whether married, divorced, or widowed (also including unmarried virgins, of course) counted as stuprum, a legal offense subject to severe punishment, including exile.125 A man could have legal intercourse outside marriage only with certain categories of women: prostitutes, actresses, innkeepers, and unmarried freedwomen. All freeborn women remained off limits whether or not they had passed into their own manus, that is possessed legal autonomy. According to some accounts, some free women sought to register as prostitutes and escape prosecution for adultery under the new laws.126 What accounts for this moral legislation, which explicitly limits women’s sexual freedom rather than focusing on encouraging procreation? Leo Ferrero Raditsa suggests that these laws were intended to restore “moral feeling and self-respect to men who had survived a historical catastrophe [the civil wars] in which the best had probably been killed.”127 But why concentrate on the sexual conduct of women to boost men’s morale? Why stipulate certain categories of women as permitted for sexual congress while others remain illicit? These laws were clearly passed for ideological reasons. Already in the late Republic, perceptions of moral decline and women’s unchastity were linked to decadence in the burgeoning empire. Nostalgia for the rugged and simple life of early Rome was articulated as an ideal.128 Augustus drew on and magnified this sentiment, presenting himself (rightly or wrongly) as the savior of Rome and restorer of moral values. Much has been written on these reforms: their social and political effect, their motivation, and their sincerity.129 Whatever position one takes on these debates, it is clear that Augustus was capitalizing on existing sentiments and values. His reforms propelled concerns over women’s sexual comportment into the public sphere and turned previously private matters (punishable by the family) into matters of state regulation.130 These reforms demonstrate the political power of gender discourse during the Imperial period: Women as the focal point of the domestic sphere had an important role to play in the new vision of Roman society, as representatives of what the imperial regime had to offer—both an imagined return to the unproblematic and virtuous past, and a fresh way of understanding what it meant to participate in Roman

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public life. The result was an overriding concern with feminine virtue and its locations.131

I suggest that while Augustus was promoting domesticity and an idealized and politicized vision of female behavior as part of his imperial ideology, the image of the witch emerged as the antithesis. Her uncontrolled libido, masculine behavior, and independence signified chaos, a reversal of natural order, and social evils such as murder and infanticide. The witch thus functions as a foil for the symbol of imperial order, peace, and domestic harmony embodied in the chaste women of the imperial house, who were prominent icons of Augustus’s civic renewal.132 This opposition between imperial order and the nefarious witch becomes most apparent in the generation following Augustus. During the reign of Tiberius, magic discourse operated as a powerful political weapon. Accounts of criminal proceedings during his Principate indicate that charges of magic (usually combined with accusations of treason—maiestas) could be leveled against political opponents or perceived threats to power. These charges appear to have been trumped up in nearly every case. As such, they reveal the complex intersection of power and knowledge inherent in magic discourse. What constituted magic was defined in part by those in power, but the accusation of magic also had the ability to take down the powerful, reversing the fortunes of people dangerously close to the imperial throne.133 Magic discourse was thus integrally tied to power and participated in the negotiation of who had it and who did not. Interestingly, adultery, which figures so prominently in the literary representations of magic and also appears frequently as a criminal charge at this time, only rarely operates in combination with magic accusations.134 Instead, the two discourses—magic and sexual crimes—operate separately to marginalize and criminalize perceived threats to those in authority. Both charges, however, utilize and reinscribe the emerging stereotype of the sexually depraved and libidinous witch; an accusation of one crime would readily suggest involvement in the other transgression. It is to an exploration of the political side of magic discourse that I turn now.

magic disco u r s e i n r o m a n p o l i ti c s The lex Julia de adulteriis, passed by Augustus in 17 bce, provided grounds for convicting women of sexual crimes, resulting in the woman’s exile and the confiscation of her property.135 In addition to this law,

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Tiberius revived the lex maiestatis, which prohibited any show of disrespect toward the emperor’s majesty or toward former emperors, now divine (Tac. Ann. 1.72).136 These two laws served to generate a reign of terror among the political elite of Rome, who could arbitrarily be brought to trial by corrupt and ambitious accusers eager to ingratiate themselves with the emperor, eliminate an enemy, or gain wealth from the confiscated property (Tac. Ann. 4.33; Suet. Tib. 61; Dio 57.19.1). The first to be accused of magic together with revolutionary activities (moliri res novas) is a man of the Scribonian family, Libo Drusus. He was a descendant of Pompey and could claim Augustus’s second wife, Scribonia, for a great-aunt. He thus came from illustrious loins and could furthermore claim cousinship with the Caesars. According to Tacitus’s account, one of Libo’s closest friends directed him into foolish practices—namely, consulting Chaldean astrologers, magic rituals (magorum sacra), and the interpretation of dreams—pointing to his illustrious ancestry and, it would be inferred, his equal claim on the throne (Ann. 2.27). This friend then divulged Libo’s crimes to Tiberius. It wasn’t until another informer reported to Tiberius that Libo had tried to raise infernal spirits through incantations (carminibus), presumably with the aim of consulting them about the future, that Tiberius demanded a senatorial inquiry. During his trial Libo’s personal papers were read aloud in which he pathetically inquired of his oracles whether he were to become rich enough to cover the Appian Road with money (2.30). In the end Libo opted for suicide, although Tiberius afterward claimed he would have interceded with clemency. This case demonstrates the use to which magic discourse could be put in the vicious political intrigues of imperial Rome: one could not even trust old friends who might seek to improve their own status by leading one into trouble with the law—all under the pretense of friendship.137 Libo’s case is also important because it demonstrates that not only women but men also were accused of magic in the political intrigues of imperial Rome. Following Libo’s trial, for example, Tiberius expelled astrologers and magicians from Italy, two of whom—both men—were executed (Ann. 2.32). Accusations of magic, therefore, could target men as well as women.138 Nonetheless, the majority of accusations on record were lodged against women or involved women as primary actors.139 In the infamous case of Germanicus’s death, for example, Gnaeus Piso, governor of Syria, and his wife Plancina, a close friend of the empress Livia, were implicated. Tacitus describes Plancina in terms that resonate with what I have identified as the discourse of wicked women. He writes that Plan-

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cina was unable to “contain herself within the limits of female decorum” (Nec Plancina se intra decora feminis tenebat) and attended cavalry exercises and infantry manoeuvres (Ann. 2.55). She also cultivated loyalty among the troops. In other words, according to Tacitus, she took on traditionally masculine roles and activities. Plancina and, more important, Piso were allegedly commissioned by the emperor Tiberius to undermine his nephew Germanicus and weaken his claim on the throne. Eventually, the assault on Germanicus took a sinister and fatal turn: Piso and Plancina are alleged to have employed magic arts to remove him from the contest for imperial power. According to Tacitus: It is a fact that explorations in the floor and walls brought to light the remains of human bodies, spells, curses, leaden tablets engraved with the name “Germanicus,” charred and blood-smeared ashes, and other implements of witchcraft (malefica) by which it is believed the living soul can be devoted to the powers of the grave. At the same time, emissaries from Piso were accused of keeping a too inquisitive watch upon the ravages of the disease. ( ann . 2.69) 140

Germanicus himself, as his last remaining strength waned, is said to have accused Piso of his murder (Ann. 2.70). Already convicted in the court of public opinion and facing an almost certain conviction, Piso settled his affairs and then committed suicide. According to rumor, however, he was actually murdered to prevent his revealing Tiberius’s own part in Germanicus’s death (Ann. 3.16). Meanwhile Plancina won a pardon through the intercession of the empress Livia and increasingly distanced herself from the fate of her husband. Public opinion charged that Plancina’s drugs were next to be turned against Agrippina, Germanicus’s royal widow, and her children, who—being Augustus’s great-grandchildren—were rightful heirs to the throne (Ann. 3.17). In addition to Plancina and, allegedly, Livia, another woman was also implicated in the murder. Rumor held that Martina, a notorious poisoner and friend of Plancina, had supplied the drugs with which Germanicus was murdered (Ann. 2.74). She was later found murdered herself, and it was asserted that Piso had her killed to prevent her from giving testimony against him (Ann. 3.7). This tangled web of rumor, accusation, and narrative embellishment (enriched over the years since the events occurred) reveals a persistent representation: powerful women, ambitious in their own right, enlist the use of magic or poison in their sinister pursuit of power. While Tacitus’s history is likely based on some facts (the occurrence of the trials them-

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selves),141 his consistent expansion and reliance on rumor illuminates the operation of magic discourse and the discourse of wicked women on a number of levels: first, in the senate tribunal, accusations and convictions (or pardons/acquittals) more often implicate women in the use of magic than men. Second, in the court of public opinion rumor feeds and is fed by these stereotyping discourses. Third, in the historical narratives, where nearly one hundred years have passed since the events occurred, Tacitus may draw on discourses prominent in his own day to dramatize the past. Furthermore, he takes the opportunity as a historian to comment on the state of the empire and the morals of the emperors, often using the past as a foil for the present. His invocation, therefore, of wicked women stereotypes, employing magic to further their political ambitions, may reflect issues and concerns of his own time as much as the events of the first century. For example, Tacitus appears to enlist “wicked women” and “magic” as rhetorical tropes to critique the excesses of imperial rule—personified in the cruelty of empresses.142 In several accounts, ambitious women of the imperial domus employ magic discourse to resolve “feminine” rivalries. According to Tacitus, Livia nursed such animosity for her step-granddaughter, Agrippina, that she was complicit in bringing charges against Agrippina’s good friend and second cousin, Claudia Pulchra, which included unchastity, adultery, poisoning attempts against the emperor, and illicit devotions or curses (crimen inpudicitiae, adulterum . . . veneficia in principem et devotiones) (Tac. Ann. 4.52).143 These charges were clearly trumped up; Tacitus quotes Agrippina as saying that Claudia’s only fault was choosing to remain friends with her despite the hostility of the imperial house.144 A generation later, Agrippina’s daughter (also Agrippina), employed similar means to punish her rivals. For example, she commissioned someone to bring charges of astrology and magic against her rival Lollia Paulina, who had been a contestant for marriage to the emperor Claudius (Tac. Ann. 12.22). Later, in a move reminiscent of the biblical Jezebel, this same Agrippina coveted the gardens of Statilius Taurus and had Tarquitius Priscus bring an accusation of “a few crimes of extortion” (pauca repetundarum crimina) and, more seriously, addiction to “magical superstitions” (magicas superstitiones) against him (Tac. Ann. 12.64). He chose suicide over facing a lying accuser. She also accused Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina, Claudius’s former wife and alleged adulteress, of practicing magic against her (Tac. Ann.12.64).145 According to Tacitus, the quarrel resulted from Domitia’s pride. She was a grandniece of Augustus and first cousin once

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removed of Agrippina. She therefore perceived her lineage to be equal to that of the empress, a claim Agrippina could not tolerate. Other cases exist for which the motivation is much less clear although the accused’s nobility suggests rivalry and political intrigue. As Syme states: “When public emphasis is put on moral transgressions, a political motive will be suspected.”146 Aemilia Lepida, who counted Sulla and Pompey among her ancestors, was accused of falsum (feigning to have a child) by her former husband, Publius Quirinius.147 This charge was compounded by accusations of adultery, poisonings, and consulting astrologers on matters pertaining to the Caesarean domus (Adiciebantur adulteria, venena quaesitumque per Chaldaeos in domum Caesaris). From Tacitus’s account, Tiberius seemed to favor conviction and permitted various legal manipulations to that effect (Ann. 3.22).148 While the politics behind this case are not altogether clear,149 Lepida seems to have wielded a certain amount of influence among the Roman nobility: during the games that interrupted her trial she entered the theater with a group of noble women and stirred up sympathy on her behalf (Ann. 3.23). According to Tacitus, the crowd was moved by the nobility of her lineage against the pettiness of the background of Quirinius, who was bringing the accusations. Additionally, she had claims on the imperial house since she had been the chosen bride for Augustus’s grandson and heir, Lucius Caesar (before he died) and therefore was destined to be a daughter-in-law of the deified Augustus himself. Nonetheless, under torture, Quirinius’s slaves revealed that she had attempted to poison their master and this “evidence” was sufficient to seal her fate (Ann. 3.23). An odd case involved the murder of a woman by her husband, Plautius Silvanus, who pushed her out a window (Ann. 4.22). He claimed that her death was a suicide, but an investigation into the matter revealed signs of struggle and the use of force, implicating Silvanus. When his grandmother sent Silvanus a dagger, he took it as a hint from the emperor that he should commit suicide—his grandmother being close personal friends with the emperor’s mother, Livia. Interestingly, from our point of view, Silvanus’s first wife, Numantina, was blamed for the affair; she was charged with driving her husband insane through the use of incantations and potions (carminibus et veneficiis) (Ann. 4.22). This case suggests that magic discourse, linking as it does women’s lust and desire to control men with the use of magic, contributed to the accusation and was reinforced by it. Numantina was acquitted. Those cases in which charges are not obviously trumped up and political motives are less than clear invite the suggestion that perhaps these men

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and women were, in fact, guilty of the charges attributed to them. People certainly were practicing rituals regarded as magic by ancient authors, and evidence suggests that some women engaged in the sort of magic spells attributed to them in literature or in the courtroom.150 But, as I have argued, the specific features of the Roman stereotype suggest that larger ideological factors had a hand in shaping it. Anthony Marshall argues that women’s visible presence in senatorial trials suggests their political influence and importance at this time. They are not merely passive observers of political intrigue or loyal supporters of their fathers and husbands. Rather they act independently for their political goals/ambitions.151 If so, this suggests that none of the trials for magic are without political implications. The use of magic discourse in political invective and propaganda appears most clearly in the case of Cleopatra. During the civil war between Octavian (the future Augustus) and Antony, Octavian presented himself as the “protector” of Rome, employing xenophobic propaganda against Antony, who was aligned with Cleopatra, the infamous queen of Egypt.152 Octavian’s propaganda machine quickly transformed his own quest for power against a well-respected and beloved Roman general and noble into a foreign war against an “oriental” queen, spreading the tale that Cleopatra sought the destruction of Rome and the death of the empire.153 This charge provided only a thinly veiled pretext for eliminating his political rival: a vastly popular military leader, the right-hand man of Julius Caesar when he was alive, and the main obstacle to Octavian’s supreme rule. After the battle of Actium, in which Cleopatra and Antony suffered unsustainable losses that led to their defeat and eventual suicides,154 Octavian celebrated a triumph as if he had won a war against a sovereign nation. He thus disguised his grab for power as a foreign war despite the shedding of Roman blood.155 Later tradition largely accepted Octavian’s portrait of the war and not only portrayed Cleopatra as a dangerous foreign enemy but employed magic discourse and the discourse of wicked women to malign her as well. Plutarch, for example, suggests that Cleopatra used pharmaka and goe¯teia to seduce and manipulate Antony (Ant. 37). While it is not clear if magic discourse was enlisted in Augustus’s own time as propaganda to vilify Cleopatra, the portrayal of her as a seductive and manipulative sorceress certainly came to be associated with her in popular imagination and historical depictions by the second century. This image of Cleopatra largely persists to the present day, underscoring the effectiveness of magic discourse to demonize powerful and independent women as well as the men who associate with them.

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The use of magic discourse has a long and, at times, bloody legacy in the West. Witch hunts and demonological treatises of the early modern period drew substantially on Rome ’s formulation of the stereotype. Excessive libido, inversion of the natural order, transgression of gender roles, including grotesque acts of infanticide and necromancy, all make their appearance in early modern representations of the witch that fueled European and North American persecutions.156 Yet this demonization of women did not immediately follow the Roman model. Certain early Christian writers, for example, drew on magic discourse to vilify male contenders for religious authority, charging that they used magic to seduce foolish women into following “heretical” forms of Christianity. While in many cases the primary source of contention with the condemned movements was their inclusion of women in leadership roles, women are not depicted as dangerous sorceresses themselves but as victims of male sorcery. The explanation for this operation of magic discourse is not self-evident. Therefore, it is to a closer examination of this phenomenon that I turn in the next chapter.

four my miracle, your magic Heresy, Authority, and Early Christianities

But some man by the name Simon had previously been in the city practicing magic arts (mageu0¯ n) and amazing the nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was someone great. acts 8:9

B

eginning with this account of Simon from the Acts of the Apostles, magic functions in Christian writings as the discourse of alterity par excellence.1 From its earliest appearance in the New Testament until the witch hunts of the early modern era, magic has been equated with demonic power and Satan. Charged in this way by the dualism of Christian cosmological thinking, magic discourse has been enlisted to demonize virtually any and all opponents of Christian “truth.” Early in Christian history the accusation of magic was used to undermine the ancient and venerated cults of Greece and Rome. Simultaneously, magic discourse functioned to marginalize and alienate other Christians who followed teachings or practices that certain writers rejected. Consequently, assertions that one or another contender for authority within the early church harnessed the power of demons through magic should not be taken as descriptive, but rather read within the context of rhetorical invective and slander. As the previous chapters have shown, by the second century ce magic had developed into a powerful Othering discourse: charges of practicing magic could result even in capital punishment. What is interesting about early Christian accusations of magic is their divergence from the pattern of stereotyping women as magic practitioners.

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While Greek and Roman literature had a strong tradition of associating women with magic arts, Christian writings from the first two centuries portray men rather than women as sorcerers. Women figure in representations of magic as the victims of male magical predation, inverting the common stereotype of sorceresses enlisting magic to manipulate the affections of male targets. This difference in the deployment of magic discourse, I argue, can be traced to Christianity’s marginal status in the pre-Constantine empire. After the third century this pattern begins to change: women once more become identified as those most liable to engage in illicit ritual activities and to consort with demons. By the early modern period this stereotype, tragically, was patent. In order to understand the deployment of magic in early Christian discourse, I begin by locating Christian charges of magic in the competition between charismatic miracle workers in the second century. Then I consider the role accusations of magic play in the contest over authority within the early church. Finally, I examine the way Christian texts gender magic and ask what, if anything, they reveal about women’s status in the early church and the church’s status in the Roman Empire.

magic ster e o t y p i n g i n t h e s e c o n d c e n t u r y The second century marks a shift in representations of magic. While the previous two chapters have shown that Greek and Roman literature primarily depicted women as magic practitioners, the second century witnessed a marked increase in representations of male magicians. The stereotype of the magos (or goe¯s) as a charlatan ritual specialist reemerges prominently at this time and may reflect the influence of the Second Sophistic, which saw many elements of Attic literary culture revitalized.2 For example, the eternal skeptic Lucian of Samosata caricatures this type of expert in his satirical dialogue, Philopseudes, “The Lover of Lies.” This dialogue opens with a discussion between a group of philosophers credulously comparing their first-hand experiences of magic, ghosts, animate statues, and other “paranormal” phenomenon.3 Lucian satirizes their credulity and, at the same time, pokes fun at pretentious philosophers who accept common superstition as much as the unlearned man even while laying claim to superior rationality.4 In this dialogue one of the interlocutors, Cleodemus, relates the miraculous works performed by a Babylonian Chaldean who, he claims, can rescue a man from dying by snakebite (11), summon and kill all the neighboring snakes and serpents (12), as well as perform a potent love spell (14). In his description of this “Hyperborean magos” (14),

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Lucian draws on many stock themes we have encountered in earlier literature. For example, the magician invokes Hecate, makes a model out of clay for use in the love spell,5 and utters sacred names from an old book. Foremost among the stereotyped characteristics is the magician’s ethnic identity and foreign origin—he hails from Babylonia, the infamous land of magicians and astrologers according to Greek topology. Lucian’s satire thus draws on and reinscribes popular conceptions of magic, including, especially, the predilection of certain ethnic groups to traffic in it. Later in this dialogue Cleodemus describes how he hired the Hyperborean magician to attract a woman with whom his ward had become infatuated. The spell worked like a charm: the woman came immediately and “wrapped herself in amorous embrace around the infatuated youth” (14). This spell achieves immediate results, but the joke, in Lucian’s dialogue, is on the spell’s petitioner, Cleodemus. His friend, Tychiades, reports that he knows the woman well: she is amorous and readily accessible (eraste¯n gunaika kai procheiron, 15). He claims that only a small amount of change would have been sufficient to summon her services without resorting to “the clay ambassador and the Hyperborean magician and the moon herself ” (15). Lucian thus attributes the magic’s apparent efficacy to “natural” causes (the woman’s lusty character), poking fun at the credulity of Cleodemus and others of his sort. While comically mocking popular belief in magic, Lucian’s satire also demonstrates the tenacity and resilience of this ancient stereotype, which identified magoi with foreign superstition and fraud. In another satire that similarly reflects Lucian’s skepticism, he lampoons a man who, according to Lucian, defrauds people by pretending to be a pious priest and miracle worker. Lucian cynically reports that this man, Alexander, established mysteries to Aesclepius and installed himself as high priest and hierophant of this new cult by employing false miracles and beguiling people into believing in him. Lucian describes some of the tricks Alexander supposedly used to fabricate these miracles, which include chewing soapwort to make himself foam at the mouth and appear to be mad or in ecstasy and manipulating a snake puppet, which posed as the oracle and was sufficiently lifelike to convince many onlookers of its veracity (12). Lucian’s depiction of Alexander resembles those of charlatan priests and itinerant healers portrayed centuries earlier in On the Sacred Disease; he draws on these stereotypes to disparage Alexander and his oracular mysteries—demonstrating that the discourse of magic, which was being formulated in the fifth and fourth centuries bce, carried considerable rhetorical weight by his time.

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It is possible that Alexander did everything Lucian ascribes to him. However, given Lucian’s skepticism and general opposition to what he regarded as superstition, it is equally possible that he rhetorically vilifies a sincere devotee of Aesclepius who may have believed in his own divine power as much as the crowd that participated in his mysteries.6 Religious sincerity is difficult to gauge. So while we can assume that there were many swindlers in the second century—after all, wherever money can be made one will discover chicanery—one should read Lucian’s denigrating portrait with a grain of salt. Lucian no doubt exaggerates certain questionable characteristics of his protagonist for rhetorical effect. In so doing, his portrait of Alexander reinscribes the powerful stereotype of the magos/goe¯s upon which he draws for his satire. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses offers further evidence for a renaissance of the magos stereotype in the second century ce. First, the hero of the story, Lucius, encounters a peripatetic Chaldean who earns his living dispensing oracles for a fee in towns through which he passes. He predicts (correctly it turns out) that Lucius’s upcoming trip to Thessaly will increase his reputation and produce a long, unbelievable story, a book in several volumes (2.12). Lucius is not able to imagine, at this stage in the story, the meaning of this fortune. Later, Lucius discovers that the man is a swindler: his host, Milo, knows this oracle-producing Chaldean and reports that the man has suffered a string of personal misfortunes, leading to the obvious conclusion that he cannot correctly predict and avoid disasters in his own life let alone that of others (2.14). The irony is that, although the Chaldean is reportedly a charlatan, his prediction for Lucius ends up being true. Apuleius teasingly leaves open the question of magic’s efficacy; he satirizes dispensers of false fortunes even while making their oracles come true. In another episode of the Metamorphoses involving a magos-type miracle worker, an Egyptian prophet (Aegyptius propheta) revives a corpse in order to reveal the identities of its murderers (2.28). The prophet places a special herb on the mouth and chest of the corpse; then he faces east and invokes the rising sun. In contrast to his earlier irreverent portrait of the oracle giver and Lucian of Samosata’s portrait of Alexander and the Hyperborean magos, Apuleius adopts a respectful attitude in this depiction. For example, he describes the prophet’s attire in terms that suggest he is a priest of Isis; he wears only vegetable-derived clothing, pure of any animal products. Apuleius also narrates the ritual in positive, even reverential terms. For example, the prophet silently invokes the waxing power of the sacred Sun and he describes the rite as a “hallowed spectacle” (venerabilis scaenae, 2.28),

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hinting, perhaps, at Lucius’s conversion to the Egyptian cult of Isis at the end of the story.7 Furthermore, unlike the hucksters lampooned by Lucian, this prophet succeeds in resurrecting the corpse, who reveals that his wife murdered him for the sake of an adulterer.8 As proof that his story is true, the revivified corpse points to the man who guarded him the night before, disclosing that the man’s nose and ears are wax replicas: witches stole the real ones for use in their necromantic rituals the night before and replaced them with wax duplicates to disguise their crime. The poor guard had been hired to protect the corpse because witches, as we have seen, were reputed to steal body parts according to Roman stereotypes.9 Despite his vigilance, however, these witches were able to hypnotize the guard to sleep and purloin his facial organs; because the guard and the corpse coincidentally shared the same name, he, rather than the corpse, responded to the witches’ invocations. This anecdote capitalizes on two different sets of stereotypes: witches who mutilate corpses for use in erotic magic (2.22), which we explored in the previous chapter, and the ritual specialist who masters ancient wisdom and performs miracles, which we will consider more closely in this chapter. These two stereotypes function side by side throughout the Metamorphoses and reflect different ways in which magic operated as a discourse at this time. Apuleius’s depictions of male magicians in the Metamorphoses illuminate the ambivalence that characterizes the second century’s attitude toward these types of specialists; they can be considered genuine prophets and miracle workers or swindlers, depending upon one ’s religious commitment and also, perhaps, the person’s genuine integrity and sincerity. The Gospel of Matthew similarly reflects a positive conception of magoi in its depiction of the three “wise men” (magoi) who pay homage to the infant Jesus after his birth (2.1, 7, 16).10 It is for this reason that I draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding the stereotype of the male magician. The line between “true” and “false” prophet was a thin one, determined primarily by ideology and conflicts over authority. In contrast to Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, early Christian authors draw primarily on one stereotype—male charlatan—rather than the other— wicked witch. In order to understand this peculiarity, it is necessary to examine the function of the magos stereotype as it operated in second-century religious competition. Apuleius’s depictions in the Metamorphoses comically demonstrate the high degree of interest in and apparent prevalence of so-called miracle workers and magicians in this century. While his

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fantastical narrative is better understood as a caricature or exaggeration rather than true portrait of historic circumstances, his novel does reinforce the impression, supported by other contemporary writings, that this period experienced an explosion of interest in various ritual experts, peripatetic priests, fortune-tellers, and miracle workers, even while continuing to vilify libidinous witches. The desire for occult power and divine intervention has been linked by some scholars to an increasing need for and availability of religious options and opportunities at this time.11 The smorgasbord of religious possibilities and the often fierce competition between them guaranteed magic a central position in the arsenal of strategies employed to delegitimate religious rivals. In this context the accusation of magic served to undercut a contender’s claims to sacred power (and hence to authority), identifying him instead with the widely promulgated stereotype of the charlatan goe¯s. Alongside magic as a discourse of alterity, a discourse of legitimacy—miracle—operated to authorize sources of power and people who laid claim to them.

miracle di s c o u r s e Like magic, miracle functioned as a discourse in the ancient world: miracles demonstrated divine power and hence conferred authority. Even emperors could be attributed with the ability to perform miracles, legitimating with divine favor their de facto political and military control.12 Despite a few cynics such as Lucian of Samosata, who satirized popular belief as “superstition,” most intelligent and educated people accepted miracles as manifestations of divine power and therefore as rational phenomena. Inscriptions from Epidaurus, for example, testify to the miraculous cures performed there by the god Aesclepius:13 A man came as a suppliant to the god. He was so blind that of one of his eyes he had only the eyelids left—within them was nothing, but they were entirely empty. Some of those in the Temple laughed at his silliness to think that he could recover his sight when one of his eyes had not even a trace of the ball, but only the socket. As he slept a vision appeared to him. It seemed to him that the god prepared some drug (pharmakon), then, opening his eyelids, poured it into them. When day came he departed with the sight of both eyes restored.14

The gospel accounts of Jesus’s ministry also rely heavily on miracle to demonstrate Jesus’s power. Significantly, the valence assigned to miracles in early Christian literature is not consistent and reveals changes and ten-

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sions within the fledgling communities over the use and meaning of miracle as a “sign” (se¯meion) of divine authority. In Mark, for example, miracles demonstrate Jesus’s authority and attest to his role as the Son of Man, presaging the imminent parousia. Thus, when Jesus casts out demons, they “recognize” him and proclaim him to be the “Holy One of God” (ho hagios tou theou, 1:24), and Jesus is said to heal a paralytic so that “you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10).15 In John the miracles themselves prove to be problematic: on the one hand, they serve as a sign of Jesus’s divinity and help convert people who expected to see miracles as proof of spiritual power.16 On the other hand, John criticizes reliance on miracles for faith and extols converts who do not require signs (se¯meia) and wonders (terata) to believe.17 John belittles those who rely on miracles as unable to perceive Jesus’s spiritual message; they comprehend his life and teachings only on the level of the flesh. Matthew, however, appears to be the most aware of the danger in using miracles to demonstrate divine power since they can easily be construed as magic. For this reason, it seems, Matthew plays down the magical element of Jesus’s miracles, often rewriting them to omit words-of-power or ritualistic elements such as spittle, which may have been construed as magic by ancient observers.18 These gospels reflect a tension within early Christianity over the meaning of miracles—miracles attest to divinity and constituted an essential component of charismatic authority in the ancient Mediterranean, yet Christians sought to distinguish their message (which varied according to the gospel) from that of similar competitors in the religious marketplace.19 Jesus is unique, they claimed, and not subject to the same circuit of circus tricks to prove himself. Other itinerant philosophers and healers (or their followers) also laid claim to miracle for legitimation. For example, around the turn of the third century, the empress Julia, wife of Septimius, commissioned Philostratus to write a biography of the miracle-working philosopher and near contemporary of Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana. Philostratus records the life of Apollonius about a hundred years after the events narrated were supposed to have occurred, based purportedly on a diary belonging to Apollonius’s friend Damis.20 It has been claimed that this biography deliberately sought to resuscitate the reputation of Apollonius by describing him in terms of a “divine man” (theios aner) and to distance him from charges of being a magician.21 Philostratus depicts Apollonius as a powerful miracle worker: he saved a city from plague, expelled many demons, vanished from a room full of people, and, most impressively, raised a girl from the dead. Based on

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the similarity of the miracles, many scholars of early Christianity looked to Apollonius as a model for the Jesus of the gospels.22 More recently, scholars have suggested that Apollonius’s miracles are actually modeled on those of Jesus in an attempt to counter the influence of Christianity.23 The most likely explanation for similarities between Apollonius and Jesus is that miracle stories were common topoi in the second century; they conveyed notions of divine authority and were necessary to establish religious legitimacy.24 Philostratus’s depiction of Apollonius also reflects some of the ambivalence toward miracles that Mark and John exhibit. For example, according to Philostratus, Apollonius’s power and ability to perform wondrous cures derive from his ascetic lifestyle, philosophical training, and special insight into nature rather than from ritual techniques.25 As Howard Clark Kee notes, “his aim is to protect Apollonius from the charge of practicing magic,” indicating the relative and perspectival nature of these two discourses—the difference between them resides primarily in the eye of the beholder and the authority of the one wielding the label.26 Philostratus also strives to avoid any accusation of magic by demonstrating Apollonius’s selfless motivations. For example, moved by the grief of a mourning procession, Apollonius revives a deceased maiden and refuses payment in return (4.45). By having Apollonius refuse the money, Philostratus seeks to differentiate him from the charlatans caricatured by Lucian and Apuleius. These types used their powers for financial gain.27 Philostratus, in contrast, seeks to demonstrate Apollonius’s piety and present him as a legitimate purveyor of charismatic power—that is, one who does not pursue personal advancement. This effort to avoid the accusation of magic testifies to the prevalence of the magos stereotype in the second century and its capacity to delegitimize various figures who wielded numinous power outside of recognized institutions, such as established oracles and mysteries.28

magic and p o l i t i c a l i n t r i g u e While miracle was enlisted as a discourse to legitimate sources of power by linking them with divine authority, including the de facto political and military power of an emperor, the opposite was true of magic.29 Accusations of magic surfaced frequently in this period to delegitimate an enemy and were reinforced by stereotyped representations in literature. Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, for example, document the frequent employment of

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magic discourse during the reign of terror under Tiberius and later Nero.30 In these periods of political intrigue, accusations of magic were enlisted to eliminate rivals or just to ingratiate oneself with the emperor and facilitate ones own promotion at the expense of an innocent neighbor. Taking a cue from the elites, magic discourse also surfaces in private conflict or competition. The author of the Metamorphoses, Apuleius of Madaura, for example, was accused of using magic to seduce and marry his friend’s wealthy widowed mother.31 In a fortuitous congruence between history and literature, the defense speech from Apuleius’s trial survives and reveals much of the ambivalence surrounding stereotypes of magic at this time.32 His case also illuminates the intersection of literary imagination and social history. Like the politically charged accusations of magic lodged against Roman elites and their compatriots (discussed in chapter 3), the accusation of sorcery against Apuleius underscores the way these stereotypes functioned in actual social settings where magic’s potency as a discourse to malign and marginalize was fully harnessed and exposed. Such accusations of magic attest to the political component—the element of control and domination—that subsists under the surface of the literary portraits. Apuleius’s contenders enlist this discourse to make him into a magician by virtue of the power and fear such stereotypes wield. They fail to the extent that Apuleius, excelling in rhetoric, was able to utilize the ambiguity surrounding this charge in his own defense. Apuleius skillfully draws on competing conceptions of magic and the magician to undermine the power of the stereotype his interlocutors sought to invoke. For example, Apuleius cites the Persian etymology of the word magus and claims that, according to the correct understanding of this word, magic should be held in high esteem as the wise art of worshipping the gods: You hear, you who rashly reproach the art of the Magi. It is an art acceptable to the undying gods, well versed in honoring and venerating them, pious and, you may be sure, understanding [things] divine, celebrated since that moment when Zoroaster and Oromazes created it, the presiding priestess of heavenly powers. (26.1–2)

He contrasts this enlightened understanding of magic—the accusation of which would be high praise rather than calumny—with the popular conception of magic that regarded it as an illegitimate and dangerous exercise of power. If the second definition is true, he demands to know why his accusers are not more afraid of his power.

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But if my adversaries define magus according to the common fashion as one who, through special fellowship of speech with the immortal gods, has power beyond belief to fulfill whatever he may desire through the peculiar power of incantations, I marvel very much why they are not afraid to accuse someone whom they acknowledge to have so much power. (26.6)

Apuleius continues to demonstrate the ridiculous nature of the accusation by arguing that, in any case, the practices he is accused of doing conform to neither portrait of magic but rather are those of the philosopher and natural scientist. He thus turns the accusation of magic into a defamation of philosophy and defends his learning, poverty, and natural curiosity on that ground (3). Apuleius’s great learning and rhetorical skill extricated him from a dangerous legal situation; charges of magic could lead to capital punishment in his day.33 Apuleius manages through rhetorical skill to portray his accusers as anti-intellectual, wealth-mongering imbeciles and to enhance his reputation as a sympathetic philosopher-scholar. The accusation against Apuleius thus demonstrates the extent to which belief in the dangerous power of magic and in the villainy of magicians could be used to ruin someone by conjuring the extraordinary power of this stereotype.

christiani t y , c o m p e t i t i o n , a n d m a g i c Christianity, in all its various forms, emerged in the religiously plural Roman Empire and competed for converts against other purveyors of salvation, such as Apollonius of Tyana and the goddess Isis.34 Like the Isiac initiation described by Apuleius (Met. 11), which promised salvation from the cruel domination of Fortuna and an improved lot both in this life and in the world to come, baptism into Christ, according to Paul, offered soteriological benefits: namely, resurrection and a spiritual transformation.35 Christian initiates put on an imperishable nature after the likeness of Christ (1 Cor 15:53) and received baptism into Christ’s death, sharing also his resurrection and promise of eternal life (Rom 6).36 Through this ritual initiation Christians could acquire a new identity and community that gave them a sense of belonging and meaning.37 Furthermore, apocalyptic expectations made sense out of the violence of Roman hegemony by locating it in a historical drama unfolding before one ’s eyes. These were the birth pangs of the end times, some claimed, in which human suffering was granted a sense of deep meaning and even purpose in the fulfillment of divine prophecy.38

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Those who suffered now would in the end triumph and judge the bloody triumphs of the irreverent Romans, who were basking in the violent harvest of their imperial greed.39 As a competitor in the religious marketplace, Christianity—especially the more ecstatic and “bizarre” (from a Roman perspective) forms of it—became a target of magic accusations.40 Some Christians also wielded the accusation of magic against others in an attempt to marginalize competitors and claim for themselves divine power. To understand how these Christian writers used the accusation of magic in their struggle to define legitimate authority, we must first attend to accusations of magic made against Christians by non-Christians. Accusations of Magic from “Outsiders” Christianity inspired suspicion and disdain among many of its neighbors. One of the earliest extensive descriptions of Christianity from a nonChristian source discusses the investigation of this “superstition” and its strange and occult practices. In a letter to Emperor Trajan, the younger Pliny requests advice on how to handle the Christian problem. He states that his current method of dealing with the illegal superstitio is to ask the accused whether they admit to being Christian. If they persist in affirming this identity, he sends them away to be executed since this obstinacy in and of itself seems worthy of punishment: “whatever the nature of their confession is, certainly their inflexible stubbornness deserves to be punished” (10.96.3). He admits, however, that upon further investigation—which involved the torture of two slave women holding the position of deaconess in their church—he can discover nothing untoward or criminal about their practices: “I discovered nothing other than a perverse and immoderate superstition (superstitionem pravam et immmodicam)” (10.96.8). He also interviewed people who claimed to have been Christians formerly, and they described their practices as follows: They were accustomed to gather before light on an established day and in turn among themselves chant a song to Christ as if to a god, and also to bind themselves by an oath—not to some sort of crime—but rather to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, to deceive no one ’s trust and not to deny a deposit when being summoned [to restore it]. When finished, it was their custom to disperse and assemble again later to take food that was, at any rate, common and harmless. (10.96.7)

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Although Pliny appears to question the real danger posed by this “perverse and immoderate superstition,” certain elements would almost certainly have provoked suspicion in antiquity, especially in their resemblance to magic or other kinds of nefarious ritual behavior. Similar activities had, after all, led to charges of illicit religious practice in the Bacchanal scandal of 186 bce where prosecutors alleged that participants held nocturnal rituals that involved sexual promiscuity, swearing an oath, and vowing to commit fornication and other crimes such as forgery and murder (Livy 39.13). While this event took place roughly three hundred years prior to Pliny’s interrogation of the two female presbyters, it had been brought into memory more recently by Livy in his ab urbe condita (ca. 29 bce), renewing its relevance for a Roman audience of the early second century, which was increasingly concerned to patrol the boundaries of “Roman religion.”41 The Bacchanal scandal thus could have served as a precedent to which Romans referred in their efforts to define and regulate legitimate and illegitimate ritual practices.42 The Christians met in secret and at night. They took oaths to each other, worshipped an executed criminal, and shared a sacred repast consisting of their hero’s flesh and blood. Furthermore, the invocation of someone who had died violently (a0¯ ros) figures prominently in ancient curse tablets (katadesmoi); Christian invocation of Jesus’s name, therefore, would have resembled magic to most people living in the ancient world.43 Additionally, the Bacchanal and other nocturnal rites were associated with women in Roman tradition and were, on this account, especially suspect.44 No doubt, the fact that female slaves held leadership positions in this new religion, combined with its nighttime assemblies, triggered long-held fears of hysterical women, unrestrained promiscuity, and the violation of traditional patriarchal codes.45 Christianity thus smacked of magic, superstition, and possible treason from the viewpoint of an ancient Roman.46 A second witness to outsider perceptions of Christianity explicitly identifies Jesus as a magician. Around 176 ce a pagan philosopher named Celsus published an attack against Christianity. While his original text has not survived, a Christian theologian, Origen, preserved many of Celsus’s arguments as quotations in his defense. From these quotations we can reconstruct to a large extent Celsus’s original argument. One accusation that recurs in Celsus’s attack on Christianity is “magic.” Celsus apparently claimed that Jesus performed his miracles through sorcery—underscoring the degree to which magic and miracle discourses were interchangeable, depending on ones perspective. From Celsus’s point of view, Jesus was no different than the frauds lampooned by Lucian.47 Origen refutes

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this charge, first of all, by attempting to distinguish Christian miracles from pagan magic. He claims that, unlike magicians, Christians do not employ spells or incantations but only “the name of Jesus (onomati tou Ie¯sou) along with other words from the holy scripture in which they put faith” (1.6.27). Origen enlists here the common stereotype that magic involves incantations or ritual manipulations to access power. He asserts that Christian practices are different in that they invoke the divine name.48 In other words, he invokes miracle discourse to defend Jesus’s power. This refutation is somewhat disingenuous, however, since many incantations that Origen and his contemporaries would have identified as magic consisted substantially of sacred names, including those of the Jewish God along with various other deities from the Greek and Roman pantheon.49 Consequently, the invocation of Jesus’s name or various biblical phrases would have been indistinguishable from magic on these grounds as far as an outsider was concerned. Furthermore, as already noted, Jesus is no ordinary fellow. He constitutes an a0¯ ros and, as such, was considered a source of violent and subversive power. Another aspect of the magic stereotype that applied to Christianity is secrecy. Origen tries to defuse this charge on the ground that all mysteries have some doctrines they reveal only to the faithful (1.7). Philosophy also, he points out, has some teachings that are exoteric and others that are esoteric. As an example, he cites Pythagoras who, he argues, divided his teaching according to secret and revealed doctrine. Origen thus struggles to align Christianity with legitimate purveyors of wisdom and to negate the association between Christianity’s secrecy and maleficium. Against Celsus’s charge that Jesus represents a common goe¯s, who performs exorcisms for the price of a few obols, Origen points to Christianity’s moral adjurations. He argues that the marketplace prophet performs for money and cares nothing about his spectators’ behavior, while Jesus, on the other hand, manifests his divine authority by exhorting his followers “to live as men who are to be justified by God” (h0¯ s dikai0¯ the¯somenous, 1.68). Like Philostratus, who depicts Apollonius’s altruism to protect him from accusations of magic, Origen enlists a similar discourse to defend Jesus. He eliminates any fear of subversion by portraying Jesus as a morally constructive force, endorsing a pious lifestyle and good citizenship. The debate between Celsus and Origen reveals how magic and miracle discourses functioned interchangeably in ancient religious conflict. Secrecy, divine names, words of power, and the performance of mighty deeds (dunameis) were all features that could be associated with magic. On the

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other hand, miracles and knowledge of divine names were also the common coinage of sacred power in the ancient world. Thus, accusing a competitor of using magic undercut his claims to authority by asserting that his miracles derived from nefarious practices rather than from God. Christianity suffered from this sort of delegitimation as nonbelievers (both Jewish and gentile) accused Jesus of being a magician.50 Christians, for their part, participated equally in using this accusation to undercut their competitors. From their position as a marginal and embattled movement in the empire, however, Christian accusations of magic against Jews and polytheists constituted a form of corrosive discourse—that is, they targeted sites of authority from the social margins. In Authority: Construction and Corrosion Bruce Lincoln describes “corrosive” speech as those types of discourse that undermine authority indirectly, surreptiously, and insidiously. He includes in this category of speech: gossip, catcalls, caricatures, graffiti, lampoon, and curses.51 These forms of speech constitute the discourses of the lower classes and those lacking sufficient power (or courage) to stand up to authority and voice their opposition openly. But such discourses are effective in that they can eat away at the edges of authority until their encroachment causes the regime to collapse under its own weight like an old barn collapsing from the incursion of termites. Christian accusations of magic against the established cults and deities of the Roman Empire should be understood in this light. As we will see in the next section, Christian apologists ironically turned the accusation of magic around on their accusers. But, coming as it did from an oftentimes illicit and persecuted movement, such an act of naming constituted a form of subversion.52 Christianity and Corrosive Discourse In response to outsider claims that Jesus was a magician, Christian apologists countered that all worship of Greek or Roman gods was equivalent to demon worship and, hence, magic. Even the highest and most revered deities of the Greek and Roman pantheon were impostors—not divine at all. Christians denounced as magic any divine power attributed to Greek and Roman gods: miracles, prophetic dreams, and oracles were all achieved through the manipulation of demonic forces. Justin, for example, inveighs against the worship of idols in his First Apology, stating that idols are made in the image of demons (9). In his Second Apology (5) he draws on the biblical account of fallen angels in Genesis (6.1–2).53 According to the

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narrative in Genesis, angels lusted after human women and copulated with them, producing a breed of violent giants whom Justin identifies with Greek and Roman gods. This legend played a significant role in pseudepigraphal writings during the period of the Second Temple to explain the origin of evil and the practice of magic in a world divinely created by a just God.54 Justin combines this mythic explanation of magic and the origin of demons with Greek mythology to repudiate the gods of Greco-Roman tradition: For this reason, poets and mythologists—not knowing that those angels and the demons who were begotten from them caused these things to happen to men and women, cities and nations—wrote it all down and ascribed it to God himself and to the sons, who were engendered by him as offspring, and equally to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Poseidon and Pluto, and their children. (5.5)

Greek and Roman gods are thus none other than the demonic offspring reported in the Bible, enslaving human beings through magic and beguiling them into believing they are divine and worshipping them (1 Apol. 14). Justin rhetorically marries the Greco-Roman discourse of magic with dualistic Jewish traditions about fallen angels to disparage the worship of GrecoRoman gods as fraud or charlatanism. He thus takes aim at the entire edifice of Roman belief and piety in one stroke through this clever combination of Jewish and Greco-Roman mythologies. Another Christian apologist, Tertullian, similarly explains the demonic identity of pagan gods by drawing on the same biblical narrative of fallen angels from Genesis 6. Providing more detail than Justin, Tertullian enumerates the qualities and attributes of these demons that lend them the air of divinity. For example, he claims that the demons possess wings like angels, which enable them to travel swiftly from place to place and to give the impression of being omnipresent: their quickness of movement is understood as divinity, because their nature is not known (Apol. 22). Tertullian also states that the demons (posing as gods) use magic to perform miraculous healings in order to attract adherents. The truth is, he argues, they first cause the illness with magic and then remove it, falsely claiming to be divine on the basis of this fraudulent healing (Apol. 22). Developing this line of reasoning further, Tertullian equates all Greek and Roman divinities with demons and all priests or hierophants with magicians. The demons’ pretense, he argues, is exposed when they are confronted by Christians and

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confess their identity as “false gods,” for if they truly were gods, Tertullian reasons, they would not be intimidated into giving fraudulent testimony by mere human beings (Apol. 23). This argument, linking fallen angels and demonic power not only with magic but with polytheistic worship, functioned brilliantly to undercut the authority of traditional Greek and Roman religions. It also added an important new component to the discourse of magic in Christianity: magic was no longer merely charlatanism or subversive rituals to gain power, it was now identified with Satan and cosmic dualism.55 Once Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, this conception of magic as Satan worship (even if done in ignorance) became the dominant discourse. Magic was now seen not just as a form of subversion but as the ultimate heresy—allegiance to Satanic forces—and hence the ultimate sin. In this way Christian dualism radicalized the discourse of magic, contributing to later representations of “witches” as Satan worshipers. In  the  Contest with Judaism While Christian apologists could denounce Greco-Roman gods as demons and their miracles and divine acts as magic, they needed to be more circumspect in their contest with Judaism because the god they both worshipped was one and the same. As the earliest Christian writings show, Christians were originally part of the Jewish community and perceived their messiah to be the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. By the middle of the second century this began to change among certain Jewish and Christian leaders, who struggled to define Christianity and Judaism as distinct communities and identities.56 Through a process similar to the formulation of magic discourse, rabbis and “church fathers” created heresy, which labeled a variety of forms of both religions that were deemed unacceptable by these authorities. Included as heretics were Jewish Christians and Christian Jews, who refused to identify themselves as either exclusively Jewish or Christian, indicating that these classifications, categories, and identities did not exist yet or apart from this process of differentiation.57 In the first century followers of Jesus struggled over correct interpretation and practice within the Jewish community. Much of this contest is recorded in the New Testament. Mark, for example, depicts Jesus in conflict with the Pharisees, priests, and scribes.58 Mark’s portrait reflects not so much the actual conflict between Jesus and religious leaders of his time (although it may do that also) as the antagonism Mark’s community experienced toward its interpretation and

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promulgation of Jesus’s teachings later when the gospel was being written. The conflict is presented as an issue of authority: who has the legitimacy to teach and to interpret Moses’s law.59 The religious authorities in Mark oppose Jesus because his teachings contradict their own; his interpretation of Mosaic law violates what Mark presents as more stringent and literalistic interpretations by the Pharisees.60 In this contest over legitimacy, Mark employs miracles as well as parables to demonstrate Jesus’s superiority over the Pharisees—unlike them, Jesus teaches “as one who has authority.”61 While Mark utilizes miracle discourse to trump opposing authorities, Matthew draws heavily on the rhetoric of biblical prophets to criticize those who reject Jesus. For example, Jesus chastises the towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida for not accepting his call to repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles (dunameis) performed in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in burlap and ashes. I say to you, surely it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you on the day of judgment.” (matt 11:21–22)

The rhetoric is familiar from biblical prophecy; Matthew identifies Jesus with the prophetic tradition and marginalizes his opponents by accusing them of failing to keep the covenant. Acceptance of Jesus becomes equated with covenant and rejecting him with sin. According to the polemical discourse of prophets such as Hosea (1:2), Jeremiah (3:6), and Isaiah (1:21), such covenant breaking is tantamount to idolatry and even harlotry.62 Like Mark, Matthew’s rhetoric belongs to a sectarian battle for authority and leadership within a religious and ethnic community; he seeks to legitimize Christ against antagonistic opponents by aligning him with accepted authorities of their shared tradition, harnessing the prophetic rhetoric for his own cause.63 The evangelists Mark and Matthew thus criticize fellow members of the Jewish community, especially their leadership, for failing to acknowledge Jesus and embrace his message, but neither denounces “Jews” or “Judaism” per se.64 Because early Christian writers saw Christ as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy and expectation, they sought to legitimize him within Jewish tradition. To that end they employed various rhetorical strategies, but not accusations of magic—this would have demonized the very tradition they sought to inherit. In the gospel of John the evangelist’s community appears to be in the process of separating from the community of Jews who did not accept Jesus.65

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The painfulness of the split manifests in the harsh strategies of “distancing” that John uses in his discourse. Despite this apparent disparity between the two communities, however, John never resorts to magic discourse as a strategy to demonize the Other. Rather, he distances the opposing group spatially by locating them in the synagogue and in the world, both of which signify sites of conflict and rejection of Jesus in John’s gospel. He further distances the other group linguistically by calling them Jews. By identifying them as Jews, John suggests that his community has forsaken its own identification with Judaism; they no longer regard themselves to be Jews.66 Luke-Acts represents a break with the other three gospels in that it reveals an increasing shift toward seeing the Jew as Other against whom Christians must define themselves. More than any previous Christian document, Luke-Acts engages issues of identity raised by the gentile mission; it attempts to formulate a Christian self-understanding in light of the changing composition of the movement and its increasing success among gentiles.67 Perceiving Jesus’s ministry as poised at a pivotal moment in history, Luke imagines world history as a carpet rolling out in both directions toward the future and the past. Christianity plays a crucial role in this unfolding of God’s plan. Beginning with Adam, Luke perceives the salvific message of the Hebrew prophets to extend, through Christianity, to all humanity. Drawing on biblical tradition to understand both Christianity’s success among gentiles as well as its rejection by Jews, Luke attempts to formulate a sacred history that negotiates the church’s relationship with Judaism. He understands Jesus to stand in the line of Hebrew prophets rejected by Israel and perceives the destruction of Jerusalem to be divine punishment for Israel’s rejection of Christ.68 Salvation has passed to the gentiles.69 In this contest over not only authority but identity, Luke harnesses magic as a potent Othering device. For example, in Acts 19, he depicts the failure of some “itinerant Jewish exorcists” (perierchomen0¯ n Ioudai0¯ n exorkist0¯ n, 19:13) to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus and Paul: the demon chastises them, saying, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” While Luke does not use the term magos or goe¯s here, the association of magic with control of demons suggests that this is a case of magic discourse.70 In this short story Luke invokes a stereotype of Jews as magicians, which may have derived, in part, from the secrecy in which they held the name of their god.71 By invoking and reinscribing this stereotype, Luke denigrates Jewish charismatics, showing them to be inferior and lacking the proper authority. He also demonstrates the superiority of Christian exor-

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cists and the power of the Holy Spirit.72 In contrast, the Jews appear to be failed magicians, trying to steal their competitor’s technology. This incident communicates three things central to Luke’s message: the superior power of the Holy Spirit (recognized even by Jewish “magicians”), the authority of Paul, whom the demons recognize when they do not recognize the other exorcists, and the inferiority of Judaism, which Christianity has superseded.73 Luke enlists the discourses of both magic and miracle to undercut Judaism and to dramatize Paul’s authority (which, contrary to Paul’s own claims for himself, Luke never identifies as being apostolic).74 The demon’s comic reply, for example, attests to Paul’s legitimacy; not just anyone can adopt the name of Christ and begin a career casting out demons as the Jewish exorcists are depicted trying to do. Rather one needs to have a divine commission from Christ.75 The narrative thus uses magic discourse to impugn competing Jewish miracle workers and miracle discourse to demonstrate that, although Judaism constitutes the root of Christianity, it does not possess the fruit or flower whose power is realized in the divine name Jesus when properly used by those with authority. The employment of this dual discourse strategy arises again in the infamous story of Simon Magus, who, according to Luke, amazed the people of Samaria with acts of magic (tais mageiais) until he was converted to Christianity by the missionary Philip (Acts 8:11ff ). Because Simon comes to be closely associated with heresy in Christian writings and is accused of spawning them all, I will consider his role in early Christian literature in the following section, which examines the use of magic discourse to negotiate authority among Christian communities. The Making of a “Heretic”:  Simon Magus The earliest Christian writings reveal that, already in the formative years of Christian history, struggles over authority and theology occurred. Both the letters from Paul and Luke ’s more idealized portrait of Paul’s mission betray the existence of dissent, disagreement, and political contest within and among the early churches.76 The Apocalypse of John also witnesses to internecine struggle and the employment of visionary authority to legitimate one side of a debate.77 As the struggle over authority intensified, Christians enlisted familiar rhetorical strategies to delegitimate and discredit competitors and opponents not only outside the church (as we saw above) but between churches as well. It is in this context that Luke’s accusation of magic

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against a competing messianic figure came to be enlisted in the internecine struggles of early Christianities. According to Luke, Simon attracted a large following among the Samaritans and was called by a title that some have identified as messianic: But some man by the name Simon, had previously been in the city practicing magic arts (mageu0¯ n) and amazing the nation of Samaria, saying that he himself was someone great. Everyone attended to this man, from the least to the greatest, saying that this man is “the power of God that is called Great.”78 And they paid heed to him thanks to his amazing them with magic for a long time. (8:9–11)

Luke portrays Simon as powerful, but attributes his spiritual charisma to magic, deploying the now familiar discourse to delegitimate religious competition. He also undercuts Simon’s moral authority by depicting him trying to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit from Philip. This infamous scene led to coining of the term simony for the acquisition of religious office through bribery and forever branded Simon the arch-heretic and paradigmatic fraud in Christian history. The story of Simon functions in Luke to affirm the superiority of the Holy Spirit over and above the power of magic (identified with Satan) as well as to associate the power of the Holy Spirit with the twelve apostles.79 Philip, for example, is able to perform miracles and to baptize the masses in Samaria. Yet his baptism is incomplete—it lacks the transference of the Holy Spirit, which only apostles such as Peter and John possess (8:14). According to Luke, it was the authority to confer the Holy Spirit that impressed Simon most and distinguished Christianity from mere magic. Over the course of the second century Simon evolved from his position as dangerous outsider to heretical insider—he was singled out as “the father of all heresy” and accorded the dubious honor of being the first of the “gnostics.”80 This metamorphosis did not occur immediately; Justin, for example, does not actually label Simon a gnostic but describes his soteriological mythology in terms that resemble what came to be called gnosticism in the second century and later. He also portrays Simon as much more important and influential than Luke does: A certain Samaritan, Simon, from a town called Gitto, accomplished powerful acts of magic (dunameis poie¯sas magikas) in your royal city Rome during the reign of Claudius Caesar by means of the art of demons operating [in him] (dia te¯s t0¯ n energount0¯ n daimon0¯ n techne¯s). He was considered a god and was

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honored by you as a god with a statue; this statue was erected on the Tiber River between the two bridges, bearing the following inscription in the language of Rome: Simoni Deo Sancto.81 Nearly all Samaritans and a few among other nations as well worship him, commonly proclaiming him to be the first god. And a woman, Helena, who used to go about with him at that time, who formerly had been made to stand in a brothel, is the first thought (ennoian pr0¯ te¯n), they say, to come into being through him. (1 apol . 26)

This account presents Simon as a significant and widely influential figure while the Acts of the Apostles accords Simon a following in Samaria alone. Justin also introduces the detail of Simon’s consort, Helena, to whom Justin attributes theological significance as Simon’s ennoian pr0¯ te¯n or “first thought.” It is difficult to know whether Justin, living around a hundred years after Simon was active in Samaria, can be relied upon to give accurate testimony of Simon’s teachings or whether his report reflects years of development—either by Simon’s own followers or in the imaginations of anti-Simonists.82 It is possible that Justin accurately describes the more developed “Simonism” of his own day, which has added so-called gnostic elements such as Simon’s ennoian pr0¯ te¯n. It has also been suggested that Luke misrepresents Simon, deliberately downplaying his influence and theological teachings—reducing him to the status of a mere magician and charlatan.83 However we account for the discrepancy between Luke’s and Justin’s descriptions of Simon, details about his soteriology continue to develop in the writings of subsequent church fathers and serve as a pretext for dismissing competing forms of Christianity as gnosticism and Simonism.84 Most interesting for our purposes is the way that discourses about magic and gender blend in accusations against Simon. In the following quotation, for example, Irenaeus elaborates on the role of Simon’s partner, Helena, whom he describes as a former prostitute.85 By casting aspersions on the chastity of this woman, Irenaeus deploys a common trope of sexual slander, which measured a man’s authority by the modesty and propriety of his female relatives: Moreover, Simon of Samaria, from whom all heresies derive (haereses substiterunt), uses material of such a kind in the formulation of his sect: a certain woman, Helena, whom he delivered from prostitution in Tyre, a city of Phoenicia, and used to lead around with him, claiming her to be the first conception of his mind, mother of all, through whom in the beginning he conceived in his

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mind to create the angels and archangels. Indeed, this Ennoia springing forth from him, understanding what her father desired, descended to the regions below and generated angels and powers by whom he declared that this world was made.86 ( adv. haer . 1.23.2)

In the passages following this one, Irenaeus describes Helena’s “fall” and enslavement in human form along lines that resemble the well-known Sophia myth from sources such as The Apocryphon of John. Like Sophia, Helena is trapped in human form by the powers and angels she has created; she is unable to ascend to her father until Simon releases her from bondage and confers salvation upon men through his self-revelation (1.23.2–3). According to this description, Simonism resembles other forms of early Christianity commonly labeled gnostic in heresiological writings.87 Thus, the nature of Simon’s “heresy” seems to have evolved over time and to have been embellished by early Christian writers in their various accounts.88 For example, R. M. Grant detects three different and distinct Simons in the literature and questions whether or not they are, in fact, the same person: In the documents that we possess, there are three Simons, not just one. There is the Simon of Acts; there is the Simon of Justin and Irenaeus; and there is the Simon of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions. And it is a real question whether or not these three are one.89

Early heresiologists identified Simon as the single source of all heresies in the early church. Why? I suggest that it is because he was explicitly associated with magic and fraud in a widely revered early Christian writing, Acts of the Apostles, which carried great authority. When some early Christians felt threatened by different forms of Christianity, associating their opponents with Simon and magic effectively anathematized them with the power of scriptural authority. These writers, in a brilliant rhetorical move, retrojected onto Simon forms of Christianity that were only developing in the second century. This helped disparage them as Simonism and, consequently, magic, undercutting any claim these churches made to authority—their teachings come from Simon, not Jesus. While accusations that Greek and Roman gods were nothing more than demons worked to discredit Greco-Roman piety, it would not work to delegitimate other Christians, who also claimed to be worshipping the one true God through teachings of Jesus Christ. The

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scriptural status that Simon held as magician, therefore, enabled secondand third-century heresiologists to employ the accusation of magic against other Christians by associating them with Simon ab initio. So, just as associating oneself with Paul could legitimate a certain set of teachings or practices, an association with Simon had the opposite effect—it immediately designated that teaching to be heretical.90 Once the connection between heresy and magic became established through Simon, other heretical leaders could also be denounced as magicians. Marcus and, later, Priscillian are two notable examples.91 This connection between Simon and later heretics, however, is even more tenuous than the connection between Simon and gnosticism. As Wilson states: “Irenaeus identifies Simon as the father of all heresies and refers to different gnostics as disciples of Simon without demonstrating connections and relationships between them.”92 In fact, Irenaeus himself betrays the manufactured link between Simon and later heresies when he admits that these “heretics” do not themselves claim Simon to be their spiritual father or teacher. Rather, Irenaeus is the one who draws this connection between Simon, magic, and any form of Christian teaching with which he disagrees: But, at this time, I have mentioned him [Simon] out of necessity, in order that you may understand that everyone who in any way perverts the truth and injures the official teaching of the church is a disciple and follower of Simon Magus of Samaria. They do not acknowledge the name of their leader, [however], in order to mislead others as much as possible, yet they teach his way of thinking. Indeed, bringing forth the name of Christ Jesus as an inducement, they introduce the impiety of Simon in various ways, and [thus] destroy a great many.93 ( adv. haer. 27.4)

Further evidence that the link between Simon and gnosticism was manufactured comes from Yamauchi, who maintains that no unambiguous traces of gnosticism can be demonstrated in fourth-century Samaritan documents, such as the Memar Marqah, undermining the presumption that Samaria had been a birthplace of gnosticism, based on its ties with Simon.94 The evolution of gnostic elements in patristic accounts of Simonism combined with the lack of evidence for gnostic origins in Samaria suggest that the connection between Simon and gnosticism arose more from polemical efforts of the church fathers to delegitimate other forms of Christianity—by associating them with magic—than from any connection to Simon’s actual teachings.95 This chapter has, so far, examined various functions of magic as a discourse of alterity in first- and second-century writings where it serves to

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delegitimize marginal religious movements, including Christianity, undercut competing contenders for religious authority, such as Simon of Samaria, and subversively challenge the validity of dominant religious authorities as a corrosive discourse. An interesting aspect of this discursive warfare is that magic accusations are directed primarily at men, suggesting perhaps that women were excluded from this contest for religious authority or were irrelevant to it. Yet this hypothesis contradicts the strong evidence we have for women’s involvement in early Christianity, especially in what became forms denounced as heresy by later self-proclaimed orthodox writers.96 In the next section I turn to examine this paradox and what, if anything, early Christian representations of magic can reveal about women, power, and the struggle over identity and authority in early Christian communities. Given the connection made through Simon between magic and heresy, it is surprising that women in competing Christian movements were not demonized as witches by the heresiological literature, especially since it was the involvement of women in a public capacity that in most cases provoked the charge of heresy.

male magi c i a n s , f e m a l e v i c t i m s As the previous discussion demonstrates, early Christian writers employed magic as a discourse of alterity to define boundaries and forge identities. The Apocalypse of John, for example, attributes various practices, including magic, fornication, and idolatry, to outsiders (non-Christians but also other Christians of whom the author does not approve) and uses these charges to distinguish saints from sinners, the redeemed from the damned, us from them. In dualistic language characteristic of apocalyptic literature, John’s Apocalypse paints the world in stark binary terms: “you are either with us or against us.” Among his primary targets is Rome, depicted as a rapacious whore who deceives all the nations with her sorcery (pharmakeia) and devours the blood of the saints (18.23–24). Interestingly, this harlot, Babylon, represents virtually the only female figure in early Christian literature to be accused of practicing magic. Significantly, it is not a human female but an entire empire that stands accused and whose worship was later dismissed as nothing more than demon worship. Early Christian accusations of magic target primarily men.97 If women figure at all in magic accusations it is as the magician’s sidekick or, more often, his victim.98 Before Constantine ’s conversion, when the Roman church established itself as the arbiter of doctrine and practice, an accusa-

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tion of “heresy” carried little weight. Other strategies needed to be employed to persuade early Christians that one form of Christianity was legitimate and preached the true teachings of Jesus while another did not. In this internecine competition, accusations of magic appear frequently alongside charges of sexual misconduct and of appealing to foolish women. These strategies combine to undercut a competitor’s authority, reflecting the long-established association between magic, gender inversion, and danger in Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. For example, in Against Heresies Irenaeus combines these three potent strategies to assail a rival and explain away his apparently considerable charisma. He begins by accusing him of magic: But another one among the aforementioned [heretics], Marcus by name, proclaims himself to be better than his teacher, the most adept in magical chicanery (magike¯s kubeias), and through this method he has beguiled many men and not a few women, and made them cleave to him as to someone who is the most knowledgeable and most perfect, and who possesses the greatest power from the invisible and ineffable realms; thus he is truly the precursor of the Antichrist. For combining the trickery of Anaxilaus with the villainy of the so-called Magi, he is imagined by those who have no sense and are out of their minds to accomplish miracles (dunameis epitelein) through these means. (13.1)

Irenaeus undercuts Marcus here by both alleging that his power is derived through magic and by accusing his followers of being “senseless” and “out of their minds.” Irenaeus thus lays claim to legitimacy and authority by identifying his opponent with irrationality and demonic power—both long-standing tropes of magic discourse. Furthermore he excises the followers of Marcus as “outsiders” not only to Christianity but to all civilized society: they lack that essential and distinctive human quality, rationality.99 Irenaeus reinforces this allegation in the following description of a “pseudo” eucharist in Marcus’s church that makes the ritual sound preposterous and the woman participating exceptionally gullible: he claims that Marcus would give a chalice of wine to a woman for consecration, then take this wine and pour it into a larger cup and recite the following benediction: “May the Grace (charis) that precedes the universe, and is beyond [human] comprehension and description, fill your inner person and increase in you her knowledge, [thereby] sowing the mustard seed in good earth.” [Irenaeus further comments:] And saying something such as this, he drove the miserable

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woman wild (or “mad,” exoistre¯sas); his wonder-working was revealed [to be nothing more than] causing the larger cup to become full and to overflow from the smaller cup. (7.2.14–20)

Irenaeus suggests that Marcus beguiles witless women into believing they are receiving his divine “grace” through this ritual, which involves merely a sleight-of-hand trick—causing the wine from a smaller cup to fill a larger cup to overflowing. Irenaeus’s description also enlists possible sexual allusions in its reference to sowing seeds, filling wine cups, and driving women wild. The term exoistre¯sas (driving someone wild), for example, carries connotations of ecstasy and insanity—both of which were associated with women’s sexual and religious excesses and their liability to lose selfcontrol.100 Irenaeus invokes common stereotypes of women’s seductibility here to undercut Marcus’s religious authority. By portraying his eucharistic ritual as nothing more than a sleight-of-hand trick, he demonstrates the foolishness of Marcus’s followers and the hollowness of their experience. Irenaeus elaborates further on the charges of sexual misconduct, and, in fact, this charge becomes the axis around which the others revolve. Magic, it seems, was employed not only to fool people—men and women alike— into believing that Marcus possessed special knowledge but also to seduce his female followers with the use of love potions: Furthermore, that this man, Marcus, produced love potions (philtra) and attraction spells (ag0¯ gima) with which to insult the bodies of some of the women, if not all, has been confessed in full by women who often return to the Church of God and [admit] their body to have been corrupted by him and to have loved him with a consuming passion. (7.4.1–6)

Irenaeus portrays Marcus here as a sexual predator. He draws a contrast between the chastity of women in the true church—which is under the protection of legitimate bishops—and the sexual promiscuity and deviancy of Marcus’s church.101 Women’s sexuality serves in this discourse to locate types of Christianity on the scale of orthodoxy and heresy: their sexualized bodies symbolically measure the presence of heresy like thermometers determining the presence of fever. In this depiction Irenaeus invokes a central tenet of Roman social order—the integrity and impenetrability of the domus through the bodies of its women. Recent work on portrayals of women in Roman and early Christian writings demonstrate the degree to

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which women function as a trope to signify the honor of households and the men who head them.102 A man’s honor in ancient Rome depended to a large extent on his ability to govern a household, which was measured in turn by the sexual chastity and proper decorum of its female members. For this reason, an attack on a woman’s sexual honor was tantamount to an attack on the honor of her household’s head (paterfamilias).103 Early Christian churches, which largely met in private houses, were seen by their members and the outside world as extensions of the domus.104 Thus, by accusing the women of Marcus’s church of being sexually accessible, Irenaeus is, in fact, attacking Marcus. Rather than guarding women’s chastity and good reputations, as “legitimate” bishops claimed to do, Marcus is portrayed here as a sexual wolf, preying on the innocent sheep in his own fold. While it is certainly not unknown for charismatic leaders and people with power to exploit others under their influence, as the many instances of sexual harassment in the workplace and in religious communities have shown, accusations of sexual misconduct should not be accepted merely at face value but should also be considered ideologically to determine what if any rhetorical purpose they serve. Consequently, while Irenaeus’s claims about Marcus may bear some element of truth, the strategic function of the accusations demands consideration.105 Interestingly, one of the primary characteristics of Marcus’s deranged magic, according to Irenaeus, is the presence and participation of women in his rites. The large number of female followers and their devotion to Marcus seems to be the only “evidence” for Marcus’s use of magic. In a rhetorical move reminiscent of Apuleius’s litigious in-laws, who accused him of using magic (rather than charm or good looks) to make a profitable marriage, Irenaeus points to Marcus’s female devotees as evidence that he uses spells and seduction rather than charisma or divine power to attract his followers. Such a charge undercuts not only Marcus’s legitimacy, it also calls into question the women’s ability to determine their own lives and to make rational choices. By depicting the women as utterly powerless and passive toward Marcus, Irenaeus reinscribes women’s foolishness, weakness, and seductibility.106 For example, he cruelly caricatures a female prophet in Marcus’s church: But she, filled with conceit, and too easily cajoled by these pronouncements, with her spirit heated from the expectation that she herself is about to prophesy, and her heart racing to the requisite degree, boldly ventures to babble every frivolous thing that happens to occur to her in a vacuous and presumptuous manner, just as from someone heated with an empty wind. (7.2.41–46)

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Dismissing the woman’s prophecy as frivolous babble (lalein le¯r0¯ de¯ kai ta tuchonta panta) from an empty wind (kenou pneumatos), Irenaeus alleges that the woman offers Marcus both her possessions and her body in gratitude for her prophetic gift. The mantic receptivity of Marcus’s female followers, Irenaeus insinuates, corresponds to their sexual looseness.107 He thus accuses her of sexual promiscuity in addition to haughty foolishness. Such slander undermines not only Marcus’s authority but, more important, it negates the validity of the prophetess’s experience and the message she delivers, which is not even recorded. By concentrating his vitriolic attack on Marcus’s seduction of silly women rather than on any real doctrinal deviation, Irenaeus suggests that women’s participation in Marcus’s rites, rather than his teaching, violates orthodox Christian principles. The issue seems to be one of praxis—women’s participation—not doctrine.108 Irenaeus’s rhetoric thus functions circularly: by affirming women’s frivolity, Irenaeus dismisses any religious leader who gains a large following of women or, even worse, accords women participatory roles. The topos of women’s foolishness thus operates as a strategy of containment not only against unacceptable doctrines (e.g., gnosticism) but against women’s religious participation or leadership in “orthodox” Christianity as well. Women’s participation in Christian ritual renders any church “heretical,” whatever its teachings or doctrines might have been. A later portrait of Simon Magus in Hippolytus’s Refutations similarly employs the combined strategy of sexual slander and an accusation of magic to discredit Simon and, through him, gnosticism. I bring this text in here, rather than in the previous section on Simon Magus, to underscore the particular use of gender in internecine magic accusations. Hippolytus describes Helena as Simon’s subordinate and sidekick—she rides with him to demonstrate his soteriological power. According to Hippolytus’s depiction, the relationship between Simon and Helena appears to be objectifying, if not a little victimizing: Immediately after having purchased her release, he would lead her around with him, asserting this to be the lost sheep, and proclaiming himself to be the power (dunamin) above all things. But the false man, falling in love with this woman, Helena as she is called, purchased her for himself to possess, and being ashamed of this with respect to his students, fabricated this story (muthon). (6.19.4.4)

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In this account Simon purchases Helena to be his sexual servant as well as to demonstrate his soteriological capabilities. Hippolytus’s portrait of Simon thus combines elements of sexual slander with accusations of magic and heresy in a familiar rhetorical cocktail. Caution must be exercised, again, when trying to distill historical fact from this highly polemicized narrative. The real relationship between Simon and Helena can never be known based on these accounts, nor can Helena’s actual status in Simon’s so-called gn0¯ sis. What can be gleaned from this description and others like it is how women and magic functioned rhetorically in early Christian writings. Hippolytus, like Justin and Irenaeus before him, does not employ the familiar trope of women’s magic to undercut Helena and, through her, Simon, but depicts him as the magician and her as his victim. In addition to these heresiological writings, which use magic discourse to demonize Christian opponents, apocryphal acts of the apostles and hagiography also employ the trope of male magician and female victim to buttress ideological positions. For example, in the second-century apocryphon Acts of Andrew, the apostle Andrew warns a Christian woman who has committed herself to asceticism to avoid “the filthy and evil sorceries of [her husband]” (tais rhyparais autou kai kakais goe¯teiais).109 By accusing her husband, a proconsul, of using magic to seduce his own wife, this apocryphon inverts the expectation that the male intruder (in this case the apostle Andrew) is a magician and instead uses magic to demonize marriage and lawful reproduction. This apocryphon thus employs the discourse of magic to denigrate not only a competitor (the woman’s husband) but the entire social system that advocated and rewarded lawful reproduction. It constitutes an assault on the Roman state itself.110 In the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, by contrast, the intruding apostle is accused of magic as one would expect. Thecla’s fiancé accuses Paul of bewitching young women with magic; Thecla has become so enthralled by Paul’s teaching that she desires nothing but to follow Paul and call off her betrothal to a prominent young citizen (15). The irony in this narrative is the insider knowledge that Paul “bewitches” Thecla not with magic but with the power of the evangelical message.111 The theme of using magic to seduce consecrated virgins figures repeatedly in early Christian literature. In addition to the above passage cited from Acts of Andrew, where magic discourse functions to attack Roman values and institutions, in the following passage from this apocryphon magic operates to demonstrate the extraordinary power of ascetic practice. The

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story begins with four soldiers surrounding the apostle Andrew and his followers. One of the soldiers, possessed by a demon, suddenly shouts out and falls down, foaming at the mouth. Andrew, empowered by the Holy Spirit, divines the poor man’s situation as follows: This young man whose body is convulsed has a virgin [parthenos] sister who is a great devotee [politeute¯s] and ascetic [athle¯te¯s]. I tell you truly that she is near to God because of her purity, her prayers, and her love. Now, to tell it without elaboration, there was someone living next door to her house who was a great magician. Here is what happened. One evening the virgin went up on her roof to pray, the young magician saw her at prayer, and Semmath entered into him to fight with this great ascetic [athle¯te¯s]. The young magician said to himself, “Even though I have spent twenty years under my teacher before acquiring this ability, this now is the beginning of my career. If I do not overpower this virgin, I will not be able to do anything.” So the young magician conjured up some great supernatural forces against the virgin and sent them after her. When the demons left to tempt her or to win her over, they acted like her brother and knocked at the door. She got up and went downstairs to open up, supposing it was her brother. But first she prayed fervently, with the result that the demons became like ( . . . ) fell down and flew away ( . . . ) man . . . [two pages are missing].112

According to this narrative, the young magician sees a consecrated virgin praying on her roof and, like David desiring Bathsheba, he seeks to have her. Using magic, he summons a demon, Semmath, who enters into him and using his demonic power conjures greater powers to control the virgin. Based on the familiar pattern of ancient ag0¯ge¯ spells, it would seem that the magician sought to have these demons bring her to him.113 However, the virgin possessed a power stronger than the magician—she was a “great devotee [politeute¯s] and ascetic [athle¯te¯s]” who had drawn “near to God because of her purity and her prayers and her love.” The virgin is thus able to overcome the magician’s demonic retinue with the power of her spiritual charisma. The magician, like the virgin, remains unnamed in this text, strongly suggesting that the goal is not to defame or discredit any particular individual as in the heresiological tractates discussed previously. Rather, the narrative uses magic as a foil to demonstrate the power of asceticism. In a manner similar to Luke-Acts (where magic functions as a foil for the superior power of the Holy Spirit), magic functions in this text to show the merit and power of virginity. The virgin’s identity matters no more than

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the magician’s; like him, she functions as a trope to show that even a powerless young girl can overpower demonic magic through ascetic practices (aske¯sis). This story conforms, therefore, to the ideological tenor of this secondcentury apocryphon, which strongly advocates asceticism and celibacy.114 According to the translator, Jean-Marc Prieur, Acts of Andrew preaches a dualistic and gnostic-influenced conception of salvation that involves the ascent of the soul toward the pure from the impure world of flesh and body.115 Continence and ascetic rejection of material pleasure and possessions are a central feature of this spiritual attitude. The description of magic in the Acts of Andrew mirrors this overall theological framework; the magician seems to represent the snares of this world, especially sexual lust,116 while the virgin signifies the pure soul, whose freedom and power triumph through rigorous asceticism.117 Her victory over the demons thus dramatizes in narrative form the victory of the soul through aske¯sis and gn0¯ sis. Significantly, the words used to describe her accomplishment—politeute¯s and athle¯te¯s—are borrowed from the language of politics and sport in the ancient polis: she is described as a “statesman” and an “athlete.” The virgin thus ascends to the heights of masculine power and achievement through her ascetic prowess, transcending the natural weakness of her gender. But, like the female victims of magic portrayed in heresiological writings, this woman also functions as a trope. She is shown to triumph because of her ascetic merit whereas the other “women” failed insofar as they allowed themselves to be seduced. Neither trope—that of the heretical woman nor that of the pure virgin—represents real women. In both cases the female characters of men’s writing dramatize male issues and concerns. They are “being used to think with.”118 Jerome ’s Life of St. Hilarion narrates a similar story but with a different outcome and ideological message, demonstrating that “magic” and “virgins” are being used to present competing theological worldviews. In this account a young man desires to seduce a consecrated virgin and at first attempts to do so through the standard means of seduction: “with touching, jokes, nods, whistles, and the rest” (21.2670–2675). When that fails he goes to Egypt to learn the art of magic. Upon returning, he casts a spell on the virgin through a method widely attested archaeologically—the defixio— “he buried under the threshold of the girl’s house an instrument of torture, as one might say, made of words and monstrous figures carved onto a Cyprian plate” (21.2715–2730).119

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On the spot, the virgin went insane, the cover of her head having been thrown aside, she tossed her hair about, gnashed her teeth, and called out the youth’s name. For you see, the magnitude of her affection had turned into a raving madness. As a consequence, having been led by her parents to the monastery and been handed over to the old man [St. Hilarion], shrieking continually, the demon confessed. (21.2735–2765)

In this description of a magic spell the virgin reacts exactly as ancient spells sought their victims to react—that is, she goes mad with desire for the magician and exhibits signs of possession—just like the female prophet in Marcus’s ritual.120 This spell succeeds where the demonic attack on the virgin in the Acts of Andrew fails. No sooner had the girl’s parents delivered her to the “aged saint” (seni traditur ululante) than he was able to extract from the demon the reason he was possessing a virgin of God. Jerome continues to relate that Hilarion performed purgations on the girl and expelled the demon. Then, when the girl had been restored to health, Hilarion “rebuked her, for she had committed such [acts] through which she had enabled the demon to enter” (21).121 This narrative contrasts sharply with the one from Acts of Andrew despite the nearly identical plot of seducing virgins through magic. While the Acts of Andrew portrays the virgin as powerful and self-reliant—she is able to fend off the demons through her great spiritual power—the virgin in Jerome ’s Life of St. Hilarion is not only victimized by the magician but by the saint as well: he accuses her of being responsible for her own attack. Thus she is doubly victimized in this story. The virgin’s lack of spiritual power and ability to defend herself in Jerome’s account reflects an ideology in which women, even ascetic virgins, were not regarded as possessing sufficient spiritual merit to be independent. Jerome’s narrative uses the story of the girl’s demonic possession (read penetration) to reinscribe the familiar stereotype of foolish, weak, and seducible women. She functions like the “women” seduced by Marcus; she demonstrates that women are liable to hysteria and uncontrollable lust, despite spiritual piety and even aske¯sis. In fact, this narrative could be read as an antidote to the message conveyed in Acts of Andrew where a girl is shown to possess great spiritual merit through control of her own sexuality. In this narrative power resides strictly with authorized men associated with orthodox institutions, such as the monastery. Unlike Acts of Andrew, Jerome does not depict the virgin as a powerful ascetic, practicing her devotion independent of church authori-

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ties. Rather, her lack of power and her susceptibility to seduction provide a foil for demonstrating the power of male monks and “orthodox” institutions.122 This virgin’s failure thus reinscribes female sexual weakness and justifies men’s authority to control them. Through their opposing resolutions of the story, these two narratives of magical seduction reveal competing ideologies of power and female sexual autonomy.123 In one asceticism is portrayed as all powerful, while in the other only male monks can defeat demons; women, even ascetic virgins, require male custody and protection. In both cases magician and virgin serve as tropes in debates over spiritual authority. Neither story illuminates the historical reality of being a virgin, a woman, or of practicing magic. Rather, women function symbolically: their bodies (chaste or penetrated, pure or defiled) communicate ideas about male authority and legitimacy. The question to ask, at this point, is why heresiologists did not invoke the familiar and powerful witch stereotype to demonize these women and heterodox churches with them. Why did these writers enlist the trope of female foolishness to disparage these movements? The fact that heresiologists level accusations of magic only against male leaders of competing movements could suggest that women were not perceived to be threatening and most likely were not the “leaders” in charge. On the other hand, the most pressing concern for at least certain of these writers seems to be women’s public involvement and ministerial roles in heterodox churches. Unless women’s involvement is functioning entirely as a trope to ridicule and undermine the competing churches, one may assume that women did, in fact, play a prominent role in these churches and that it was precisely their involvement that garnered the hostility of heresiologists. In which case the accusations against men could have been a strategy of silencing women by ignoring their leadership roles and accusing only men of being dangerous threats. By depicting women as victims and not as magicians, this rhetorical strategy would reinscribe women’s passivity in opposition to the historical reality of some women’s lived experiences. Furthermore, attacking the sexual chastity of these women would pressure men in their churches to conform to “orthodox” standards in order to protect their own honor in society. This pattern of representation begins to change, however, in the third century. In a letter to Cyprian (256 ce), Firmilian, the bishop of Cappodocia, accuses a female prophet of being possessed by demons and of using their power to perform miracles (75.10.2).124 Firmilian admits in his letter that this woman conducts the eucharist and baptism according to usual

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orthodox requirements, but claims that her sacraments are invalid because she accomplishes them with demonic rather than divine power. What is it about her power that indicates she is possessed by demons? Given the orthopraxy of her rituals, one has to assume that the single problem with her miracles and sacraments is her sex. In other words, we see here exactly what one would expect to see in earlier instances where women’s ministry is being challenged—namely, the employment of magic discourse to undermine a woman’s legitimacy. By accusing this woman of being possessed by demons and using their power, Firmilian, for all intents and purposes, charges her with sorcery and harnesses the witch stereotype circulating in Roman literature. His accusation presumes and reinscribes the gendered discourse of magic encountered in previous chapters; Firmilian can assume that no one will question the demonic origin of this woman’s power because everyone “knows” that women engage in magic. This case occurs in the mid-third century; other accusations of magic against women can be found in fourth-century writings. John Chrysostom, for example, castigates women in his congregation for slipping back into idolatry by employing incantations and amulets.125 I suggest that Christianity’s marginal status in the first and second centuries contributed to shaping its use of magic discourse. Drawing on the work of Virginia Burrus and Daniel Boyarin, I suggest that Christian depictions of female victims and male magicians reflect an ego identification on the part of these male writers with vulnerable but chaste female bodies over and against the invasive violence of Roman masculinity.126 In these narratives the magician/heretic threatens the carnal integrity of Christian women. Depending on the ideological location of the writer, the virgin either succeeds or fails to defend herself through aske¯sis. The victimized women serve as a trope for early Christian writers to locate themselves and the church in opposition to Rome ’s power and violence, imagined in terms of the sexualized masculinity and aggression of the “magician.” Competing forms of Christianity—so-called heresies—are likewise demonized through identification with the violent danger of the male Other. Through these rhetorically crafted representations, competing forms of Christianity are collapsed into the same ideological opposition that Rome is: aggressive, threatening masculinity against the vulnerable body of the virgin church. In this imagined opposition, chaste female bodies represent the purity of the true Church, while violated female bodies signify the corruption and deviance of heretical churches.127 According to this line of thinking, early Christianity’s marginal status is what determined its application of magic

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discourse and its choice of stereotypes in the contest for authority that defined its early history. The deployment of magic as a discourse in early Christian writings, thus, again reveals local rather than universal factors. It also offers an explanation for reconciling women’s ministry and visibility in early Christianity with the patronizing stance of the heresiologists who portray women in competing churches as passive victims of magical and sexual predation. By the fourth century, when Christianity emerged as the official religion of the Roman Empire, this pattern of magic representation had begun to change, indicating a new set of circumstances and concerns. This chapter has demonstrated the use of magic discourse to demonize competitors in the religious marketplace of imperial Rome. While Apuleius attests to positive connotations of magic, describing it as “an art acceptable to the undying gods . . . pious and understanding [things] divine,” the label generally functions negatively in Greco-Roman writings, including Christian. Significantly, certain Jewish writings from late antiquity indicate an ambivalence similar to that expressed by Apuleius. In the Babylonian Talmud, for example, which is a giant compendium of biblical exegesis, legal commentary, and folklore, magic can both authorize superior power and knowledge and demonize threats to rabbis and the Jewish community more broadly. The ambivalence toward magic in rabbinic literature, I argue, stems from and reflects the complex nature of these redacted texts. It is to an examination of magic discourse in rabbinic literature that I turn next.

five caution in the kosher kitchen Magic, Identity, and Authority in Rabbinic Literature

T

he previous three chapters trace the operation of magic discourse from classical Athens, where it emerged part and parcel of the discourse of barbarianism, through lurid portrayals of libidinous women in Roman literature and its use as a trumped-up accusation in imperial politics, to magic’s appearance in early Christian polemic, where it served as a foil for the claim to legitimacy and authority. Magic, however, was not universally regarded as negative and could sometimes operate in positive ways to signify divine power and special knowledge or ritual technology. Such was the case of the Babylonian Talmud. The distinguishing feature of magic discourse in the Babylonian Talmud is its ambivalence: just as Apuleius could offer two opposing definitions of magic in his defense speech (Apol. 26.1–2), magic in the Babylonian Talmud could connote either divine power or subversive danger, depending on context. These two attitudes, I propose, reflect different cultural influences and conceptions of power and authority. In Mesopotamia, where many of the practices Greeks considered to be magic originated, the use of apotropaic incantations, amulets, and figurines constituted an ordinary part of the culture.1 These practices were regarded neutrally and did not contribute to the formation of a metadiscourse of alterity such as magic. On the other hand, Jews in Palestine and other parts of the Mediterranean encountered Greek discursive constructs, including magic, and assimilated many of them. For this reason, two distinct attitudes toward magic exist side by side in the Talmud. On the one hand, ideas that magic is foreign, illicit, and dangerous appear. On the other hand, rabbis are sometimes depicted

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as masters of these same or similar arts. The operation of these contrasting discourses and the tension between them constitutes the focus of this chapter. But first, because of the peculiar nature of the Babylonian Talmud and the challenges involved in using it as a historic resource, I will begin by discussing the history of this complex document and scholarly debate over how to interpret its contents.

the babylo n i a n t a l m u d As part of the conquest of Judea by Babylonia in the late sixth century bce, a significant portion of the Judean population was exiled to Mesopotamia. Following the conquest of Babylonia by Persia, a small minority returned to rebuild Jerusalem while a sizable community remained in exile. These two communities, living under different cultural influences and political exigencies, remained in contact throughout the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and two wars with Rome in the late first and early second centuries ce, a group of legal interpreters, rabbis, began to move into the vacuum of power that was created by the destruction and disorder. The degree to which their leadership was accepted (and when) continues to be debated.2 What is known is that the rabbis began to record and codify a body of oral law that had been passed down since the first century bce when the temple still stood.3 The first codification of this oral law is the Mishnah, produced circa 200 ce. A second additional code, the Tosefta, was produced shortly thereafter. Immediately following its production, the Mishnah functioned as the authoritative book of law for the rabbinic movement and became the object of clarification, debate, and expansion, much as the Constitution is for jurisprudence in the United States.4 Rabbis in both Palestine and Babylonia eventually produced voluminous commentaries on the Mishnah. The first, known as the Jerusalem Talmud, was redacted from oral statements early in the fifth century ce in Palestine. The rabbis of Babylonia produced a similar but larger and more developed commentary a century later in the middle of the sixth century.5 For various political and historical reasons, the Babylonian Talmud eventually eclipsed the earlier Jerusalem Talmud in authority.6 This Talmud, known also as the Bavli, constitutes the primary focus of this chapter, although I will draw on passages from other compilations of rabbinic literature where they are instructive or illuminating.

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The Bavli consists of a collection of rabbinic statements, narratives, and legal rulings handed down from sages who lived during the first six centuries of the common era in both Palestine and Babylonia and who spoke two languages, Hebrew and Aramaic.7 These various statements and rulings were woven together during the late sixth century into a concatenated whole that gives the semblance of a unitary discourse or discussion. This appearance of being a single discussion is entirely fictional, however; the Bavli is a literary creation whose final form expresses the social concerns and situation of its anonymous redactors, known as the stam or stammaim (from the word “anonymous” in Hebrew).8 For this reason, many scholars argue that it is impossible to regard the content of any statement as reflecting views of the rabbis to whom it is attributed. The best one can do is try to reconstruct the concerns and values of the sages who redacted it. On the other hand, many scholars, including myself, believe that it is possible to recover, to a certain extent, earlier attitudes and social values that are preserved in rabbinic sayings. By removing sayings from their current literary context and comparing them with other contemporary statements, one can detect patterns that reveal practices, values, and beliefs of the society that produced them.9 By employing this methodology, I will argue that the different attitudes expressed toward magic in the Bavli can be at least partially accounted for by cultural influence and social context.

magic disco u r s e i n t h e t a l m u d The following quotation demonstrates well the ambivalence toward “magic” that is characteristic of the Babylonian Talmud: Abaye said: at first I believed that one does not eat vegetables from a bunch that is tied by the gardener because it appears like gluttony. The master taught me that it is because of magical attack (meshum de-qashi le-keshafim). Rav Hisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna were traveling on a boat. Some woman, a matron (matronita), told them to take her with them. They refused. She said a “word” (milta) and bound their boat. They said a “word” (milta) and released it. She said to them: “What can I do to you who do not wipe yourselves with a shard [of pottery after using the toilet], and do not crush lice on yourselves, and do not eat vegetables from a bunch that was tied by the gardener.”10 (b. hullin 105b)

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In this passage magic appears to be the domain of hostile women (possibly foreign), who threaten two rabbis for no apparent reason.11 What is interesting to note is that the rabbis are represented as able to surpass the woman with their own knowledge of magic. That is, they utter a spell (literally “word”) and undo the woman’s incantation. Interestingly, the term used to designate her spell, milta, is the same word as that used to label their counterspell; in both instances milta clearly refers to a “magical charm.”12 Nothing about this narrative suggests that the rabbis draw on a power that is distinct from hers—there is no explicit claim that they access the power of God or Torah while she draws on demons, nor is there a semantic distinction between her act as magic and their act as miracle, as operated in early Christian writings.13 Rather, the text merely proposes that their spell is superior to hers. Furthermore, they not only undo her spell, but she complains that they observe certain apotropaic practices that preserve them from magical attack: they do not wipe themselves after using the toilet with a broken shard of pottery, they do not crush lice on their clothes, and they do not eat vegetables from a bunch that was tied by the gardener. These practices, it turns out, have parallels in ancient Mesopotamia, where according to M. J. Geller, “the use of potsherds and untying of vegetables occur in incantation rituals, while the act of delousing the head is mentioned in connection with ghosts in Babylonian incantations.”14 It thus appears that this odd little narrative attests to rabbinic knowledge of or at least familiarity with Mesopotamian incantation rituals. Rabbis know enough to take precautionary measures. It appears, however, that they know much more than that. Magic, in the above narrative, functions ambivalently: on the one hand, it demonstrates the superior power of Rav Hisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna. On the other hand, it identifies the matron as a source of danger. These two functions of magic—namely, demonstrating power and marginalizing a social danger—emerge throughout the Bavli and form a pattern that characterizes magic discourse in the Talmud. I will examine, first, the portrayal of rabbis as consummate magicians. Magic and Power Many anecdotes and narratives in rabbinic literature reveal knowledge of incantations and an expectation that rabbis could or should be adept at them. For example, in a passage similar to the one quoted above, three rabbis encounter a sectarian or heretic (min) who utters an incantation (amar

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mah de-mar)15 and binds them in a bathhouse in Tiberias. The rabbis then utter an incantation (amar mah de-mar) and bind the min to the gate. He then says to Rabbi Joshua, “unbind me from what you have done.” To which Rabbi Joshua answers, “you unbind and then we will unbind.” So they released each other from their respective spells (y. Sanh. 7.13). Like the encounter discussed above, these two rabbis are attacked by a hostile Other, in this case a sectarian of some sort. Debate has raged over the precise definition of min, whether it should be considered a Christian, a gnostic, or some other representative of nonrabbinic Judaism.16 For our purposes this clarification does not matter: what is important to note is that the min is portrayed as hostile and adept at magic. Furthermore, the rabbis are portrayed as equally adept at magic. The parties thus reach a standoff and are forced to stand down. Magic in these two passages operates both as a discourse of alterity, to identify dangerous outsiders or opponents, and as a demonstration of equal or superior power. Other examples reveal that sages, especially those from Babylonia, commanded a storehouse of knowledge about magic and could surpass others with their expertise. For example, in a passage discussing which activities constitute forbidden forms of “magic” (kishuf  ), a Babylonian sage describes how two rabbis were able to create a living animal through study of the laws of creation (hilkot yetsirah):17 Abaye said: the laws governing magic acts (keshafim) are like the laws governing the Sabbath. Some transgressions are punishable with stoning, others are exempt from punishment but forbidden nonetheless, and some are permissible (muttar) from the start. Doing an actual act of magic is punishable with stoning; performing a sleight of hand (ahizat ainayim) is exempt but forbidden. And which acts are permissible from the beginning? Those, such as Rav Hanina and Rav Oshaia did; they spent every Sabbath evening engaged in the study of the laws of creation and by means of which they created a third-grown calf and ate it. (b. sanh. 67b)

This passage is immediately followed by a discussion of gentiles who attempt to create live animals with magic but fail, revealing their magical inferiority: “Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This is the finger of God” (Exod 8:19). [This quotation represents the Egyptian priests’ response when they are unable to duplicate Moses’s plague of lice.] R. Elazar said: “from this we learn

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that a demon (shed) cannot create something smaller than a barley corn.” Rav Papa said: “By God! he cannot produce something even as large as a camel. But these [smaller pieces] he can collect [and create the illusion of magic], while those [bigger pieces] he cannot collect.” Rav said to Rabbi Hiyya: “I saw an Arab traveler cut up his camel with a sword, whereupon he rang a bell and the camel arose.” Rabbi Hiyya said to him: “Was there any blood or dung after that?” Rather it was a sleight of hand (ahizat ainayim). Zeiri went down to Alexandria in Egypt and bought a donkey. When he went to give it some water, it dissolved. And there stood [in its place] a wood crossboard [instead of the donkey]. They said to him, “If you were not Zeiri, we would not return [your money]. For who buys something here and does not [first] test it with water?” (b. sanh. 67b)

These attempts to create an animal reveal the inadequacy of gentile magic. The gentiles are at best able to produce something larger than a barley corn (Exod 8:19) or smaller than a camel, or an apparition that dissolves in water. Abaye ’s statement thus demonstrates the greater magical ability of the sages who create an actual living animal, the reality of which is demonstrated by the fact that they ate it.18 From the context it is clear that the redactors of this pericope (sugya) regarded the creation of a live animal through study of the laws of creation to be magic (kishuf) or at least comparable to magic. It constitutes, however, a “permissible” (muttar) form of magic. Not only is sacred study presented as an acceptable way to access numinous power according to this text, but the power that it raises surpasses that of gentiles, who are able to conjure merely the illusion of animals. Other passages similarly demonstrate rabbinic knowledge of and excellence at magic. For example, in Tractate Pesahim a rabbi is said to have written a one-demon amulet that consequently failed to exorcise a sorb bush possessed by sixty demons. A second scholar came along who recognized the reason for the failure and wrote an appropriate sixty-demon amulet that worked (b. Pesahim 111b). The Bavli also reports rabbis who know apotropaic spells against demons, recalling early Greek associations between magi and rituals to control demons and ghosts: Rav Papa said: “Yosef the demon told me that for two drinks the demons kill, but for four drinks we do not kill. For four drinks we [merely] injure. For two drinks we hurt whether [he did it] in error or deliberately.19 For four drinks, if it was deliberate [we injure], but if it was in error we do not.” And, in the case where a man forgets [he has drunk an even number of drinks] and goes out

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[where he is open to demonic attack], what can save him? “He should take the thumb of his right hand in the left hand and the thumb of the left hand in the right hand and say the following: ‘You and I, behold we are three.’ And if he hears someone say to him, ‘you and I, behold that is four,’ he should say, ‘you and I, behold we are five.’ And if he hears someone say, ‘you and I, behold that is six,’ he should say, ‘you and I, behold that is seven.’” Once it happened to go as far as one hundred and one, and the demon burst. (b. pesahim 110a)

These passages thus portray rabbis as adept at magic: they use rituals and incantations for protective and creative purposes. Other statements and stories, however, indicate tension with this positive valuation of magic and point toward a more negative or cautionary stance with regard to accessing numinous power through such means. One passage, for example, addresses the problem raised by rabbis, in particular, practicing magic and resolves the conflict by concluding that it is acceptable for rabbis to study magic in order to learn what not to do: One day, when we were walking along the road, he [Rabbi Akiva] said to me [Rabbi Eliezer]: “Rabbi, teach me how to plant cucumbers.” I said one thing (devar ehad), and the entire field filled with cucumbers. He said to me: “Rabbi, you taught me how to plant cucumbers, now teach me how to uproot them.” I said one thing, and they all gathered into one place. (b. sanh. 68a)

The Babylonian Talmud cites this anecdote in a discussion over who taught Rabbi Akiva magic (keshafim). According to one tradition, Rabbi Akiva learned magic from Rabbi Joshua, but according to this story he learned how to plant cucumbers using magic from Rabbi Eliezer.20 The Bavli resolves the apparent contradiction by explaining that Rabbi Akiva did, in fact, learn magic from Rabbi Eliezer, but failed to understand it fully. He then went to Rabbi Joshua, who clarified it for him—thus both traditions are true and there is no contradiction. The text then questions whether or not it is problematic for rabbis to be practicing magic at all and concludes that studying for the sake of knowledge is permitted but studying for the sake of practice is not: But how did he do this? Did we not learn: “The one who performs an [actual] act of magic (maaseh) is liable to receive the death penalty?” (b. Sanh. 67a). For the purpose of learning is different, as it is written: “Thou shalt not learn to

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do [after the abominations of these nations]” (Deut 18:9). [The Bible prohibits] learning in order to do. But if one learns in order to understand and to instruct [it is permitted]. (b. sanh. 68a; my emphases)

The claim that it is permissible to practice magic in order to teach and understand (because one does not intend to violate the ban on idolatry in Deut 18:9)21 excuses Rabbi Eliezer’s magical planting and gathering of cucumbers. At the same time, however, this attempt to rationalize the transgression of biblical law reveals discomfort with the knowledge that rabbis were engaging in practices that walk a fine line between acceptable and forbidden. By seeking to justify those practices this passage illuminates a source of anxiety and ambivalence in tension with the more positive portraits of rabbis employing magic considered previously. Magic, here, is regarded negatively: rabbinic magic needs to be justified. This attitude toward magic as something transgressive appears also in numerous statements and narratives where magic marks Others as dangerous. It should come as little surprise, given the strong biblical association of women with idolatry, to discover that women figure most often in representations of magical danger as well.22 Male Others, such as gentiles and “heretics” (minim), could also be accused of magic. Magic and the Dangerous Other Many passages in the Bavli reflect a strongly negative attitude toward magic that contrasts with passages considered in the previous section and resembles the demonizing rhetoric surveyed in the previous three chapters. For example, in the following story a woman attempts to collect dirt from under the feet of a rabbi in order to perform magic: R. Yohanan said: “Why are they [magicians] called by the name ‘keshafim’? Because they diminish the heavenly family (makhhishin familia shel maalah).”23 [But what about the verse from Deuteronomy that contradicts this by saying:] “There is none other besides him [God]” (4:35)? R. Hanina says [this verse] applies to acts of magic (devar keshafim) as well. Some woman attempted to take earth from under the feet of R. Hanina [for magical purposes]. R. Hanina told her, “if it [collecting the dirt] helps, go and do it [the magic spell]; however,” he warned, “it is written ‘there is none other besides him (Deut 4:35).’”24 Can that be? Did not Rabbi Yohanan say: “Why are they called by the name keshafim?

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Because they diminish the heavenly family”? R. Hanina was in a different category [impervious to magic] because of his great merit (de-nafish zekhuteh).25 (b. sanh. 67b)

This passage demonstrates two elements that characterize the antimagic trajectory observed in rabbinic literature. First, it narrates a magical attack by an anonymous woman. Second, the rabbi does not protect himself with a counterspell or special apotropaic observances like his colleagues in the passages discussed above; rather, Rabbi Hanina is said to be protected by his “great merit” (de-nafish zekhuteh). In contrast to portraits that depict rabbis as consummate magicians, possessing magical savoir faire, the representations in this section depict magic as the dangerous practice of an Other. Magic is not considered, in these passages, to be a potent technology, demonstrating superior skill or knowledge, but an antisocial and sinister enterprise that threatens rabbis and the general community. In the above quotation a woman’s unprovoked attack on Rabbi Hanina, and his confident assertion that magic cannot harm him because of his faith in God, is introduced as a possible contradiction to Rabbi Yohanan’s statement that magicians (keshafim) are so named because they weaken the heavenly family (a pun on the word keshafim). This apparent contradiction—between Rabbi Hanina’s claim and Rabbi Yohanan’s etymology—is resolved by claiming that Rabbi Hanina is in a different category; he alone is impervious to magic because he possesses special merit. Rabbi Hanina’s statement, that magicians have no power over God, holds true for him alone. This merit, to which the anonymous commentator attributes Rabbi Hanina’s protection, may derive from vows of abstinence (nazirut). According to a biographical narrative transmitted in b. Nazir 29b, Rabbi Hanina’s father dedicated him to be a nazir while he was still a legal minor.26 Austerities and abstinence were held to be sources of charismatic power in the ancient Mediterranean.27 According to biblical tradition, Samson was a nazir (Judg 13.5) but lost his special power when his hair was cut, violating part of his ascetic oath and consecration to God (Judg 16.19).28 In the Roman era groups such as Montanists directly attributed prophetic ability to the observance of dry fasts and sexual continence.29 Thus, by attributing Rabbi Hanina’s special immunity from magical attack to pious renunciation rather than to knowledge of apotropaic magic or counterattack, this narrative stands in contrast to those cited in the previous section, where rabbis called upon special protective observances and knowledge of counterincantations

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to rescue themselves from situations such as the one in which Rabbi Hanina finds himself. Other passages express a similarly negative estimation of magic and continue to associate it with “outsiders” such as women or sectarians.30 For example, one account from the Jerusalem Talmud tells how the grandson of a prominent rabbi, Joshua ben Levi,31 is cured with an incantation in the name of Jesus.32 The rabbi concludes that it would have been better for him to die than be cured in this way: His grandson had swallowed [something harmful].33 A certain man came up and whispered to him in the name of Jesus Pandira and he recovered.34 As he [the man who whispered] was leaving, he [R. Joshua ben Levi] said to him “what did you whisper to him?” He replied “a certain incantation (milah pelan).”35 “It were better had he died,” the other responded and so he did. (y. shab. 14.4)

This passage shows magic, especially sectarian incantations, to be effective, but concludes that it is better to die than to benefit by transgressing the law. Here it seems that rabbis either do not know magic or they are not willing to engage in magic; the grandson would apparently have died without the intervention of the “magician.” It also strongly identifies magic with “heretics” since the name invoked is that of Jesus.36 In a similar story a rabbi is about to be cured from a snakebite with an incantation in the name of Jesus ben Pantira but dies before he can justify violating rabbinic law: It is related of Rabbi Elazar ben Damah who was bit by a snake: Yakov, a man from the village of Sama, came to heal him in the name of Jesus ben Pantira (meshum Yeshua ben Pantira). But Rabbi Ishmael did not allow it. He said to him: “you are not permitted.” Ben Damah replied: “I will bring you proof that [it is permitted] for him to heal me,” but he [ben Damah] did not have time to bring the proof before he died. Rabbi Ishmael said: “How praise worthy are you, ben Damah, that you left this world in peace and did not breach the sages’ fence [around the Torah]. For everyone who breaches the fence of the sages, calamity comes upon him.”37 (t. hullin 2.6)

This short narrative constitutes part of a longer discussion that explicitly seeks to marginalize “heretics” (minim) by curbing social interaction with them. For example, their meat is forbidden (while meat from gentiles is permitted), as is their bread and wine. Their books are regarded as “magic books” (sifre qosemin); their children are regarded as illegitimate (mamzerin);

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and it is forbidden to intermarry with them or to teach their boys a trade. Furthermore, it is forbidden to be healed by one of them even though one may accept medical help from qualified gentiles (y. Shab. 14.4).38 These two anecdotes suggest that rabbis witnessed Jesus’s name being used (by Christians or perhaps others) for healings and exorcisms but thought that death was preferable to enlisting this idolatrous or heretical power.39 It also demonstrates how magic discourse could be enlisted by rabbis to demonstrate the transgressive character of a competing form of Judaism. It would be better to die, they claim, than participate in Christianity, even if it appears to be powerful and effective.40 Other passages characterize magic as not only unacceptable and transgressive but also dangerous. In the following passage Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai warns travelers not to pick up food left by the side of the road, because Jewish women may have used it for magic: It was taught (ve-hatanya) that Rabban Gamliel was riding on a donkey once from Ako to Keziv and R. Ilai was following behind him. Passing a loaf of fine bread by the road, R. Gamliel told R. Ilai to pick it up. . . . R. Yohanan said in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai: “That ruling [to pick up edible food] only applies (lo shanu ela) in the first generations when the daughters of Israel did not widely engage in magic (perutsot be-keshafim). But in the last generations, in which the daughters of Israel do widely engage in magic, we pass over edible food.” (b. eruvin 64b)

In this passage the ruling of a first-century sage, Rabban Gamliel—that one should not pass up edible food found by the side of the road—is abrogated by a second-century sage, Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai, on the grounds that in his day the daughters of Israel widely practice magic.41 This accusation is presented as a simple statement of fact, not requiring evidence or justification. By assuming that such an assertion would appear to be self-evident, the author of this statement reinforces and naturalizes the association of women with magic, an association that appears repeatedly in rabbinic literature and which we will consider later in this chapter. Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai is also attributed with a denunciation of women in the Jerusalem Talmud, where he states that even “the best Jewish woman is expert at magic” (y. Kid. 4.11).42 Another early sage reputedly attributes magical practices to Jewish women, painting all daughters of Israel with the same condemnatory brush:

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The rabbis taught: one was walking outside the town and smelled the smell of incense. If most of the residents are gentiles [literally “worshipers of stars”] one does not say a blessing; if most are Israelite, say a blessing. Rabbi Yosi said: “Even if the majority are Israelite, you do not say a blessing because the daughters of Israel burn incense for magic” (le-keshafim). [The anonymous commentator asks,] Is all of it burned for magic? He should have said: a little bit is for magic and also a little bit is for scenting clothing;43 one does not bless [incense] when the majority is not being used for scent and whenever the majority is not being used for scent it is being used for work. (b. berakhot 53a)

In this passage the anonymous commentator qualifies R. Yosi’s misogynistic pronouncement with the remark that “only a little bit is burned for magic and the rest is used for scenting clothing,” but Rabbi Yosi’s ruling that one does not say a blessing is allowed to stand. The statement “most women engage in magic” (rov nashim mitzuyot be-keshafim) (b. Sanh. 67a) has often been quoted as evidence of rabbinic misogyny.44 To understand it, however, one needs to look at its literary context, in which this statement serves to explain the already gendered prohibition of magic found in Exodus, where it states that “a sorceress shall not [be allowed] to live” (mekhashefa lo tehayeh) (22:17 ). The Hebrew word used, mekhashefa, is feminine, while mekhashef is masculine and would have been the “inclusive” form in biblical Hebrew. In an attempt to explain why the Bible singles women out for this proscription, the anonymous sage (tanu rabbanan) claims, perhaps partly tongue in cheek, that “most women must be sorceresses.” While this statement may have been made as a sarcastic reply to a textual difficulty posed by the Bible, it serves to reinscribe an association of women with magic. The assumption expressed by these rulings is that people (generally women) practice magic, that magic is dangerous, and that rabbis eschew this sort of activity. Furthermore, none of these passages offers a prophylactic against the magical designs of Jewish sorceresses; one just has to use common sense and avoid their danger. These statements, therefore, do not appear to endorse protective spells or countermagic like the statements examined in the previous section where rabbis skillfully defend themselves against magical attacks. I propose that behind these differing attitudes and representations lie two distinct attitudes toward numinous power and ways of accessing it.

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social cont e x t , c u l t u r a l i n f l u e n c e , a n d rabbinic att i t u d e s t o w a r d m a g i c Incantations, amulets, figurines, and other technologies for accessing, controlling, or protecting oneself from demons and ghosts existed in ancient Mesopotamia.45 Curse tablets and figurines appear in Greece by the fifth century bce and were well known throughout the Mediterranean region by the Roman era. Amulets also were in common use by this time. The author of Second Maccabees (circa 100 bce), for example, complains that fallen Jewish soldiers were discovered wearing idolatrous amulets, which he identifies as the cause of their death (12.40). Three centuries later, rabbis take amulets so much for granted that they debate the legal implications of their use, including how to tell an approved amulet from a prohibited one (if it is proven effective three times it is approved), whether or not to regard them as sacred since they may contain the name of God (which has implications for wearing them into a bathroom or rescuing them from a fire), and whether or not wearing one on the Sabbath constitutes a religious violation (b. Shab. 61a–b, 67a). Abaye, a Babylonian sage, gives directions for making an amulet to cure rabbis (b. Yoma 84a) and offers a long list of amulets and other protective practices that he learned from his mother for treating various afflictions (b. Shab. 66b).46 Thus it is evident that sages regarded amulets and other similar protective devices to be a normal part of their culture and not something illicit; amulets constituted an accepted part of science and medical technology in that day.47 Despite this approval for many apotropaic and medicinal practices, other similar observances were rejected as foreign idolatry and labeled the “ways of the Amorite” (b. Shab. 67a, t. Shab. 6–7). The activities regarded as permitted and forbidden are often so similar, according to rabbinic texts, that the only way to know the difference is to ask a rabbi.48 As Naomi Janowitz points out, this effectively brought these types of practices under rabbinic jurisdiction and control.49 Despite the ban, however, a practice that belonged to the “ways of the Amorite” was permitted if it was shown to heal (y. Shab. 6.9; b. Shab. 67a).50 Archaeological evidence confirms the importance of amulets for late antique Jews; a substantial number of Jewish talismans and amulets have been collected by E. R. Goodenough.51 These amulets unself-consciously blend polytheistic and Jewish symbols, sacred names, and ritual elements. Jewish themes and divine names also abound in Greco-Roman incantations, such as those found in the Greek Magical

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Papyri.52 This syncretism attests to shared traditions and technologies. More important, the unmistakable borrowing of cultural symbols and languages points to significant blurring of religious and cultural/ethnic boundaries at this time, the extent of which scholars are increasingly becoming aware. The work of Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked reveals the widespread use of amulets and incantation bowls among both Babylonian and Palestinian Jews. Significantly, their findings suggest that the use of this type of technology was more widespread in Mesopotamia (150 bowls in Jewish Aramaic, Syriac, and Mandaic) than in Palestine (ten Aramaic amulets), although this conclusion may reflect the random nature of archaeological preservation and discovery.53 One question to ask about all this material is to what extent do these practices belong to the realm of “science,” and to what extent “magic” or “religion”. In other words, did ancient practitioners consider these practices to be helpful technologies or forbidden magic? It is useful to point out that this distinction is not entirely modern and did exist to some extent in the ancient world; however, what qualifies as “magic” or “science” for an ancient observer often differs substantially from that of a modern person. Pliny the Elder, for example, classified numerous healing practices as legitimate medicine that a modern person would categorize as magic or superstition, such as curing baldness with the application of sheep’s dung mixed with cyprus oil and honey or by applying the hooves (reduced to ash) of a mule of either sex in myrtle oil (Nat. 29.34).54 Conversely, Plutarch regarded as superstition the legitimate practice of hanging wild figs on a domestic fig tree to prevent it from dropping its fruit and compared it to the belief that women’s menstrual rags avert hail (Quaest. conviv. 7.2). Such a practice, known as caprification, facilitates pollination and constitutes a valid horticultural practice.55 The rabbis thus adopted a pragmatic stance on this issue when they concluded that if it “worked” it was permitted (i.e., science) and not forbidden (i.e., magic).56 Complicating this picture is a category of texts, usually labeled mystical, that prescribe techniques for and narrate stories about rabbis ascending to heaven to perceive the throne of God and his celestial court.57 These texts raise numerous complications by confounding the distinction between magic and religion altogether.58 One case in particular, Sefer ha-Razim, which most scholars date to the rabbinic period, functions as a “mystical” text in that it offers technologies for ascending to heaven and describes the doxology in praise of God that the mystic recites there as he beholds the glorious heavenly throne.59 On the other hand, this same text offers

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numerous spells to recite, employing secret angelic names, and rituals to perform to win favor from an emperor or other superior, question a ghost, speak with the moon or stars, make a wealthy woman fall in love with one, or cause an enemy to have insomnia. This text thus confounds distinctions between magic and religion, mysticism and theurgy. More important, it raises questions about the relationship of rabbis to other literate and religious Jews at this time and about the penetration of magic into the heart of Jewish society.60 Despite, or perhaps because of, this widespread penetration of “magic” practices into Jewish society, a certain trajectory within the rabbinic corpus registers concern about magic, rejecting such practices out of hand. Some statements explicitly condemn magic or indicate, through narrative strategies, that magic is not appropriate even for apotropaic purposes—it belongs entirely to the realm of the Other. In contrast to these negative positions, other passages clearly indicate that not only are such technologies acceptable but mastery of them demonstrates superiority. It is possible that the different attitudes reflect different opinions of individual sages and not any metahistorical phenomenon or cultural ideology. Using text-critical methods of analysis, however, I argue that these two attitudes reflect patterns within redactional strata of the Bavli and can, to a certain extent, be localized. The first category of representation—according to which magic carries a positive valence and functions to demonstrate rabbinic superiority and mastery of esoteric arts—can be traced to Babylonia. Babylonian sages Rav Hisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna know apotropaic practices and a spell to protect themselves from the magical attack of an anonymous matron (b. Hullin 105b). Rav Papa knows to avoid eating or drinking in pairs to protect one from demons and a spell to say in case one forgets this rule and needs additional protection (b. Pesahim 110a). Amemar relates a useful spell to say when one encounters “the women who practice magic” (b. Pesahim 110a),61 and Rav Hanina and Rav Oshaia create a calf and eat it with the power generated by their study of the laws of creation (b. Sanh. 67b). In each case context makes it explicitly clear that rabbis perform rituals of a sort comparable to those of their gentile neighbors, which can be considered “magic” (kishuf), and excel at them. In contrast to these positive portraits of magical savoir faire, other passages reject magic out of hand or depict it as the predatory practices of antagonistic Others, such as women or gentiles. This negative stance I trace to Palestine, where rabbis in the Tosefta and Jerusalem Talmud can claim

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that it is better to die than be healed by a sectarian incantation. Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, both early Palestinian sages (Tannaim), attribute harmful magical practices to women categorically, including Jewish women. And Rabbi Hanina defends himself from magical attack with the greatness of his merit rather than with counterspells and incantations. These diverging attitudes toward magic may or may not reflect anything about the actual practice of these types of rituals in those societies, for which we have ample evidence even from Palestine. But it does express something about ideologies of power and conceptions of legitimate and illegitimate sources of authority at work in each culture. In the following section I will expand upon this idea and argue that the attitudes toward magic expressed by Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis are part of a larger attempt to depict rabbis as authorities invested with power in accordance with the values and expectations of their surrounding culture. Palestinian Piety and Ascetic Power As we have seen, statements attributed to Palestinian rabbis or that reflect a Palestinian milieu tend to eschew magic and regard it negatively. What emerges instead is a pattern of attributing power and prestige to acts of piety and religious devotion. Thus, Rabbi Hanina, a first-generation Palestinian Amora,62 is said to be impervious to magical attack because of his great merit, not his ability to quote scripture or his knowledge of protective incantations (b. Sanh. 67b).63 Unlike Rav Hisda and Rabbah bar Rav Huna (both Babylonian Amoraim), Rabbi Hanina does not resort to defensive spells. His charismatic immunity flows, it appears, from the austerities of his nazirut.64 The notion that austerities or ascetic renunciation enable one to access sacred power can be seen also in the following quotation from the Mishnah, which derives from Palestine: Rabbi Pinhas ben Yair says: Scrupulousness leads to cleanliness. Cleanliness leads to purity. Purity leads to renunciation (perishut). Renunciation leads to holiness. Holiness leads to meekness. Meekness leads to fear of sin. Fear of sin leads to piety. Piety leads to the Holy Spirit (ruah ha-qodesh). The Holy Spirit leads to resurrection of the dead (tehiyat ha-metim). Resurrection of the dead comes through Elijah, blessed be his memory, Amen. (m. sotah 9)

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In this quotation piety and renunciation lead one to possess the Holy Spirit, a powerful source of charisma that also portended the messianic age.65 The association between abstinence and possession of the Holy Spirit explains why Rabbi Akiva (Palestinian Tanna) can complain that, because of sin, the Holy Spirit no longer descends on one who has fasted: And when Rabbi Akiva reached this verse, he wept: “if one starves himself in order that an impure spirit may rest upon him, an impure spirit rests upon him. If one fasts in order that a pure spirit may rest upon him, how much more so [should he be successful]! But what can I do? Our sins have caused this, as it is written: ‘But your iniquities have separated you and your God’” (Isaiah 59). (b. sanh. 65b)

Both this statement and the one from Pinhas ben Yair reflect an ethos in which sacred power was believed to flow from acts of renunciation rather than from special utterances, knowledge of amulets, or even study of Torah.66 Jacob Neusner uses this same quotation from Rabbi Akiva to demonstrate that sacred power flows from knowledge of Torah.67 While this is certainly true for Babylonian rabbis, as I will demonstrate below, I do not believe that it applies in this case where Akiva identifies fasting to be what attracts a spirit to rest on someone. Akiva’s statement points, rather, toward the association of spiritual power with asceticism and should not be confused with later conceptions of Torah as the source of spiritual power. While some early rabbinic (Tannaitic) statements may point toward the spiritual power of Torah, this one does not.68 Other scholars have noted a similar tendency in Palestinian sources to attribute sacred power to piety and prayer rather than to Torah study. W. S. Green, for example, examines the tradition surrounding Honi ha-meagel (Honi the circle drawer) in rabbinic literature and concludes that Honi originated as a Palestinian Jewish magician who was subsequently purified of “magical” attributes and eventually “rabbinized.” Tannaitic sources, according to Green, minimize the “magical” elements of Honi’s ritual circle drawing, while maximizing the supplicatory element of his prayer.69 Later Babylonian sources inscribe Honi within the rabbinic circle, claiming a charismatic figure renowned for his rain-making capacity as one of their own.70 Baruch Bokser executes a similar study on the traditions surrounding Hanina ben Dosa, whom tradition describes as a first-century miracle worker known for the efficacy of his prayers and prescience. Although later accorded the title rabbi, Bokser argues that Hanina was not a member of

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the rabbinic class but a type of Jewish holy man.71 Bokser traces the development of the Hanina legends and notes that in Babylonian sources Hanina and other biblical figures are depicted as “strong-willed prayers” while Palestinian sources tend to present them as models of modesty and piety. Both these studies concur that, in contrast to Babylonian sources, Palestinian sages tend to conceive numinous power in terms of piety rather than magical knowledge, special apotropaic practices, or study of Torah. What accounts for this difference? I suggest that the Palestinian tendency to eschew magic or anything resembling it and to attribute power to piety or asceticism reflects the Hellenistic social context of Palestinian sages.72 As we have seen in previous chapters, “magic” conveyed notions of alterity and marginality in the Greco-Roman world.73 Beginning from an association with the enemy’s religion following the Persian wars, certain types of people and practices were labeled magos/mageia and regarded suspiciously as un-Greek and potentially dangerous in Greek thought. This discourse of alterity was then taken over into Roman thought as well, where it expressed fears of dangerous women and served as a political weapon in the hands of the imperial elite. I propose that the same Greek constellation of ideas and practices, identified broadly as magic and perceived as dangerous or subversive, left its mark on Palestinian Jewish attitudes where it reinforced long-standing opposition to foreign religion and “idolatry.” This Hellenistic influence is what accounts for the operation of magic discourse in Second Temple and rabbinic writings where it helped concretize an existing but unformulated aversion to “foreign” practices, especially various kinds of divination (Deut 18:10–11).74 Babylonian sages, on the other hand, living under Persian dominance, appear to have been less influenced by this discourse. While many ritual practices to gain power were regarded with suspicion in the Greco-Roman world, asceticism carried a more positive valence.75 Self-control (so¯phrosune¯) constituted a necessary quality to rule others in Greek thought.76 As a consequence, so¯phrosune¯ operated as a central topos in the political discourse of Greek democracy: in the rhetorical competitions between political aspirants and litigants one could eliminate a rival by demonstrating his lack of self-control and thereby undermining his political credibility. Similarly, Roman statesmen could argue for legitimacy based on nobility of character, self-possession, and Stoic self-control.77 Not only did self-control and certain forms of renunciation demonstrate mastery and therefore superiority, but, as James Francis shows, extreme acts of renunciation functioned subversively—trumping elite claims to authority based

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on so¯phrosune¯ and rejecting the status quo through refusal to marry, procreate, or fulfill householder duties.78 By choosing a life on the margins of society, ascetic men and women cultivated powerful charisma. Peter Brown has demonstrated that such individuals could garner esteem from extreme and heroic acts of renunciation and bodily control: the holy man was an “athlete” whose reputation rested on the violent heritage of the arena.79 The ability to master oneself enabled holy men to lead others; people came to them for juridical decisions, social mediation, and political intervention. Their outsider status, combined with and reinforced by their extreme aske¯sis, endowed holy men and women with a transcendent authority that surpassed that of institutionalized offices.80 Palestinian sages, I suggest, similarly perceived power to inhere in pious self-restraint, which when practiced in moderation could garner tremendous numinous power.81 The degree to which rabbis embraced or rejected ascetic expressions of religiosity is contested: Yitzhak Baer strongly argues for rabbinic asceticism while Ephraim Urbach argues equally strongly against it. Steven Fraade negotiates a middle way through this debate by demonstrating that Tannaitic rabbis both embraced and contained ascetic impulses within Judaism, legislating reasonable and controlled acts of renunciation such as leaving a small portion of one ’s house unplastered in memory of the destroyed Jerusalem temple.82 Fraade proposes that the moderate ascetic compromise the rabbis adopt functioned to forge an inclusive form of Jewish piety and enabled them to assume leadership and authority over Judaism in the posttemple period.83 Even while reducing pietistic demands on the common people for the sake of unity Palestinian rabbis appear to have cultivated certain forms of renunciation as a source of spiritual power. Unlike some early Christians, however, who advocated radical acts of asceticism and withdrawal from this world, rabbis endorsed—in fact legislated—marriage, procreation, and the controlled enjoyment of worldly pleasures.84 Their practice of renunciation thus was not the world-rejecting asceticism practiced by Christian holy men.85 Rather, sayings attributed to Palestinian rabbis suggest that one could cultivate sacred power through limited renunciation, good deeds, and prayer. This feature of Palestinian piety should not surprise us: fasting has long been regarded as a way to achieve ecstatic experiences.86 It also has biblical precedents.87 Because a conception of authority that rests on notions of pious self-control harmonizes with Hellenistic models, where the elite laid claim to authority by virtue of their self-mastery, it appears that Palestinian sages enlisted this discourse of elitism and authority preva-

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lent in their cultural milieu to reinforce an existing set of cultural and religious practices. Furthermore, such a conception of power that did not inhere in military mastery, political sovereignty, or temple ministration may have seemed especially appealing in the wake of the devastating Roman wars and destruction of the Jerusalem temple. It offered another means to demonstrate power and gain authority. Babylonian Magic and the Power of Knowledge Contrast this approach with the Babylonian sages previously discussed, whose power over demons and dangerous witches stemmed from their knowledge of incantations and special apotropaic practices. Again, I link the conception of spiritual power to cultural influence. It has become increasingly evident that rabbis were immersed in the culture of Sassanian Babylonia and were influenced by its customs and values. The control of demons and ghosts through incantations and figurines had been an accepted practice in Mesopotamia since the second millennium bce and was regarded by rabbis and other Jews living in Babylonia as high culture and “science.”88 Consequently, practices that came to be regarded as magic and viewed negatively in Greece and Rome were not rejected as problematic by Babylonian Jewish sages unless they violated Deuteronomy 18:9–11.89 Another aspect of Babylonian culture to shape rabbinic thought is demonology. During the Talmudic era Zoroastrianism and its dualistic belief in demons dominated the religious and cultural landscape of Babylonia.90 According to this philosophy, the cosmos is presided over by two opposing deities, one of light, Ohrmazd, and the other of darkness, Ahriman. Both deities control celestial retinues that can be placated through propitiatory sacrifices.91 Demonology and the ability to assuage and control demons for apotropaic and magical purposes emerged from this dualistic cosmology and played an important role in shaping the daily lives of common people, including, as the Talmud indicates, Jews.92 It has been remarked that demons figure much more prominently in the sayings of Babylonian sages than in those of their colleagues from Palestine.93 The belief in demons and the perception of them as dangerous thus seems to contribute to Babylonian sages’ attitudes toward certain kinds of ritual practices. Babylonian rabbis command a variety of verbal and ritual defenses against demons in addition to knowing dietary observances and hygienic practices that serve an apotropaic function, such as not wiping oneself with a pottery shard after using the toilet. These practices differ markedly from

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Palestinian claims that merit through piety and renunciation protects one from magical assault. In addition to their acceptance of ritual technology and incantation, Babylonian sages invested studying Torah with special power over and above their Palestinian colleagues; Torah study as a source of numinous power is emphasized more often in Babylonian than Palestinian statements. I also attribute this trend to cultural influence. In 226 ce a Persian satrap, Ardashir, defeated the Parthian confederation and founded the Sassanian Empire, reestablishing Persian dominance in the eastern Mediterranean after eighthundred years of impotency and inconsequence.94 His ascension involved a nationalist revival that centered around the elevation of Persian religion as the official state cult, which led at times to zealous persecution of foreign religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrian heresies such as Manichaeism.95 During the Sassanian dynasty, magi wielded tremendous influence: according to Zaehner, they “became all-powerful” under the rule of Shapur II and his successors.96 In an official capacity magi acted as counselors to the king, implementing religious reforms, consolidating temple property and power, and involving themselves in every affair of the state and individual: The [Mandean] church gave to secular power its sacred character and at the same time intervened in the life of each citizen at all important [life] events; one could say, so to speak, that it followed the individual from cradle to grave. “Now, everyone reveres them (the magi) and regards them with veneration. Public business is arranged according to their council and their predictions, and they direct in particular the affairs of all those who have a legal dispute, surveying with care what is being done and delivering their judgment, and nothing among the Persians seems to be legitimate and just unless it is affirmed by a mage.”97

In addition to advising the king, the magi handled every sacerdotal function, the most important of which was tending the temple fires but also included the performance of purifications, hearing confessions, granting absolution, and performing ceremonies of birth, death, and marriage.98 Magi also served as legal functionaries for the government and community.99 Thus the magi garnered tremendous esteem and prestige in the Sassanian Empire, holding the highest offices in the temple state and directly influencing social and political policy. This cultural and religious revolution under Sassanian rule provides the backdrop for understanding rabbinic representations of power and author-

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ity in the Babylonian Talmud. Babylonian sages lived under a regime with a different model of authority than that of the Greek and Roman empires where authority was perceived to flow from self-control. In Babylonia the tremendous authority and influence of the magi issued from special knowledge, unlike with the Mediterranean holy man, who derived power from outsider status and asceticism.100 Magi possessed a body of esoteric teachings and arcane lore, which they redacted into a collection of sacred texts, the Avesta, sometime during the Talmudic period. Shaul Shaked has documented the importance of esotericism in Zoroastrian tradition. He describes the role of an elite learned minority that had access to secret inner teachings. “Knowledge [constituted] the power of Ohrmazd, but it [had] its dangers.”101 Knowledge also guaranteed salvation and assisted one in the battle against demons. In a slightly gnostic formulation, the elite know “the secret things of the beneficent Creator (which are as every hidden secret)—excepting Him himself, the all-knower, who is full of the knowledge of all that is in all.” To possess “knowledge of the eschatological reward due to the righteous” guaranteed access to that very salvation.102 Zoroastrians, thus, placed a high premium on knowledge; it is secret knowledge of their Creator and his redemption that grants the learned access to salvation. Knowledge also assisted one in the battle against demons and for this reason it was thought to be a good idea to spread the secret teachings more broadly.103 Zoroastrians believed that observance of strict purity regulations would “counter the forces of evil.”104 This involved isolating sources of impurity such as menstruant women, “materials cast off from the human body” (including fingernail clippings and hair), and animal corpses. Many of these specific observances find their way into the practices of Babylonian rabbis and are recorded in the Talmud.105 It is this notion of authority, based on secret teachings and possession of a sacred text, I propose, that significantly influenced the self-representation of Babylonian rabbis. Statements traceable to Babylonian sages depict rabbis wielding power through their knowledge of Torah, possession of secret spells, and special apotropaic observances. It is interesting to note at this point that the statement quoted above from R. Pinhas ben Yair, which identifies scrupulousness, cleanliness, and renunciation to be the paths to possession of the Holy Spirit (m. Sotah 9), appears in the Babylonian Talmud with the addition of “Torah.” In the Bavli the redactor has added Torah as the first cause that leads to acquisition of scrupulousness, cleanliness, piety, etcetera (Avod. Zar. 20b). In so doing, this redactor emphasizes the primacy of study in the acquisition of piety and religious power.

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Magic, Text, and Power Several scholars have traced rabbinic representations of Palestinian holy men (in Brown’s sense of the term), showing how their portrayal changed over time toward an increasing rabbinization that included a tendency to depict knowledge and study of Torah as the source of their power.106 Three studies in particular demonstrate an increasing tendency to “rabbinize” holy men or miracle workers, usurping for the rabbinic movement charismatic authority of prerabbinic (Bokser) or nonrabbinic (Kalmin) figures. Furthermore, these studies reveal an inclination on the part of Palestinian sources to attribute charismatic power to activities other than Torah study while Babylonian sources concentrate on Torah study as the primary source of spiritual authority. In the previous section I pointed out a similar pattern in representations of magic. Palestinian sources eschew magic and almost unanimously portray it negatively as a source of danger, attributing power to piety and spiritual merit, while Babylonian sources draw on the image of the magi to represent themselves as masters of ritual expertise and demonology.107 In the competitive and sometimes combative academic atmosphere of the Babylonian yeshivot, as Jeffrey Rubenstein has demonstrated, excelling at dialectic and Torah knowledge served as a source of authority and power within the rabbinic community.108 Next to lineage, dialectical skills determined a sage ’s social standing within the hierarchical academies that were developing at the end of the Talmudic era.109 Stories of rabbis besting demons and witches with superior knowledge and special ritual observances, I suggest, hint at this world of Babylonian sages by expressing the extraordinary importance and authority that derived from command of Torah, where Torah was seen to encompass all rabbinic knowledge.110 These portraits also help legitimize the creation and interpretation of a new legal text—the Bavli—which was being redacted at this time. Jack Lightstone proposes that the writing (redacting) of a text and the special knowledge necessary to read and interpret that text positioned the rabbis as religious leaders in sixth-century Babylonia where the Sassanian Empire itself was collecting and compiling its great religious and literary traditions as part of a cultural renaissance.111 My reading of magic in the Talmud suggests that this rabbinic authority was also demonstrated by the sage ’s claim to possess sacred power through knowledge of that text, drawing on symbols from the surrounding culture where access to numinous power through esoteric knowledge conferred legitimacy. Creation of a text consolidated rabbinic authority, on the one hand; representations of rabbis,

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magically defeating their opponents with superior knowledge and mastery of Torah, legitimated authority, on the other. Textual authority and magical authority are here interdependent—magical authority legitimates textual authority of which it is itself a creation. The success of this redactional enterprise is reflected in later “mystical” literature, dated to geonic times (seventh to eleventh century), in which a practitioner seeks instant knowledge of Torah through adjuration of an angelic “Prince of the Torah” (Sar Torah).112 Michael Swartz locates these texts in circles of nonrabbinic but literate Jews “who wished to achieve for themselves the tangible benefits—honor, power, and wealth—of that [rabbinic] intelligentsia.”113 This respect, even awe, of Torah learning suggests that rabbinic representations of Torah as a source of numinous power contributed to the perception expressed in the Sar Torah tradition that Torah knowledge conveyed special power and prestige. As James Davila writes: “These texts promoted the view that power over the Sar Torah transformed the magician into a wonder worker akin to the rabbis portrayed in the Babylonian Talmud.”114 Despite the positive representation of magic in certain strata of the Babylonian Talmud and later ascension texts, negative estimations of magic as dangerous abound in rabbinic writings. Previous examples demonstrate the strong association between harmful magic and women, and it is to this gendering of magic that I turn in the next section.

caution fr o m t h e k o s h e r k i t c h e n : women and m a g i c a l d a n g e r A number of feminist scholars have identified a misogynist ideology behind the negative portrayals of women and magic in the Bavli.115 My approach here is to illuminate the specific motivations and ideology underlying the use of magic as an Othering strategy in these depictions. For example, in the following narrative a rabbi accuses the daughters of Rav Nahman of practicing magic in order to cast aspersions on their integrity. He does this to justify his own violation of rabbinic law, which puts the two women at risk and demonstrates his selfish lack of compassionate consideration: The daughters of Rav Nahman used to stir a pot with their hands. This posed a difficulty (qashiya) for Rav Ilish since it is written [referring to virtue] “one man in a thousand I have found but a woman among all those I have not found” (Eccl 7:28),116 but behold the daughters of Rav Nahman!117 Behold, a [terrible]

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thing happened to the daughters of Rav Nahman and they were taken captive, and he [Rav Ilish] was also taken captive with them. One day, Rav Ilish was sitting next to a man who knew the language of birds. A raven came and called to him. He [Rav Ilish] said to the man: “what did it say?” He answered: “Flee Ilish, flee Ilish.” He said: “the raven lies, one cannot trust it.” And then a dove came and called. He said to him: “what did it say?” He answered: “Flee Ilish, flee Ilish.” He said: “the community of Israel is compared to a dove. Learn from this that a miracle will befall me.” He said: “I will go and see the daughters of Rav Nahman; if they have retained their virtue, I will take them back [with me].” He said: “women share every word of their personal business in the toilet (be-beit ha-kisei).” He heard them saying, “[these men] here are our husbands, and the Nehardeans [back home] are [also] our husbands. Let us say to our captors to remove us far from here so that our husbands do not hear [where we are] and redeem us.” He got up and fled, the other man coming with him. A miracle was performed for him; he crossed the river. The other man was caught and killed. When he returned, he came and said: “they stirred the pot with magic (be-keshafim).” (b. gittin 45a)

In this passage an accusation of magic serves to legitimate the irresponsible behavior of Rav Ilish by delegitimating Rav Nahman’s daughters. This narrative follows a rabbinic ruling that one must not redeem a captive for more than he is worth nor help a captive escape, in both cases, for the good of the world (mipnei tiqun ha-olam). Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel explains that it is for the good of the other captives, fearing that the ones left behind will be harmed in revenge. The story of Rav Ilish and Rav Nahman’s daughters, therefore, addresses a situation in which someone, a rabbi no less, disregarded this prohibition and recklessly endangered his fellow captives. Magic functions in the passage to disparage Rav Nahman’s daughters and to justify Rav Ilish’s decision to flee without them. First, the question is raised concerning their virtue. The statement that they stirred a pot with their hands suggests that they had miraculous powers by virtue of great merit. Rav Ilish doubts whether such merit in women is possible (quoting Eccl 7.28 that a woman with merit cannot be found), setting the foundation for the conclusion of the story in which he accuses them of stirring the pot with magic. By linking magic with an accusation of sexual impropriety—in this case, adultery—Rav Ilish doubly disparages the women’s reputations and justifies his decision to leave them behind in violation of a rabbinic decree.

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Magic functions in this passage to marginalize two individuals. By accusing the women of infidelity and sorcery, Rav Ilish excises them from the Jewish community and permits himself to leave them behind as captives, where they face certain punishment and possible death. It may not be coincidental that it is the daughters of Rav Nahman, specifically, who are accused of stirring the pot with magic. Their mother, Yalta, acquired a reputation in rabbinic literature for being headstrong and challenging rabbinic authority.118 Women’s Resistance: The Case of Yalta Two narratives in the Bavli describe Yalta challenging members of the rabbinic class. In a tractate on laws regulating menstrual impurity and separation (Niddah), Yalta shows a spot of questionable blood to a rabbi for a ruling on whether or not it is menstrual, which would require sexual separation from her husband. When he rules that it is, she takes the blood to a different rabbi to get a second opinion, and he deems the blood to be nonmenstrual, permitting her to have sex with her spouse (b. Nid. 20b).119 Since rabbis were not permitted to overturn a previous ruling by one of their colleagues, the Talmud provides an explanation to overcome this difficulty: the first rabbi’s eyesight was poor that day.120 In a second incident a rabbinic guest at her house did not include Yalta in a blessing over the meal; she is insulted and breaks four hundred jars of wine (b. Ber. 51b). The offending rabbi justifies his action with a quotation from Deuteronomy, which states that God “will bless the fruit of your (masculine) womb (pri-bitnekha) (7:13).” He infers from this quotation that God blesses men; women derive their blessing secondarily through men and, therefore, need not be included in blessings over meals. Charlotte Fonrobert illuminates how, in both these situations, Yalta challenges rabbinic efforts to exclude women from judgments that affect them.121 She sees these stories about Yalta as signaling an uneasiness or tension within rabbinic literature over regulation of women and especially women’s bodies.122 Whether one accepts biographical narratives in the Talmud as authentic kernels of historical information or as pure fiction (or as something in between), the presence of such narratives points to their importance for revealing social concerns. As Fonrobert aptly states, “These narratives do not merely represent individual incidents within the literary corpus of the Babylonian Talmud as a whole, but provide us with narrative concentrations of tensions which are fundamental to the cultural universe of the Tal-

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mud.”123 As a character in rabbinic literature, Yalta signifies resistance to rabbinic authority—specifically female resistance. Deprecating her daughters as witches may therefore function within a larger ideological discourse to communicate ideas about “good” women and “bad.” By portraying the daughters of a known rabble-rouser as both sexually promiscuous and consummate sorceresses, this narrative pressures women to subscribe to rabbinic social values and legal interpretations or be identified as witches and excised from the community like the daughters of Rav Nahman. Women, Food, and Magic In rabbinic narratives that characterize women as sorceresses, food often figures prominently (although not universally). While Palestinian sources more often adopt a virulently antimagic stance, one that denounces women categorically for practicing magic, the tendency to depict women engaging in maleficent magic and employing food in their practice transcends the distinction between Palestinian and Babylonian. If there is a single ideology regarding magic in rabbinic writings, the association of women, food, and magic might be it. Let us return to the sources previously discussed for some examples. An anonymous matron binds a boat carrying two rabbis and claims they are protected from her spell because they do not eat vegetables from a bunch that was tied by the gardener (b. Hullin 105b). Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai claims that Jewish women use bread for magic and leave it by the side of the road as a danger to travelers (b. Eruvin 64b).124 Rav Nahman’s daughters are said to have used magic to stir a pot (of boiling liquid) with their bare hands (b. Gittin 45a). Two other passages, not yet discussed, also suggest a connection between women, magic, and cooking. In the first one a rabbi is offered a drink at an inn that has been impregnated with a spell: Yannai came to an inn and requested a drink of water, and they offered him a drink of flour mixed with water.125 He saw the lips of the waitress whispering as she brought the drink to him, whereupon he spilled some on the ground and it turned into scorpions (aqravei). Then he told them: “I have drunk of yours, now you drink of mine.” She drank [and turned into] a donkey, and he rode on her back to the market. But her friend came and released her so that he was seen riding upon a woman in the market. (b. sanh. 67b)

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In this anecdote Yannai detects the woman’s attempt to bind him with magic and reverses her spell, transforming her into a donkey. The story takes an amusing turn when he decides to ride the donkey-woman into town; her friend releases the magic and humiliates Yannai, who is “seen riding on a woman in the market.” This story about a Palestinian sage indicates a negative view of magic: it is something that dangerous women do and is not appropriate for rabbis, or, at least, it cautions them from engaging in harmful countermagic.126 It also reveals the potential danger of ordering food from an unknown woman. In another passage, which resembles the spell to say against demons (cited above), Amemar reports that he learned a protective charm from the head of women who practice magic: Amemar said: “The head of the women who practice magic (reishteinhi denashim keshfaniot) said to me: one who runs into one of the women who practice magic (nashim keshfaniot) should say the following: ‘Hot excrement in perforated baskets into your mouths, women of sorcery. May you become bald, may the wind carry off your crumbs, may your spices be scattered, may a blast of wind carry off the new saffron that you are holding, women who do magic. As long as he graced me and graced you, I did not come among you. Now that I came among you, my grace has cooled and your grace has cooled.’”127 (b. pesahim 110a)

This protective incantation targets the ingredients presumably used in women’s magic—spices, crumbs, and saffron—suggesting an association between women’s cooking and their practice of magic. In a passage from the Jerusalem Talmud related to the legend of Shimon ben Shetah, who executed eighty women of Ashkelon for practicing magic,128 the women are said to conjure various dishes of food with magical incantations: “As soon as one entered [the cave where they dwelt] she said an incantation [literally, “said what she said,” amrah mah de-amrah],129 conjuring bread, and another one said what she said, conjuring stew, and another one said what she said, conjuring wine” (y. Sanh. 6.6). Interestingly, the women lose their magical powers when lifted off the ground, which is how they are captured and killed.130 Even where cooking is not explicitly involved, food can lay one open to magical attack. For example, in another narrative an ex-wife is said to have deliberately violated the taboo on eating and drinking in pairs by serving her former husband an even number of drinks and then turning him out onto the street at the mercy of demonic predators (b. Pesahim 110b). All

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these passages point to a concern over food as a source of magical danger and to women, the primary preparers of food, as potential threats.131 What can account for this association between magic and women’s cooking? The obvious answer would be that women had the most direct access to their victims through food. Apollodorus’s accusation against a stepmother, discussed in chapter 2 above, suggests that women were suspected of putting magic potions in food, which could accidentally harm or even kill the recipient.132 While this may have been true, it does not adequately account for this rabbinic representation and stereotype of magic. Women cooked in all the ancient Mediterranean cultures that produced depictions of magic—and especially of women practicing magic—yet food does not figure as consistently in any of the other stereotyping patterns. In Greek tragedy abandoned wives use emollients on clothing rather than potions in food to effect magic—symbolically inverting their sacred and traditional role as weavers.133 In Roman literature old hags commit infanticide and necromancy; their crimes are of the most heinous and violent sort, but do not involve food.134 Early Christian sources do not tend to depict women as magicians at all, but rather as the victims of men’s seductive magic.135 So the obvious explanation that women cook and therefore food is the source of their magic does not adequately explain the rabbinic association of women, magic, and food. A better explanation, I suggest, considers the ideological value of food and its importance as a site for asserting power and authority in rabbinic society. I propose that the apparent anxiety over women’s cooking emerges from the significant role dietary observances play in delimiting Jewish identity. Cooking and Community Boundaries In rabbinic Judaism food preparation and consumption assumed increasing importance as a means for defining Jewish identity and piety through religious observance. The proper observance of kashrut, tithes, blessings, and ablutions played a significant role in distinguishing emergent rabbinic Judaism from common Jews, the so-called people of the land (am ha-aretz).136 In addition to the dietary regulations stipulated in the Torah and accepted by most Jews, rabbis introduced significant innovations that raised the standards of dietary observance and separated them as a group from the majority of self-identifying and Torah-observing Jews in their community. For example, the Mishnah introduces the separation of meat products from all milk products, extending the biblical prohibition against cooking a kid

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in its mother’s milk (Deut 14:21).137 According to David Kraemer, this law was accepted at its word by prerabbinic and nonrabbinic Jews.138 All the evidence suggests that Jews could eat cheese with meat or meat cooked in the milk of another animal without compunction. The Gemara’s confusion over this Mishnaic stipulation, Kraemer suggests, indicates the relative newness of this law. No consensus existed yet as to the exact nature of the rules—whether one could eat meat and then milk separated only by washing hands, wiping the mouth, or drinking a beverage, or whether one needed to wait a certain amount of time between them.139 Kraemer suggests that rabbis initiated this and similar innovations as a way to distinguish themselves from the majority of Jews “as the keepers of what was then a more esoteric law.”140 He also proposes that this stipulation emulated Roman dietary customs and reflects a desire on the part of Palestinian rabbis to avoid eating foods associated with barbarians in Hellenistic thought.141 Observance of special dietary practices thus appears to have fostered a sense of identity and feeling of belonging among rabbinic disciples and their teachers as seen, for example, in Abaye ’s explanation of his master’s eating regulations (b. Hullin 105b). It is possible that, in addition to being an “esoteric” law, this practice of separating meat from milk resembled a type of renunciation and, as such, was seen to garner spiritual power.142 Kraemer links rabbinic dietary innovations to the contest for power in the wake of Jerusalem’s destruction: Who was a Jew and what were to be his or her practices?—these were real and at least partially open questions. And, against all this, the traditional center, commanded by the Torah, lay in ruin, the traditional leadership, now without a base, was rendered impotent. These were confusing times, when the future of Jewish form and expression could not be known. It was in the context of this Galilean mixture that a new community of religious adepts, the rabbis, began to formulate and promulgate their version of Judaism.143

Thus the battle over correct religious praxis reflects the larger battle over defining the shape and direction of Judaism in a post-temple world. Part and parcel of this struggle to define Judaism is the struggle over authority—who will assume leadership of the Jewish community in a world without a temple. As the rabbis asserted their role as arbiters of religious law and practice, food became a central symbol of their influence and power.144 Food served not only to distinguish rabbis from other Jews, but rabbinic stipulations, if properly observed, could contribute to separating Jews from

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gentiles. Kraemer notes that, while some rabbinic legislation accommodated living among gentiles as a necessary reality in Roman Galilee,145 other laws reflect a strong desire to create social boundaries: among this type of legislation, the rabbinic prohibition of gentile wine, bread, and olive oil stands out. These three foods constitute part of the staple “Mediterranean triad”—wine, olives, and bread. By hedging consumption of these foods rabbis “would have erected a high fence between Jewish and gentile societies.”146 This attempt to separate Jews from gentiles would have resonated deeply in a society as complex and diverse as second-century Galilee where Jews had regular and sustained contact with gentiles and gentile culture.147 Apparently rabbis feared this intimacy would contribute to breaking down Jewish identity, especially with the loss of the temple cult to distinguish them religiously. In addition to this practical explanation for dietary prohibitions, Mary Douglas suggests a semiotic one. In Purity and Danger Douglas proposes that the human body symbolically represents the social body: taboos relating to substances that transgress the physical borders of the human body— such as effluvia and food—express a concern for protecting the integrity of the social body. Thus dietary prohibitions and purity regulations communicate a desire to maintain sharp social distinctions.148 Anxiety over food in rabbinic sources may, therefore, express not only concern over the actual introduction of magic into one ’s meal, but a more general discomfort with ambiguous boundaries and a desire to exert control over defining the identity and preserving the integrity of the Jewish community.149 In other words, rabbinic representations of magic that identify food as a source of danger employ food as a discourse, communicating ideas about identity, community, and authority. Much evidence, both rabbinic and extrarabbinic, attests to friction between the rabbis and other Jews over the assertion of rabbinic authority.150 In conflict often with members of the priestly class, aristocratic Jews, “sectarian” Jews, and the people of the land (am ha-aretz), rabbis struggled to establish themselves as arbiters of religious praxis.151 Using various techniques of persuasion and social control, the rabbis legitimated their authority and sought to direct the development of post-temple Judaism both in Palestine and later in Babylonia.152 Accusations that women used food for magic may respond, therefore, to rabbinic anxiety over the impossibility of enforcing their legal rulings.153 Despite rabbinic adjudication over food preparation, proper observance of kashrut ultimately lay in the hands of women who may or may not have been as punctilious as the rabbis

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desired. For example, one Babylonian sage reports that he overheard women asking how much milk is required to cook a piece of meat—in direct and unequivocal violation of rabbinic law (b. Hullin 110a).154 Whether this report reflects the reality of Babylonian observance or lack thereof, it does attest to the perception and concern that at least some women, probably members of the nonrabbinic class, were not strictly obeying rabbinic laws. Women’s cooking represented a real or perceived threat to the sages’ authority.155 Women’s resistance to, or ignorance of, rabbinic legislation may have functioned to subvert rabbinic authority in a manner difficult to identify and eradicate. The example of Yalta—who, despite being the wife of a prominent sage, rejected rabbinic opinions that failed to take her subjectivity adequately into account—and her daughters—who were accused of stirring a pot with “magic”—further points toward the association of women’s subversion with dangerous magic. A concern for preserving rabbinic authority may, therefore, underlie depictions of women magically attacking rabbis or the community through food. Food as a Metaphor for Sex Another factor to consider when attempting to understand rabbinic portrayals of women and magic is the metaphorical use of food and eating to speak about women and sexual intercourse.156 Michael Satlow, Daniel Boyarin, and others have drawn attention to the fact that rabbis employ metaphors of food consumption to refer to sexual relations with their wives.157 Some feminist scholars have regarded this as an objectification of women on the part of rabbis, who treat them as “pieces of meat” for male consumption and enjoyment.158 Boyarin addresses the apparent objectification and argues that in other contexts the rabbis fully recognize and accord women subjectivity and the right of enjoyment in marital relations.159 My concern lies not in the supposed objectification of women through the metaphor of food and eating but in what the association between food and sex may contribute to our understanding of the association between women, cooking, and harmful magic. The fear of women preparing food, expressed in many rabbinic representations of magic, may mirror a deeper anxiety over controlling women’s sexuality. Many societies that value maintaining strong boundaries between them and their neighbors, as rabbinic Judaism does, also display strict control over women’s sexuality.160 For example, Jill Dubisch’s anthropological research on pollution beliefs and women’s cooking in a modern Greek

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village brings many illuminating parallels to bear on rabbinic attitudes toward women’s cooking and sexuality.161 Dubisch draws a connection between women’s bodies, boundary maintenance, and food. First, she argues that women function as preservers of culture through their cooking; they transform natural products into cultural ones.162 “Food is part of a general idiom in which social relationships are expressed. It symbolizes bonds within the family and between the family and the outside world” (207). In their preparation and presentation of food, women “sustain those bonds necessary for social order”(208). Dubisch makes the relationship between women’s cooking and women’s sexualized bodies even more explicit in the following quotation, which illuminates the association I am suggesting between rabbinic representations of women’s magical cooking and women’s dangerous sexuality: We might draw a parallel between the kitchen and the vagina, each an important entryway for the maintenance of the family—through sustenance and procreation, respectively—but each also a potential arena for pollution. . . . Both kitchen and sexual entryway are subject to cultural rules regarding the passage of substances, rules that serve to turn a natural product or impulse into a culturally approved one. And each, because it is a point of entry between inside and out, carries a certain element of ambivalence or liminality. (211)

While drawn from fieldwork in a contemporary Mediterranean society and heavily influenced by Structuralist dichotomies, Dubisch’s insights into the connection between women’s bodies and women’s cooking are nonetheless suggestive for understanding rabbinic fascination with women’s cooking and magic.163 Similarly, Judith Wegner’s research on women in Mishnaic law supports the idea that women’s sexuality—specifically their bodies as entryways to the community—figures prominently in rabbinic discourse on women’s threatening magic. She claims that in cases where control over women’s sexuality and sexual productivity is not at stake, women function legally as near equivalents of men—that is, they are legally “persons.” However, in situations where women’s sexuality is at stake, women function legally as “chattel,” the possession of some man, equivalent to livestock, a slave, or other economically productive property.164 While Wegner’s argument has been criticized for exaggerating the dichotomy between person and chattel in rabbinic law,165 her findings nonetheless suggest that a desire to control women legally corresponds largely to women’s productive capacity as child

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bearers. For our purposes, it is also in this capacity that women threaten the borders of the community by introducing new members either legitimately or illegitimately. Daniel Boyarin echoes this sentiment when he states: “The struggle for rabbinic authority is . . . in part, a struggle for control of women’s bodies and sexuality.”166 In further support of this reading, Charlotte Fonrobert has recently shown how women’s bodies were sites for rabbinic assertion of control over defining Jewish identity in late antiquity. By legislating the purity and impurity of women’s bodies through menstrual purity laws (niddah), rabbis determined which women and communities were to be counted as Jewish and which were not.167 By designating only certain menstrual separation practices to be legitimate, the rabbis excised large groups of practicing Jews from the community of Israel as they were defining it. This concern to maintain social boundaries and assert authority through control over women’s cooking and sexuality, I suggest, contributes to representations of women’s nefarious magic in rabbinic literature. In this chapter I have tried to show how competing and diverging attitudes toward magic in rabbinic literature reflect, to a large degree, the cultural influences in different regions as well as different ideologies of power operating there. Thus no single conception of magic can be said to obtain in rabbinic literature. Rather, rabbinic representations of magic and attitudes toward sources of numinous power reflect different trajectories and influences preserved in the redactional layers of the texts—magic can operate as a discourse of alterity, where it helps define boundaries and expresses anxiety over patrolling them, or it can summon images of numinous power and divine authority. The particular ways that magic functions discursively in rabbinic literature reflect the specific exigencies of different cultural contexts—who is defining legitimate and illegitimate access to power and how. Thus magic reveals itself again to be socially constructed, local, and dynamic.

epilogue Some Thoughts on Gender, Magic, and Stereotyping

T

his book has examined the development of magic as a discourse of alterity in the ancient Mediterranean. While, to a certain extent, stereotypes of the magician and witch crossed social boundaries in the ancient world, the specific details of a community’s magic representations emerged out of and reflected local factors and concerns. For this reason, magic discourse varied from period to period and location to location, evolving and adapting to the ideological exigencies of each situation. As a constellation of terms and ideas designating Otherness, illegitimacy, and danger, magic constituted a key element in the construction of notions about legitimate and illegitimate authority in the formative period of Western thought. In the formulation of Athenian notions about civic identity, for example, magic functioned along with women and barbarian as a foil for the conceptualization and expression of idealized notions about what is male, rational, and Greek. Magic, thus, came to designate the Other in Greek thought and combined with various strategies to marginalize activities, persons, or ideas considered to be unacceptable or illegitimate. Through the spread of Hellenism, the discourse of magic was introduced to and adopted by neighboring cultures and languages. For this reason, magic should be regarded as a cultural formation that not only operates in similar ways across the ancient Mediterranean but also differs substantially in its precise shape and application in individual contexts and periods of time. The search for a universal definition of magic diverts one from understanding how local factors contribute to shaping the particular deployment of magic in any given context: why certain representations are harnessed while others are not. It also

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prevents understanding the root cause of persecution and stereotyping by accepting the metanarrative underlying the application of the accusation. In The Postmodern Condition Jean-François Lyotard examines and critiques universalizing metanarratives that function to legitimate particular claims to truth.1 Lyotard’s conception of metanarrative as a discourse that produces and legitimizes a comprehensive conception of the world and history provides a useful lens through which to consider the meaning and function of magic in ancient literature. The concept magic operates as part of larger legitimizing narratives—in Lyotard’s terminology, metanarratives. It holds the place of and designates that which is being marginalized or delegitimated. The manner of this role, however, will vary according to the nature of the metanarrative in which it is employed since, as Lyotard points out, there is no such thing as a universal metanarrative. All metanarratives are local.2 An important question to ask is why, if magic functions always in local metanarratives, does the accusation against women repeatedly arise? The association of women with witchcraft appears to be nearly universal. Looking for universalizing explanations, however, naturalizes the stereotype rather than interrogates it as artificial and historically determined. Returning to the work of Sherry Ortner, which I discussed in chapter 2, I would suggest that the tendency to identify women with magic or any other dangerous power, such as the evil eye or menstrual impurity, reflects women’s perceived power over men in some respect. Ortner proposes that the association of women with danger arises when men’s social status depends on women. Thus, when women’s sexual comportment determines men’s honor in society, fears about women and concern over controlling them arise. This would seem to clarify the deployment of magic discourse in many instances. I proposed, for example, that women became a vulnerable point in men’s claim to citizen status in fifth-century Athens and, consequently, became a source of anxiety and focus of heightened social control after Pericles restricted citizenship to people who had been born from two Athenian parents. Similarly, in Rome, the honor of a domus depended to a certain extent on the actions of its female members: their comportment and public demonstrations of filial piety, chastity, and beneficence served as powerful symbols of respectability and civic order.3 In both Athens and Rome, therefore, attacks on men often took the form of attacks on women. Litigants in classical Athens could draw into question their opponents’ legitimacy or that of his children.4 In Rome a political rival might cast aspersions on the sexual purity of a man’s wife or sister, insinuating that he

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lacked the manliness to keep his women under control. In both contexts female sexuality operated as the focus of larger conflicts and competitions, so much so that Augustus enlisted this highly charged symbol as the center of his moral reforms and claim to legitimacy. Rabbinic literature—both Palestinian and Babylonian—similarly associates women with magic, especially dangerous cooking. This suggests that a lack of control over women’s practices in the kitchen threatened or was perceived to threaten rabbinic authority, which asserted itself at this time through, among other means, legal innovations in dietary practices and new restrictions. Food as a metaphor for sexual relations and women’s bodies in rabbinic literature also invites the interpretation that fear of women’s magical cooking may reflect anxiety over patrolling the carnal boundaries of the community. The lack of accusations against women in early Christian writings is perplexing given Ortner’s theoretical explanation. It might seem, based on this theory, that men’s status did not depend on women. Margaret MacDonald demonstrates, however, that this was not the case. Male authorities in the early churches were quite concerned over the behavior of their Christian sisters and felt the need to rein in Christian freedom for the sake of preserving a good public image.5 Christianity’s status in the empire depended to a large extent on the comportment of its womenfolk. I suggest, then, that early Christian writers conceived themselves to be Other in the Roman Empire and used women’s vulnerability as a trope to express their own sense of abjection and marginality. From this I would draw the conclusion that where men define their cultures’ discourses and configure their identities vis-à-vis women, gender and magic will naturally be combined as discourses of alterity. Where men or a community of men see themselves as marginal vis-à-vis other larger powers, women will operate as a mirror for Self rather than a foil for conceptualizing the Other. In those cases women will be seen as “one of us” rather than the dangerous, barbarian (heap on other marginalizing discourses) Other. Thus, for example, history demonstrates that the pattern of representing women as victims of men’s predatory magic did not persist for long. Beginning in the mid-third century ce, accusations of magic against Christian women began to appear and persisted throughout Christian history, contributing to the construction of a powerful and demonizing stereotype of the witch that served such a prominent role in later persecutions and witch hunts. Given the continued deployment of demonizing stereotypes in the modern world, it is imperative to understand how perceived threats to author-

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ity and identity can foster their creation. As we have seen, stereotypes of witches and sorcerers emerged in the ancient world as foils in the struggle to define legitimate power and authority. Similarly, in the twenty-first century, ideas about fanatical extremists arise in opposition to claims of freedom and democracy: each side of the conflict claims legitimacy by painting the Other as the barbaric and demonic rival. This book has tried to uncover that stereotyping process—how caricatured images of the Other develop and assume a truthlike quality that shapes experience according to its own constructed fantasies and expectations.

notes



preface

1. This group includes, among others: Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae; Wünsch, “Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon,” Defixionum Tabellae Atticae, Antike Fluchtafeln; Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, “Amulets Chiefly in the British Museum”; Jordan, “Defixiones from a Well”; López Jimeno, Las tabellae defixionis de la Sicilia griega. Material available in English includes Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation; Gager, Curse Tablets; Meyer and Smith, Ancient Christian Magic; Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls; and Ogden, “Binding Spells.” 2. This group includes Bernand, Sorciers Grecs; Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World; Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, Idéologie et Pratique de la Magie dans l’Antiquité GrécoRomaine; Luck, Arcana Mundi, “Witches and Sorcerers in Classical Literature”; Tupet, La Magie dans la Poésie latine, “Rites magiques dans l’antiquité romaine,” in addition to a vast number of articles on individual themes or characters. 3. Segal, “Hellenistic Magic”; and Remus, “‘Magic or Miracle?’” were among the first to point this out. Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World has most recently argued for a complete moratorium on use of the term magic in academic discourse. 4. See, for example, Remus, “‘Magic’”; Versnel, “Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion”; Graf, “Theories of Magic in Antiquity”; Hoffman, “Fiat Magia”; Versnel, “The Poetics of the Magical Charm”; Smith, “Great Scott!”; Styers, Making Magic; and Penner, “Rationality, Ritual, and Science.”

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1 . m a g i c , discourse, and ideology 1. Styers, Making Magic. 2. On the “baggage” this term carries, see discussion of modern conceptions of magic on pp. 3–4. 3. Accusations of actually practicing magic can sometimes appear in modern contexts and reflect the enduring power of this discourse. Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade, 206, for example, argues that “witchcraft” is not a timeless aspect of traditional religion in Sierra Leone (as many anthropologists have regarded it), but rather seems to have been introduced or developed as a result of contact with Europeans and the destructive consequences of the slave trade. To understand witchcraft, Shaw demonstrates, it is essential to locate witchcraft discourses in their history. Another recent ethnography also shows the influence of Western stereotypes of magic on contemporary persecutions of “witches” in modern South Africa. Niehaus, Witchcraft, Power and Politics, 17, shows how numerous villagers in Green Valley converted to Zionist churches, which provided a dualistic framework through which they recast their previous beliefs in spirits, divination, and ancestors. “In this new ecology of belief witchcraft became the predominant expression of evil.” 4. Styers, Making Magic, 14. 5. Ibid., chapter 1, and passim. 6. Tylor, Primitive Culture; page numbers hereafter will appear parenthetically in text. 7. Tylor expressed an optimistic regard for science; he perceived the development of civilization to be reflected in the progress of art and knowledge. 8. See also discussion of this view in Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion, and the Scope of Rationality, 45. Legacy of this developmental theory lingers in subtle ways. See Styers, Making Magic, 14. 9. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 424–26. 10. Frazer, The Golden Bough, 11. 11. Ibid., 48–49. Frazer divides magic into two fields, “practical magic” and “theoretical magic,” which correspond roughly to ritual practice and magical theology or theory. 12. Ibid., 50. Frazer postulated that religion superseded magic as a belief system once human beings began to realize their powerlessness and inability to control nature and human destiny. Ibid., 57. 13. Ibid., 51. 14. Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” 11–12, documents this point nicely. 15. Hoffman, “Fiat Magia,” 191, for example, notes that terms like ritual power and unsanctioned religious activity “come dangerously close to adopting the coercion criterion that marked Frazer’s magic.” 16. Barb, “The Survival of Magic Arts,” 101, for example, argues in favor of a classic “Frazerian” definition of religion and magic. Barb differs from Frazer,

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17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27. 28.

however, in that he regards magic to be a later, “tainted” stage in the devolution of religion: corrupted by “human frailty,” religion deteriorates into “white” and then “black” magic (p. 101). More recently the category religion has been questioned by scholars who argue that no such sui generis concept exists. Rather, religion is an artificial construct, whose definition derives from specific ideological/theological positions that are grounded in nineteenthcentury colonialist, rationalist agendas. See, for example, Asad, “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category,” 27–54; Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies; and McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion. Styers, Making Magic, 63–68 and passim, also touches on this theme as it relates to the modern definition of and fascination with “magic.” Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, 86. Ibid., 141. Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion, 30–31. See, for example, the essays collected in Mirecki and Meyer, Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, part 2: “Definitions and Theory”; and in Neusner, Frerichs, and Flesher, Religion, Science, and Magic in Concert and Conflict. See, for example, Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience; Tambiah, Magic, Science, Religion; Winch, “Understanding a Primitive Society”; and Penner, “Rationality,” to name a few. This issue seems to have been more pressing in the 1970s and 1980s with, to my mind, no publications addressing this problem in recent years. Anthropologists commonly apply the term witchcraft to beliefs and practices in foreign cultures where the European connotations of the term do not necessarily pertain. Thus the problem of definition is the same as that for magic. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic, 18. See, for example, the collection of essays in honor of Evans-Pritchard, Douglas, Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations. Of particular interest for scholars of antiquity is Brown, “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity,” 119–43 (reprinted in the above-mentioned volume). For a discussion of magic and its relevance for the debate between rationality and relativism that draws directly on Evans-Pritchard’s research, see Winch, “Understanding a Primitive Society,” passim. This point is raised by Clark, Thinking with Demons, v–vi, as well as by Smith, “Trading Places,” 19. This debate began very early. See chapter 1, note 16. It attracted a great deal of interest during the 1980s and 1990s and continues to generate discussion and debate. See, for example, Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” 9–12. Nock, “Paul and the Magus,” 183. Segal notes that some magical papyri (e.g., PGM 4.2289, 243, 2081) employ the terms magic and magical to describe their own activities. Segal, “Hellenistic Magic,” 351. Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness,” 267, similarly cites PGM 1.127, 4.210, 244, 2450.

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29. Specifically, the so-called Mithras Liturgy (PGM 4.475–829). 30. Segal, “Hellenistic Magic,” 354–55. See also Segal, Paul the Convert, 63–64, and Romans 6:3ff. 31. Segal, “Hellenistic Magic,” 370. 32. Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness.” See also Remus, “Does Terminology Distinguish?” and Pagan-Christian Conflict Over Miracle in the Second Century. 33. Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness,” 129. See also Garrett, The Demise of the Devil. 34. Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness,” 148 and passim. 35. Phillips, “The Sociology of Religious Knowledge in the Roman Empire.” 36. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, 4–5. 37. Ibid., 74–75. 38. David Frankfurter, “Luke ’s μαγεία and Garrett’s ‘Magic,’” criticizes Garrett for focusing too narrowly and selectively on a handful of passages from the New Testament while ignoring other documents and materia necessary for understanding Luke ’s social world and for rejecting “all theoretical approaches to the problem of ancient ‘magic.’” Other reviewers are much more positive. See, for example, Clark Wire, “Review of The Demise of the Devil”; Pervo, “Review of The Demise of the Devil”; and Klutz, “Review of The Demise of the Devil.” 39. See, for example, McCutcheon, Manufacturing Religion, 3; Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies, ix–x; Asad, “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category,” 28; Styers, Making Magic, 9, 14. 40. See, for example, Segal, “Hellenistic Magic,” 354–55; Johnston, “Sacrifice in the Greek Magical Papyri”; Versnel, “Beyond Cursing”; and Graf, “Prayer in Magical and Religious Ritual,” 188–213. 41. Gager, Curse Tablets; and Janowitz, Icons of Power, are two good examples of this practice. Other books continue to use the term magic in their titles even while challenging or problematizing use of this term. See, for example, Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World, ix; Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, vi; Meyer and Smith, Ancient Christian Magic, 1; Graf, Idéologie et Pratique de la Magie dans l’Antiquité Gréco-Romaine, retitled in the English translation as Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 2; Meyer and Mirecki, Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, 2–3; Schäfer and Kippenberg, Envisioning Magic. 42. See Johnston, “Describing the Undefinable.” 43. Versnel, “Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion.” 44. Ibid., 186. 45. Hoffman, “Fiat Magia,” 184; see also Graf, “Theories of Magic in Antiquity,” who explores this theme. 46. Hoffman, “Fiat Magia,” 186–88. 47. Ibid., 191. 48. Smith, “Trading Places,” 16–17. Citations will appear hereafter parenthetically in text.

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49. See chapter 3, where I discuss politically motivated accusations among elite Romans close to the imperial throne, and chapter 4, where I argue for accusations by marginal Christians against elite Romans. 50. See, for example, chapter 5, this volume, where the positive valuation of magic in the Babylonian Talmud is explored. 51. Although other, possibly similar, discourses of alterity will. 52. Mauss, General Theory, 33. 53. Ibid., 40. 54. Ibid., 141–44. 55. Witches in Horace ’s Epode 8 snatch the stars and moon out of the sky with magic incantations (quae sidera excantata voce Thessala lunamque caelo deripit, ll. 45–46). In Virgil’s Eclogue 8 the young sorceress claims that “songs can even draw the moon down from heaven” (carmina vel caelo possunt deducere lunam, l. 69). The PGM contain numerous rituals that first try to conciliate the gods; when that fails, they resort to coercion. See, for example, IV.2891–2942, and Johnston, “Sacrifice in the Greek Magical Papyri,” 350, who discusses it. 56. The girl in Virgil’s Eclogue 8 summons spirits from their graves (l. 98). Defixiones inscribed on lead as well as rituals from the PGM indicate that invoking chthonic deities and/or souls of those who died untimely was common practice in antiquity. See Johnston, Restless Dead, chapter 5, on this practice. Christian apologists drew on the association of demons with magic to discredit polytheistic worship. Justin, First Apology (9) and Second Apology (5), identifies Greek and Roman gods with the fallen angels of Gen 6.1–2, who teach human women magic arts. Tertullian also accuses Greco-Roman gods of being demons: first they cause illness, then they seemingly perform a miracle by removing it (Apol. 22). Celsus apparently accused Jesus of wielding demonic power (Origen Cels. 1.6). 57. Virgil’s Eclogue 8 provides a good example of this as does Apuleius’s Metamorphoses 3.20, 21. Both authors depict private rituals where women perform love magic. This is also one of the concerns Pliny the Younger raises about Christianity in his letter to Trajan (10.96). He suspects it to be a subversive superstitio since the secret rituals are performed at night. Celsus also accused Christianity of being “secret” and therefore “magic” (Origen Cels. 1.7). 58. Celsus likens Jesus to marketplace magicians who perform cures in exchange for a few obols (Origen Cels. 1.68). Lucian of Samosata left two satires of magicians who misrepresent their powers in order to defraud people: Philopseudes and Alexander (Pseudomantis). Apuleius was accused of using magic to marry a wealthy widow for her money (Apol. 28). 59. Pliny’s Nat. 30 identifies magia, the art introduced by the magi, with rites involving brutality of some sort, such as human sacrifice. Plato regarded both poisoning and binding spells as forms of magic (pharmakeia, Leg. 933a–b). In Roman law, magic was prosecuted along with poisoning as a form of maleficia. See Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 318, 334–35, and passim.

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60. Some scholars have also posited psychological motivations for using or accusing someone of using magic. See, for example, Winkler, “The Constraints of Desire.” 61. See discussion in chapter 4. 62. Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness,” 258–68, discusses this fact and the implications it has had on subsequent scholarship. 63. Ritner, “Egyptian Magical Practice Under the Roman Empire,” passim; Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, chapter 5. See Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 5, for a different opinion. 64. See Johnston, “Sacrifice in the Greek Magical Papyri,” passim, for this sort of approach. 65. Similar problems of definition arise with use of the term mysticism. Please see the excellent discussion in Katz, “Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism.” 66. Swartz, Scholastic Magic. 67. Alexander, “Sefer Ha-Razim,” 176, argues that invocation of foreign gods did not violate monotheistic principles in that these gods were clearly seen to be beneath the power of Yahweh and under his control. 68. Margalioth, Sepher Ha-Razim. 69. See Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World, 3. 70. He was accused of using magic to seduce and marry a wealthy widow. In his defense speech he alleges that the charge was trumped up by her former inlaws in order to keep her and her money in their family. Apol. 25–26. See also discussion of his speech in chapter 4, this volume. 71. See chapter 1, note 28. 72. On magic as a form of subversive discourse, see Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 143–44. 73. He never drops the idea of archaeology as a method of history but rather subordinates it to the interests and goals of genealogy. Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault, 104. 74. Ibid., 48. 75. By “rules” he is thinking in a semistructuralist manner that also compares with Kuhn’s understanding of the role of paradigms in scientific fields, where a ruling paradigm determines the types of questions legitimately asked and the types of inquiry legitimately pursued. Ibid., 71–77. 76. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 157; Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault, 77. 77. Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault, 109. 78. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 27. 79. Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault, 160. 80. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 115; Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 224–25. 81. See section, “The Emergence of Magic as a Discourse of Alterity,” in chapter 2, this volume. 82. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 46.

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83. See, for example, my discussion of magic as a form of subversive practice: Stratton, “Ritual Inversion and Social Subversion.” 84. Meaning is dialogic, negotiated between two people. Hall, Representation, 235–36. 85. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, 37–38. 86. For example, Gordon, “Aelian’s Peony”; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World; Gordon, “Imagining Greek and Roman Magic”; Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic; and Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World. 87. Plato describes the use of binding spells and calls it a form of φαρμακεία (Leg. 933a–b). See discussion, p. 43. 88. See discussion in chapter 2. 89. For example, it has been argued that Euripides embellished the ending of his Medea, depicting her as an infanticidal monster rather than the victim of other people’s violence, which was the case in other versions of her myth. See McDermott, Euripides’ Medea, 5; and Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” 45. If so, Euripides’ version became the commonly accepted one and influenced later presentations of her story. Seneca’s Medea, for example, follows this version. Furthermore, many aspects of Seneca’s Medea seem to be echoed in the magical papyri (PGM 4.2799–2805): most notably, the repetition of serpentine qualities. There is no way to demonstrate “borrowing,” but the resemblance suggests a dispersal of the discourse across genres and over time. See discussion in Stratton, “Ritual Inversion,” forthcoming. More direct is the influence of Theocritus’s Idyll 2 on Virgil’s Eclogue 8. 90. For example, Plato’s writings and philosophical school, the Academy, remained influential throughout antiquity (until the sixth century ce). The elder Pliny held a succession of procuratorships. He became a counselor to Vespasian and Titus. His nephew and adopted son served as governor of Pontas and Bithynia under Trajan and mediated accusations against Christianity (see discussion in chapter 4, this volume). The writings of Justin and Tertullian contributed to the formulation of doctrinal positions that achieved legal status in the fourth century. 91. See, for example, Wypustek, “Magic, Montanism”; Smith, Jesus the Magician, chapter 6 and passim, on how Jesus conformed to commonly held conceptions of a magician; and Penner, “Res Gestae Divi Christi,” who demonstrates the subversive quality of Christian claims to perform “miracle” in Acts of the Apostles. 92. Dating passages in the Babylonian Talmud is less straightforward. See discussion in chapter 5, this volume. 93. Philo of Alexandria, for example, identified himself ethnically and religiously as a Jew. He was also educated according to traditional Greek παιδεία, which included Greek mythology, literature, and philosophy. Paul of Tarsus identified himself as ethnically Jewish; he wrote in Greek, is said to have been educated according to Pharisaic tradition and to be a Roman citizen (Acts 22:3, 27). He also believed Jesus was the crucified messiah.

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94. See 1 Cor 8:10 and Rev 2:20 on eating food sacrificed to idols; Justin Dial. 47 on Christians continuing to attend synagogue and observe Jewish law. 95. See, for example, Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations, and “Acculturation and Identity in the Diaspora: A Jewish Family and ‘Pagan’ Guilds at Hierapolis.” 96. For recent discussion, see papers collected in Becker and Reed, The Ways That Never Parted. 97. See, for example, Kee, Medicine, 102. 98. For example, Mark 7:33, 8:23. 99. See Smith, Jesus the Magician, 92, and discussion in chapter 4, this volume. 100. See discussion on “Ancient Terminology for Magic” at the end of this chapter. 101. Pamphile in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses is married to Milo but uses her magic to commit adultery (2.5, 3.16). 102. See discussion on p. 24. 103. Clark, Demons, viii. 104. See, for example, Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, 93, who argues that accusations against Jews, lepers, and Muslims in 1321 ce were “drawn from an ancient hoard of stereotypes” and used in novel ways to resist evolving royal power. They constitute a “strategic adaptation and adoption of vocabularies of hatred”. . . . whose “usefulness was negotiated case by case.” Similarly Rubin, Gentile Tales, 2, states: “One truth which emerges from confronting the host desecration accusation as narrative is that even the most pervasive representations—visual or textual—can only be understood fully when observed embedded within the contexts that accredited them and gave them meaning. . . . Textuality provides the conditions within which meaning and self-knowing are possible, and is thus intimately related to processes by which people have represented their violence as justifiable and necessary.” 105. See, for example, Bhabha, “The Other Question,” in The Location of Culture, 66, who writes: “For it is the force of ambivalence that gives the colonial stereotype its currency: ensures its repeatability in changing historical and discursive conjunctures; informs its strategies of individuation and marginalization; produces that effect of probabilistic truth and predictability which, for the stereotype, must always be in excess of what can be empirically proved or logically construed.” 106. Bhabha, “The Other,” 81–82. 107. Hall, Representation, 17, 24. 108. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman, xiii. Quoted in Clark, Demons, 107. 109. M. Avot 2.7. The statement is attributed to Hillel. The word nashim can also be translated as “wives”; the context of the statement suggests that one should avoid multiplying them, presumably in polygamous marriage.

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110. See Gager, Curse Tablets, 80–81; Winkler, “The Constraints of Desire,” 72 and passim; Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 43, n. 9; and Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 185. 111. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 43, n. 9, presents the numerical breakdown of the spells. I calculated the percentages. 112. See, for example, Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 6, who states: “When we move away from Athens to Hellenistic Alexandria, we encounter for the first time portrayals of magic-working and sorceresses in action. These themes were not invented by the poets who lived and worked in Alexandria. There is nonetheless in the poets of this era a greater interest in portraying social reality” (my emphases). Similarly, Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, ix, proposes “a new bipolar taxonomy based mainly on the genders of the agents and their victims.” His conclusions regarding “men’s” magic are based on material evidence for rituals practiced in the ancient world, while he relies on depictions of women from texts authored by men to construct his conception of “women’s” magic. Ironically, when Faraone does provide material evidence for what he designates as “women’s” magic, it points instead to male practitioners. See also Stratton, “Review of Ancient Greek Love Magic,” for fuller discussion. Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho”; and Gordon, “Aelian’s Peony,” 64–65, more cautiously distinguishes between men’s literate magic, such as we find recorded in the PGM and extant defixiones, and women’s use of herbs and incantations. But this differentiation does not correspond with literary portraits either, since some “witches” (i.e., Pamphile, Apul. Met. 3.17.4–5) are described using the ritual techniques Gordon ascribes to men. 113. “Gender is, in this definition, a social category imposed on a sexed body.” Scott, “Gender,” 32. See also Ortner, “Is Male to Female as Nature Is to Culture?” 21. Butler, Gender Trouble, 10–13, notes that it is impossible to imagine a prediscursive sexed body—one that exists prior to culture—since the notion of sexual difference presumes already ideas about gender. Rather, it is culturally constructed notions about gender that determine how the body becomes sexed. The construction of gender applies to men as well, as Gleason, Making Men, xxii and passim, demonstrates. She provides interesting evidence for the construction of gender through rhetoric in ancient Rome: “rhetoric was a calisthenics of manhood.” 114. De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, xxii. See also Butler, Gender Trouble, 14, for other ways to think about this difference. 115. Scott, “Gender,” 32. See also de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, xxvi–xxvii. 116. See discussion in chapter 2, this volume. 117. See Cohen, Law, Sexuality and Society, 183; Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 16; and Keuls, Reign of the Phallus, 291–98. Gleason, Making Men, xxviii, shows how gender characteristics (masculine or feminine) served to legitimate or delegitimate ancient speakers.

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118. See, for example, Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 1, who writes: “It is even more surprising that the figure of the female magician has not attracted more attention from those who are interested in the history of women or in representations of the female in antiquity. Witches and sorcerers, who for the most part did not belong to the more elevated levels of society, would seem to be an obvious topic of research for those concerned with the down-trodden and the oppressed.” 119. Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 6, 11, and passim. See also Castelli, “Romans”; and Clark, “Ideology, History, and the Construction of ‘Woman,’” 163. See also Matthews, “Thinking of Thecla,” for an important caveat regarding this view. 120. Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 4–5, 13–14. 121. See discussion of Euripides’ Bacchae in chapter 2, this volume. 122. See discussion also in Bernand, Sorciers Grecs, 47–48; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 28; Luck, “Witches and Sorcerers in Classical Literature,” 100. 123. Fitzgerald, The Odyssey, 173. 124. Murray, The Odyssey, 365. 125. Hesiod similarly employs πολυφάρμακε to describe Circe (Fragment 302.15) and φάρμακον to designate a “remedy” for planting late (Works and Days 485). 126. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 32–35, makes a similar argument. 127. Fitzgerald, Odyssey, 367, translates this word as “rune,” signifying a mystical or magical character of the cure. 128. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “ἐπῳδή.” 129. Similarly, Clytemnestra justifies the murder of her husband, Agamemnon, to the chorus by remarking that they did not judge him when he sacrificed his own daughter to charm (ἐπαοιδαισιν) the winds of Thrace (Ag. 173). 130. Pindar’s is the first mention and description of the ἴυγξ, a spell attested later in Hellenistic and Roman writings. See, especially, Theocritus Idyll 2 and discussions of it in Faraone, “The Wheel, the Whip,” and Ancient Greek Love Magic, 55–69. The exact nature of Jason’s spell is contested. Faraone, “The Wheel, the Whip,” passim, identifies sympathetic magic to be at work in Jason’s use of the ἴυγξ; by binding and torturing a bird on the wheel, Jason sympathetically binds and tortures Medea. Johnston, “The Song of the Iynx,” passim, suggests that the ἴυγξ worked through sound; by creating a mesmerizing song the ἴυγξ, siren like, seduced and entrapped Medea. See also Gow, “ΙΥΓΞ, ΡΟΜΒΟΣ, Rhombus Turbo,” 1–13, for yet a different interpretation. 131. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “γοάω.” See Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 28; Bernand, Sorciers Grecs, 46–47; and especially Johnston, Restless Dead, 100–2.

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132. Not surprisingly, given the large amount of death and mourning in the Iliad, derivatives of γοάω appear 32 times in a quick search of γοο in the TLG database. 133. Bernabé, “Phorinis Fragmenta.” Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. γόηϚ, cites this passage in its definition of γόηϚ to mean “sorcerer” or “wizard,” however, it may not bear out such a strong sense of the word. Rather, this passage refers to a group of men who seem to live on the margins of society and who are expert in various sorts of archaic technology. To translate γόηϚ as “wizard” may anticipate its later meaning. See also Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 31, who makes a similar point. 134. See Burkert, “ΓΟΗΣ zum griechischen ‘Schamanismus,’” passim; Bernand, Sorciers Grecs, 47; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 28. Johnston, Restless Dead, 100–23, examines the association of γόηϚ with mysteries and controlling the dead but discounts the identification of γόητεϚ with “shamanism” (see p. 106, n. 56 and p. 116). 135. Aeschylus fr. 278 in Snell, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 88–89. 136. Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persopolis, 117–22. This image corresponds with what we know about the importance of controlling demons in Zoroastrian Babylonia from Jewish documents of the Sassanian period. See chapter 5. 137. Johnston, Restless Dead, 111–16, suggests that γοητεία, ritualized manipulation of the dead, was imported during the later Archaic or early Classical age. Its association with the dead naturally lent to the association of γοητεία with other concepts evolving in Greek thought at the time, such as ἐπαοιδή and μαγεία. On the importation of “magic” technologies, such as curse tablets and the use of figurines, from the ancient Near East see Burkert, “Seven Against Thebes,” 42–44; Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture, 25–26. On the use of figurines in ancient Mesopotamia see Braun-Holzinger, “Apotropaic Figures at Mesopotamian Temples”; and other essays in Abusch and van der Toorn, Mesopotamian Magic. On the use of the dead and ghosts in Mesopotamian ritual see Scurlock, “Magical Uses of Ancient Mesopotamian Festivals of the Dead.” 138. Benveniste, Les Mages dans l’Ancien Iran, 11; Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persopolis, 107–8; and Schmitt, “‘Méconnaissance,’” 105–7. 139. See Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persopolis, 107–9. 140. Ibid., 108. Herodotus, although writing in the fifth century, mentions the μάγοι frequently in his descriptions of the Persian court, presenting them as counselors to the king and presiding over sacrifices. 141. Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persopolis, 110–23. 142. Diels and Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (14.2). This fragment is quoted by Clement of Alexandria (second century ce). Its late date and juxtaposition of terms, which do not appear together in other extant texts from the sixth century, raise questions about its reliability. See also Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience, 12–13; and Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” 2.

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143. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 29, argues that in sixth-century texts there is no indication that μάγοι did anything resembling “magic.” Rather, he suggests, they “offered initiation into private mysterycults.” 144. Chantraine, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Grecque, 655–56, s.v. “μάγγανον.” See also Plato (Leg. 933a–b). 145. Individual terms could continue to carry neutral or even positive connotations: φάρμακα, for example, signified pigment or dye as well as herbal remedy (Plato, Crat. 434.b.1; 394.a.7); μάγοϚ could invoke the image of wise and learned Persian priests (Apuleius, Apol. 25 and 26). 146. Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 47, notes that before the era when postmortem examinations could detect the evidence of poison in a body and determine it to be the cause of death, poison may have seemed as “mysterious” in its workings as demonic powers summoned through “magic.” 147. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 127; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 56–57. 148. See Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” passim. 149. Seneca (Nat. 4.7.2) and Apuleius (Apol. 47.3) also mention this law, although Seneca understands it to forbid using incantations to conjure storms to damage rather than steal a neighbor’s crop. 150. Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” 278, notes that loading a neighbor’s produce onto a cart and hauling it away did not need special mention because it was illegal under ordinary laws protecting property. Surreptitiously diverting the fertility of a neighbor’s field into one ’s own was less obvious, however, and needed to be singled out. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, 479, understands excantassit to mean “destroy” rather than “steal” but he is in the minority. See Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 41–42; and Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 143, who concur with Rives. 151. See note 55 above. 152. Mens hausti nulla sanie polluta ueneni excantata perit. 153. Marcellus Empiricus (De medicamenti 15.11). This text dates to the fifth century ce; Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” 273 n. 18, notes, however, that the carmen preserved here “is generally considered to be archaic in origin.” For additional references and discussion, see Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” 274. 154. Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” 279–80. 155. Cicero Resp. 4.12 quoted in Augustine Civ. 2.9. 156. This ancient notion is expressed in Gen 1 and 2:19. Pliny also credits his ancestors with a strong belief in verbal power (Nat. 3.143). See also Butler, Excitable Speech, 18–19, and passim, on the power of speech to constitute and subordinate the subject. Butler’s conception that hate speech injures its addressee by interpellating them into a position of social subordination resonates with the dual meaning of carmen. Slander or hate speech does not merely describe: it acts. It constructs relations of dominance in the very act of speaking.

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157. Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. venenum II.A.1b. 158. Rives, “Magic in the XII Tables Revisited,” 275–79. 159. Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 322. 160. Catullus, The Poems of Catullus, 202–3. 161. Probably Lucius Gellius Publicola, consul in 36 bce. 162. Testor, cara, deos et te, germana, tuumque / dulce caput, magicas invitam accingier artis. 163. See Benveniste, Les Mages, 5, also on the ambivalence. 164. Thus, early Christians can accuse each other and others of doing “magic” as a way to undercut their rival’s legitimacy and divine authority. See discussion in chapter 4, this volume. 165. Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 327. 166. Tibulli Carmina 1.2.43. 167. His use of docta may be ironic here since it is usually employed in elegy to describe the poet’s beloved. 168. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 15. On invective against old women in Latin poetry see Richlin, “Invective Against Women in Roman Satire,” and The Garden of Priapus, 105–15. 169. Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 37–39; Tupet, La Magie, 107, 223–24. 170. Gordon, “Imagining Greek and Roman Magic,” 164–65. 171. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 127. 172. See discussion in chapter 3, this volume. 173. The Lex Cornelia sought to bring a variety of actions associated with murder together under one heading. See Rives, “Magic in Roman Law,” 318, 334–35. 174. MacMullen, Enemies of the Roman Order, chapters 3 and 4. 175. Pliny’s Nat. 30, for example, ranges over a wide variety of foreign and bizarre practices that he identifies with magia, the art introduced by the Magi. Most of these rites involve brutality of some sort, such as human sacrifice, which is what distinguishes them, it seems, from medicinal practices discussed in book 28. Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 50–51, emphasizes a different aspect of Pliny’s conceptualization of magic: namely, that magic differs from genuine medicine by being a false and arrogant claim to possess special divine powers. On Roman conceptions of magic as generally subversive, see Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, 219. 176. For example, in his Contra Celsum Origen claims that, unlike “magicians,” Christians do not employ spells or incantations (ἐπῳδων) but only the simple name of Jesus and “certain other words in which they repose faith” (ἄλλων λόγων πεπιστευμένων), 1.6.26–28. 177. Schmidt, “Canaanite Magic.” 178. Ibid., 253–54. 179. See also Ricks, “The Magician as Outsider,” 136, for a similar argument. 180. See Jeffers discussion of this passage, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria, 44–49. See also Levy, “Review of Magic and Divination in

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Ancient Palestine and Syria,” who points out some of the limitations of Jeffers’ study. 181. The Septuagint more closely approximates the sense of the Hebrew by translating  ‫  חרטמי מצרים‬as “Egyptian interpreters” (ἐξηγητὰϚ Αἰγύπτου). 182. Dan 1.20; 2.2, 10, 27; 4.4; 5.7, 11. 183. Jeffers, Magic, 47; my emphasis. 184. Ibid., 68. 185. Ibid. 186. Ibid., 80–81; Jeffers discusses the difficulty of defining ‫מעוננים‬. Apparently the divinatory element is fairly certain, however, the method itself lies in doubt. Judges 9:37, for example, refers to the diviner’s tree (‫)אלון מעוננים‬, suggesting “a method used for obtaining oracles from trees.” 187. Ibid., 69. 188. See discussion in chapter 2, this volume. Jeffers, Magic, 69, points to a connection between Micah 5:11 and the root ksp in the Ras Rhamra text, “connecting it with plants and medicinal herbs.” Thus the word may be related to herbal practices, as suggested by the LXX translation as φάρμακα, rather than divination. See also Levy’s critique of this theory. “Review,” 150. 189. ‫קסם‬, for example, seems to have been someone who divined by drawing lots. See Jeffers, Magic, 96–98. 190. Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” 33. 191. See: 1 Enoch 6.1; 19.1; Testament of Reuben 5.1, 5–6; Jubilees 4.22, 5.1; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 56.10; Tobit 6.14, 8.3; Josephus, Antiquities 1.73. For a critical examination of this legend and its reception history, see Reed, Fallen Angels. 192. Reed, “Angels, Women, and Magic.” 193. See Garrett, Demise, 13–17. 194. See, for example, Jer 13:27; Ezek 16, 23; Hos (passim); and Nah 2:4. 195. See Stratton, “Imagining Power” and chapter 5 in this volume. 196. See my discussion and examples in Stratton, “Ritual Inversion,” forthcoming.

2 . b a r b a r ians, magic, and c o ns t r uction of the other 1. Murray, Early Greece, 283. This new confidence may have to do with changes in military technology and strategy; see Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates, 21, 55, and note 74, this chapter. 2. In the fifth century a gradual shift toward democratic leadership occurs: the use of lots to decide members of the βουλή in 450 bce was later reinforced by the introduction of pay for public service in 411, opening these offices to unaffluent citizens. Hornblower, “Greece,” 159. Democracy also constituted an important aspect of Athenian ideology; it defined the difference between

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14. 15. 16.

Greeks and “barbarians” for Athenian writers of this period. See Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 2. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, 103–4; and Boegehold, “Perikles’ Citizenship Law of 451/0 B.C.,” 58. See further discussion in section Magic and Marriage Laws (this chapter). Hall, Aeschylus: Persians, 4–5. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 7, 13. With regard to the increasingly negative attitude toward magi after the Persian Wars, Burkert, Babylon, 101, writes: “Yet after the great conflict of the Persian Wars, the Greeks seemed to form their self-conception from a tendentious contrast with other peoples. After 479 ‘Asia’ was seen as the antagonist of ‘Hellas.’ Some Greeks were even prone to take Ionians for Asiatics.” The earliest extant κατάδεσμοι date to the early fifth century and, possibly, to the late sixth century. See Ogden, “Binding Spells,” 4, for a recent discussion. On ancient interpretations of these spells, see my discussion further in this section. Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners and Magicians,” 116; Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution, 67–68, proposes that figurines and curses along with cathartic healing rituals and protective amulets were introduced to Greece from ancient Mesopotamia during or prior to the Archaic period. Gager, Curse Tablets, 7, suggests that, as literacy spread, the verbal directives that originally accompanied the spell were written on the tablet itself. Some tablets indicate from their wording that they were buried in a grave (see, e.g., Gager, Curse Tablets, no. 22). Others have been recovered archaeologically from wells, graves, or thresholds. Published collections include Wünsch, Defixionum Tabellae Atticae; Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae; Wünsch, Antike Fluchtafeln; López Jimeno, Las tabellae defixionis de la Sicilia griega; and Jordan, “Defixiones.” For examples translated into English with discussion, see Gager, Curse Tablets, 19 and passim; and Ogden, “Binding Spells,” 15–23. This type of curse functions analogically. See Collins, “Nature, Cause, and Agency in Greek Magic,” 43–45, for a different understanding of how these curses work. Regarding the nature and development of inscribed messages on κατάδεσμοι see Gager, Curse Tablets, 4–12; and Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells,” 4–10. Gager, Curse Tablets, devotes a chapter to each one of these competitive arenas. See also Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells,” 10–17. Versnel, “Beyond Cursing,” 62. The degree to which these rituals should or should not be labeled magic by modern scholars has been amply debated in recent years. See, for example, Gager, Curse Tablets, 24–25; Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, vi; and Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells,” 17–20.

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17. See Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners,” 116–19. 18. Ibid., 116–17. 19. Greek mores demanded reverence and care be shown to the dead. A body left unburied or a tomb that was desecrated could bring plague or misfortune upon an entire community. Tiresias, in Sophocles’ Antigone, for example, describes the μίασμα and resulting fracture between gods and men caused by Polyneice¯s’ lack of proper burial (1005–1022). Attending to the tomb of one ’s ancestors was considered to be an important aspect of filial duty and could be counted as proof of legitimate descent in cases where inheritance was contested. Garland, The Greek Way of Death, 104. Rituals for the dead sought to honor and make the deceased more comfortable by offering food, making libations, and decorating the tomb with ribbons or garlands; ibid., 108–18. 20. Early references to Hecate in Hesiod (Theog. 404–452) and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (22–25, 51–61, 438–440), in contrast, do not reveal any association with magic. In fact, Hesiod, attributes an exceptionally important and positive role to her. It is probable that Hecate ’s identification with liminality is the origin of her later identity as patron goddess of magic and sorcerers. See Johnston, Hekate Soteira, who illuminates Hecate ’s association with liminal places and life events. 21. Littré 1.92–3. 22. See the classic discussion of Hecate in Rohde, Psyche, 590–95, where he identifies her with Lamia and other female demons who attack children; Tupet, La Magie, 14–15; Johnston, Restless Dead, chapter 6. See also Johnston, Hekate Soteira, 34–35. 23. Souls of the untimely dead were frequently considered to be restless, angry, or unsatisfied and thus especially prone to exploitation for destructive or deviant ends. See Rohde, Psyche, 594. Tupet, La Magie, 12, similarly writes: “La haine qu’ils éprouvent envers les hommes peut être utilisée par le magicien pour servir des desseins funestes.” The Greek term for this wrath of the dead is μήνιμα and it could be expiated through certain purification ceremonies; the death of Pausanias, for example, was believed to have polluted the precinct of Athena in Sparta and required mantic specialists to expiate. See Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution, 42, 66. 24. Tombs continued to convey a portion of the μίασμα or pollution that attached to the corpse at death; festivals of the dead and worship of heroes at their tombs rendered one ritually unclean. See Parker, Miasma, 38–39. Olympian gods could not remain near or witness death, even that of a beloved devotee (Hippolytus 1437–39), and pollution caused by death similarly cut one off from contact with these deities (Antigone 1005–1022). See note 19 in this chapter. 25. For further discussion of the subversive power derived from ritual inversion, see Stratton, “Ritual Inversion,” forthcoming. Collins, “Theoris of Lemnos,” notes that, while magic (referring to φάρμακα and ἐπωδαί) was not illegal in

2 . b a r b a r i a n s , m a g i c , a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e o t h e r    197

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40.

Athens, causing harm through poison (φάρμακα) was an actionable offense. See also Versnel, “Beyond Cursing,” 62, on their use in an agonistic culture. E.g., Theophrastus Char. 16.14 (crossroads); and Aristophanes Vesp. 804 (doorways). Gager, Curse Tablets, 18–21; and note 12 in this chapter. See Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” 8. See, for example, Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 23; and Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 28. Littré 6.354. Martin, Inventing Superstition, 36–50, discusses this text in the context of Greek ideas about superstition. E.g., Aristophanes, Nub. 102-3. Montiglio, “Wandering Philosophers in Classical Greece,” describes the rhetorical effect of accusing someone of itinerancy: “Since Homer, calling someone a wanderer was tantamount to insulting that person. Similarly, Plato undermined the sophist’s worth by attaching to them the label of the wanderer. . . . The Sophist’s nomadism reflects the deceptive and unsettled nature of his rhetorical wanderings. . . . In sum, the Sophist’s wanderings connote verbal deceits, greed, and an evasive, slippery nature.” Her findings suggest that this “portrait” of early “magicians” needs to be treated cautiously. Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners,” 116, on the other hand, accepts the description as more or less accurate and compares it to one of an Assyrian incantation priest who uses a similar ritual to purify people of disease. Littré 6.358–360. He also mocks this approach by pointing out that certain people in other parts of the world rely on these proscribed items for sustenance and yet do not suffer disproportionately of the disease; Littré 6.356–358. Ibid. 6.352. Ibid. 6.366. See, for example, Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 47f; Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 21f, 24f, 30–35; Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” 3–4; and Collins, “Theoris of Lemnos,” 482–84, who, following Lloyd, notes the rhetorical and competitive quality of this depiction. “Attempts to provide empirical backing for his own ideas are often feeble and abortive . . . ” Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience, 24. See Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners,” 116, on an Assyrian parallel to this practice. Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners,” 119, discusses this passage in connection to Mesopotamian influences on Orphic anthropogony and theogony. Leg. 933a. The association of magic with Orphic mysteries is supported by Pausanias (30.2): he claims that the citizens of Aegina celebrate mysteries brought by Orpheus in honor of Hecate, who, as we have seen, is closely identified with binding spells and the restless dead. This observation, however, may not be reliable for understanding fifth-century cultic developments since Pausanias was writing in the second century ce.

198  2 . b a r b a r i a n s , m a g i c , a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e o t h e r

41. Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic,’” passim; Nock, “Paul and the Magus,” 176–78. Walter Burkert presents the strongest evidence for this connection. See Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners” and Burkert, Babylon, 99–124. 42. Collins, “Theoris of Lemnos,” 482, 484, makes this same point. 43. See, for example, Aj. 581–2; and Pindar, Pyth. 3.51ff. 44. Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience, 33–34; Burkert, Babylon, 117. 45. For discussion and texts, see Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience, 34–37; Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic, 218; and Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, 225 (quote. 274 = Diogenes Laertius 8.1). 46. Even though Dionysos is said to come from Lydia, this portrait is clearly “orientalized.” See Burkert, Babylon, 100–1, on association of Lydia with Persia and Persian customs at this time. 47. See Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 58. Linear B tablets, in contrast, indicate that Dionysos was most likely worshipped in Greece as early as 1400 bce, during the Minoan-Mycenaean era. Parker, “Greek Religion,” 309. Greek tradition and mythology, however, attributed foreign roots to him, which forms the basis of Euripides’ Bacchae. See also Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 151. 48. “Various terms . . . to evoke the luxury of the Persian court were to become closely associated with the barbarian ethos, especially chlide¯, luxury, pomp, and the concept habrosune¯ or habrote¯s, an untranslatable term combining the sense of softness, delicacy and lack of restraint,” Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 81. See also Hall, Aeschylus: Persians, 13; and Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “Exit Atossa,” 32. 49. Excessive refinement and luxury, which Aristotle calls μαλακία or τρυφή, shows a lack of Hellenic self-restraint. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 126. Σωφροσύνη was also a trait expected of women, which related specifically to the protection of their chastity and their family’s honor. See Foley, Female Acts,109, 111; and discussion in North, Sophrosyne; and Rademaker, Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint. 50. For other examples, see Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 80–81, 126. 51. The Bacchae was written near the end of Euripides’ life (c. 407 bce) and not produced until 405 bce, after his death in 406 bce. These years also marked Athens’s defeat at the end of the Peloponnesian war, which was instigated in part by Spartan ambition and in part by Athens’ own exploitation of her allies who sought Spartan help in their liberation. 52. See Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place,” 38, and discussion this chapter, pp. 58–59. 53. West, “‘Eumelos,’” 109, argues that the attribution is incorrect. 54. Graf, “Medea, the Enchantress from Afar,” 34–36. 55. Ibid., 35. 56. West, “‘Eumelos,’” 123–24. 57. Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” 46–47. 58. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 35, proposes that Medea’s barbarian identity was the invention of tragedy and possibly of Euripides himself. She notes that

2 . b a r b a r i a n s , m a g i c , a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e o t h e r    199

59. 60.

61. 62. 63.

64.

65.

Medea does not appear in Persian costume on vase paintings until after 431 when Euripides’ Medea was produced. Pharmaceutical skills were, however, an old element to her story, which may have contributed to the barbarian association. McDermott, Euripides’ Medea, 5, states that “in having Medea kill her sons to gain vengeance on their father, Euripides is forging new mythic ground.” In contrast, Johnston, “Corinthian Medea and the Cult of Hera Akraia,” 5 and passim, rejects the view that Euripides invented the infanticide: fifth-century authors inherited an infanticidal Medea from myth. Specifically, the “Medea whom we meet in Euripides’ play developed out of a folkloric paradigm that was widespread both in ancient Greece and in other ancient Mediterranean countries—the paradigm of the reproductive demon—and that this paradigm is likely to have been associated with the Corinthian cult of Hera Akraia.” West, “‘Eumelos,’” 121–25, convincingly demonstrates, however, that the Medea of the Argonautic legend had nothing to do with the Medea associated with the cult of Hera in Corinth. Furthermore, the Corinthian Medea accidentally kills her children by burying them in the temple of Hera, believing this would immortalize them. See also Michelini, “Neophron and Euripides’ Medea,” who explores the possibility that Euripides was influenced by an earlier Medea of Neophron. Helios fathered both Aeëtes, Medea’s father, and Circe (Hesiod, Theog. 1011). Pindar knows this tradition early in the fifth century; he describes her as παμφαρμάκου (Pyth. 4.233–234). A fragment (534) from Sophocles’ lost play, The Root-Cutters, describes Medea cutting roots naked in preparation for magic. There may be another Medea, however, associated with Corinth: see note 58. The Odyssey mentions the story of the Argonauts as popular legend in its day (18.246). Hesiod also refers to this story in the Theogony (993–1002). On the implications of this act and a discussion of the different versions of it in classical literature, see Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?” Euripides plays down Medea’s magical ability until the end, portraying her initially, at least, as a sort of “everywoman” with whom the audience can identify. See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 257–58, n. 53, for discussion and relevant bibliography. In Greek tradition brothers were supposed to protect their sisters in the absence of their fathers. Thus, having killed one and thereby alienated the other, Medea has no family from which she can seek protection or redress for her humiliation by Jason. See Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?” 95. On women’s legal status, see Sealey, Women and Law in Classical Greece, chapter 2; Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece; and Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 113–29. Regarding Medea’s murder of her brother, see Bremmer, “Why Did Medea Kill Her Brother Apsyrtus?” 100: “By killing her brother,

200  2 . b a r b a r i a n s , m a g i c , a n d c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e o t h e r

66. 67. 68.

69.

70.

71. 72.

Medea not only committed the heinous act of spilling familial blood, she also permanently severed all ties to her natal home and the role that it would normally play in her adult life. Through Apsyrtus’s murder, she simultaneously declared her independence from her family and forfeited her right to any protection from it. Once Apsyrtus was gone, Medea was brotherless. There was only one way for Medea to go, then: she had to follow Jason and never look back.” See also McDermott, Euripides’ Medea, 44: “The countervailing feature of the system is that the woman was never left helpless and alone: that is, she was never bereft of the male protection that Greek society deemed the sine qua non for the weaker female sex.” Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “εκπλήττω.” θυμόϚ is associated with both the mind, soul, and spirit of a person as well as with the emotions (passion, anger, etc.). Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “θυμόϚ.” Athenian democracy radically appropriated the rhetoric of the “good” and the “noble” from the aristocracy and applied it universally to all citizen men. Solon initiated this rhetorical appropriation by “reversing the usual concepts of class description, calling many of the rich ‘bad,’ and claiming that the poor were ‘good.’” Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates, 64. See also Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens; and Loraux, The Invention of Athens, 149, on the role of the autochthony myth and Athenian perceptions of democratic nobility. See also Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, 61. Foucault’s interpretation of the ancient literature has drawn some criticism. See, for example, Marin, “Review of Care of the Self,” 64. Aristotle attributes σωφροσύνη to women, but identifies it as obedience rather than self-governance (Pol. 1260a20–24, 1277b20–24); because women were perceived to lack reason and emotional restraint, female σωφροσύνη required submitting to male guardians who controlled them. See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 109; and Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place,” 142. See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 247, on Medea’s justification for being angry over betrayal of the marriage bed; “it represents a broader set of social issues for a woman than mere desire.” The accusation that women care only about gratifying their sexual needs plays a central and comic role in Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousae; women take over Athens’s government and immediately proclaim sexual democracy according to which women acquire sexual privileges granted to men in historic reality. See Zeitlin, “Utopia and Myth in Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousae.” See discussion in Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 243, 248. Pindar Pyth. 4.217 describes Jason’s use of a love spell on Medea to win her support and turn her against her father. Jason may allude to this event in Euripides’ Medea 526–528 when he states that it was Aphrodite alone who helped him succeed. Medea claims they are legally wed in this play (492–515). Hesiod (Theog. 992–1001) and Pindar (Pyth. 4.222–223) also support her version of events.

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73. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 262. 74. Medea and Jason represent competing conceptions of heroic valor and virtue. The epic and aristocratic ideal was single-handed combat and glory. See Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans, passim, on the heroic quest for glory. In the classical age, by contrast, men fought in unison as hoplites, whose shields linked one over the other, each man protecting his neighbor as well as himself. The entire regiment stood or fell together—they were as strong as their weakest member—and to break ranks and run jeopardized the entire group. In this context, loyalty rather than self-interest emerges as a greater virtue. On the relationship between democracy and the invention of the φάλαγξ see Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates, 21, 55. On Medea representing masculine ethics, see Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 243-271, with further bibliography. 75. See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 260. While pursuit of glory and defense of honor were the domain of men, respectable women in Classical Athens were expected to be as little noticed or known about as possible. As Pericles is quoted as saying: “The greatest glory is hers who is least talked about by men, whether in praise or in blame” (Thuc. 2.45.2). Seidensticker, “Women on the Tragic Stage,” 154. See also Cohen, Law, Sexuality and Society, 41–47. 76. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 248; and Boedeker, “Becoming Medea,” 136. 77. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “διαφθείρω.” Similarly, in Euripides’ Hippolytus (388) Phaedra refuses to be corrupted or seduced into using a love potion (φαρμάκωι διαφθερειˆν) by her nurse. 78. My emphasis. 79. See note 65 in this chapter. 80. See discussion this chapter. 81. The messenger narrates the entire ghastly episode (1136–1230). 82. The Medea is dated to 431 bce while the Trachiniae is believed to have been produced before the Antigone in 441 bce, but that date is also not firm. 83. See Davies, “Deianeira and Medea,” 469; and Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 112. 84. See discussion of mythic similarities in Davies, “Deianeira and Medea,” passim. 85. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 110–19, discusses Deianeira’s mistake in the context of other ancient evidence for women’s (and men’s) accidental homicide while seeking to win affection (φιλία) with magic. 86. On the conception of ἔρωϚ as a disease, see Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 43–54. 87. Loraux, “Herakles,” passim. 88. On Heracles’ excessive masculinity and virile strength, see Loraux, “Herakles,” 25. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 95, discusses the moral chaos introduced into the house by Heracles’ “illegitimate ero¯s.”

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89. Deianeira imagines both women sharing Heracles’ bed at one time (539–540). See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 95–97, for a discussion of Deianeira’s magic. For evidence that Deianeira was originally closer to the model of a murderous wife along the lines of Clytemnestra or Medea, see Davies, “Deianeira and Medea,” passim, who includes a rich bibliography of ancient and modern sources. 90. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 96. 91. On the sexualized suicide, see Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 97. On Heracles’ femininity, see Loraux, “Herakles,” passim. 92. My emphasis. 93. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 96. 94. Euripides produced the Medea about twenty years after Pericles passed this law—when the children of mixed unions born just prior to passage of the law would be coming of age and raising questions about legitimacy. I thank my colleague Josh Beer for pointing this out and also for sharing an unpublished conference paper on the topic with me. 95. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 85. 96. Ibid., 95–96. 97. See, for example, Medea 155–59, 205–7, 998–99. 98. Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place,” 138–39. On conceptions of women’s bodies in Greek medicine more generally, see Aline Rousselle, Porneia, chapter 2. 99. Elsewhere, Hippocratic writings describe women as excessively moist and inclining toward water. Regimen, 1.27.2 and 1.34.2. 100. Although the Hippocratic writings describe the condition as an overly dry womb, the treatment they prescribe (in addition to coitus) involves applying sweet or foul smelling odors and pessaries (Mul. 2.123), suggesting a conception similar to that of Plato—namely, the womb is a hungry animal and will be attracted by pleasing odors. 101. Easterling, Sophocles, 170. 102. See also Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 96. 103. Artemis required that Iphigenia be sacrificed to her in order for the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. See Euripides, Iph. aul. for a presentation of this myth. 104. Interestingly, Cassandra enlists magic discourse to prophetically foretell her own murder at the hands of Clytemnestra, describing Clytemnestra as preparing a deadly potion (φάρμακον) of recompense to mix into her drink as well as Agamemnon’s (Ag. 1260), which suggests the link between φαρμακεία and jealousy. 105. See, for example, Goldhill, “Civic Ideology and the Problem of Difference”; Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 1–2; Zeitlin, “Thebes”; Ober and Strauss, “Drama, Political Rhetoric”; and Foley, “The Conception of Women in Athenian Drama.” 106. See p. 43. 107. See also Hall, Inventing the Barbarian, 121, for discussion.

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108. For example, Aeschines indicted the rhetor Timarchos on the charges of squandering his paternal estate to satisfy sexual appetites and prostituting himself for pleasure; this unmanly lack of σωφροσύνη demonstrated an inability to control his own desire and consequently an inability to manage public affairs or advise the assembly ([Tim] 1.28–32). See also Winkler, “Laying Down the Law”; and Cohen, Law, Sexuality and Society, 184. 109. Winkler, “Laying Down the Law,” 61. 110. See Keuls, Reign of the Phallus, 293, which includes photo illustration (fig. 261). For a different interpretation of this vase, see Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes, 170–71. 111. Winkler, “Laying Down the Law,” 54 and passim. 112. Winkler, “The Constraints of Desire,” 74. 113. See ibid., 97–98; and Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 121, 130. 114. According to Lysias 1.7, the plaintiff ’s young wife first made her seducer’s acquaintance at her mother-in-law’s funeral. 115. Lysias 3.6. See also Rabinowitz, Anxiety Veiled, 6. 116. Lysias 1.9, for example, brags that he kept a vigilant eye on his wife before the birth of their first child. 117. Claims regarding ancient women’s lives pose a problem for historiography; literature, whether philosophical prose, forensic speeches, or drama, simplifies the real picture. Men’s discourse about what women do or should do conceals the complex reality of how women actually negotiate their lives within maledominated social and political space. See, for example, Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, who analyzes the construction of social space as reflective and determining of people’s socialization. See also Cohen, Law, Sexuality and Society, passim, who draws heavily on Bourdieu’s work to frame his analysis of ancient Athenian law and society. 118. The law is cited by Aristotle (AP 26.4) and Plutarch (Pericles 37.3). See the discussion in Boegehold, “Perikles’ Citizenship Law of 451/0 B.C.” Various theories exist regarding the innovations of Pericles’ law. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, 103, for example, claims that prior to this law men were able to contract legal marriages with non-Athenian women and breed legitimate children. Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., in contrast, suggests that although this may have been possible, Athenians traditionally sought brides from within their own tribe; the endogamous practice enforced by Pericles’ law already existed as the nomos. If such were the case, however, Pericles would not have needed to pass such a law and conflicts issuing from it would not be so evident in the extant court cases. See further discussion, this chapter. 119. Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens, 80–81, emphasizes the impact Pericles’ law had on the poorer elements of the population, who benefited from klerouchies (land grants in Athenian colonies awarded to citizens) and married foreign wives while abroad. Others have argued that the law was

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aimed at reducing oligarchic foreign alliances, which mutually supported each other against tyranny or, in Athens’s case, democracy. See Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., 99–100, who addresses some problems with this theory. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, 100, suggests that one reason for passing the law was to ensure enough husbands for Athenian daughters at a time when the female to male ratio was quite high due to war. 120. Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 35–37; Davies, Democracy and Classical Greece, 88–94. 121. Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 37; Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens, 81. 122. Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., 99–100, questions whether aristocratic alliances factored into Pericles’ law. Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 36; and Boegehold, “Perikles’ Citizenship Law of 451/0 B.C,” 58, suggest that, if aristocratic marriages with foreign οἶκοι were not a motivating factor, the elite were, nonetheless, constrained by the law. 123. Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., passim, proposes that Pericles’ citizenship law responded to a large influx of foreign immigrants following the Persian war. Athenians sought to restrict the number of people who could claim such benefits of citizenship as receiving klerouchies or grain from the grain dole. See also Frost, “Aspects of Athenian Citizenship,” 45; and Boegehold, “Perikles’ Citizenship Law of 451/0 B.C,” 60–61, for additional suggestions. 124. See Loraux, Les enfants d’Athéna, and The Invention of Athens; and Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., 132–33. 125. Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 40. 126. For discussion and examples, see Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 41; Wallace, “Private Lives and Public Enemies,” 143; and especially useful is Scafuro, “Witnessing and False Witnessing.” 127. Scafuro, “Witnessing and False Witnessing,” 176–77, provides an informative table that shows the majority of ξενία cases to be related to inheritance. 128. Connor, “The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity,” 41, notes that even if ones citizenship were unchallengeable in the paternal line, the maternal line might still leave one open to accusation and doubt. This is due to the difficulty in proving female “citizenship.” See Scafuro, “Witnessing and False Witnessing”; Patterson, “The Case Against Neaira,” examines the central importance of the οἶκοϚ in Athenian ideology and the vulnerability of the οἶκοϚ to its female members. 129. On women’s invisibility see Pericles’ comment cited in note 75. 130. See Scafuro, “Witnessing and False Witnessing,” 162–63, who notes that live witnesses were regarded as superior to archival documents. See also Pomeroy, “Women’s Identity and the Family in the Classical Polis,” 111–21. 131. On anxiety over paternity, see Konstan, “Premarital Sex, Illegitimacy, and Male Anxiety,” 217–35.

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132. See Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 84–87, who examines the theme of adultery and out-of-wedlock children in Athenian drama as well as problems of a childless marriage. 133. Scholars mostly concur that the fifth century saw the curtailment of some women’s social freedom. See, for example, Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, 68, 113. 134. Ibid., 113. 135. Katz, “Women and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” analyzes scholarly estimates of women’s status in ancient Greece and concludes that the perception that women’s position was, as Lacey states, “nowadays thought to be intolerable” depends on ideological positions of the scholar and her social-political context rather than the actual experience of ancient women. See also Katz, “Ideology and ‘the Status of Women’ in Ancient Greece.” 136. Seidensticker, “Women on the Tragic Stage,” 153. 137. Wallace, “Private Lives and Public Enemies,” 143–45. 138. Seidensticker, “Women on the Tragic Stage,” 153. 139. On timing of the Medea, see note 94, this chapter. 140. Ortner, “Introduction,” 20. 141. Ibid., 14. 142. Ibid., 20. 143. Interestingly, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon predates passage of this law, which may contribute to the absence of magic in its representation of Clytemnestra’s murderous revenge. But this is purely speculative. 144. Before Pericles instituted the law requiring both parents to be Athenian, men’s social and political status depended much less on women. A man could acknowledge as his legitimate son even one born to a foreign woman. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece, 103. 145. This would concur with Faraone ’s interpretation. See Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, chapter 3. At least one woman was tried and executed for being a φαρμακίϚ and using harmful ἐπωδαί in fourth-century Athens. [Demosthenes] Aristog. 25.77-80. See discussion in Collins, “Theoris of Lemnos.” [Aristotle] Magna Moralia 16 = 1188b29-38; and Antiphon, In Novercam, also record trials of women using love potions on their husbands. They may be referring to the same case. See Collins, “Theoris of Lemnos,” 481. 146. Antiphon, In Novercam. 147. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 88–89, who, at the same time, uses it as evidence for upper-class women practicing magic. 148. See, for example, Euripides, Ion 616; [Aristotle] Magna Moralia 16 ( = 1188b29–38); and Plutarch, Moralia 139a and 256c. See also Keuls, Reign of the Phallus, 322; and Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 110–19, for an excellent discussion of the cases in which such a fear is expressed. 149. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 14. 150. Reported by Plutarch (Pericles 37.2–5). See also Patterson, Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451–450 B.C., 1–2.

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151. This does not imply accepting all of Demosthenes’ accusations at face value but recognizing that they must have appeared plausible to be effective in front of a jury. In other words, the fear of such an occurrence happening must have existed. 152. Demosthenes [Neaer.]. See also Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy, 89.

3 . m a s c u l a libido 1. Jason’s abandonment of Medea is presented as callous and calculating, part of Jason’s unheroic self-promotion even at the cost of breaking his oath. See discussion in chapter 2. 2. See Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 110–19, for more discussion on this point. 3. Medea wields almost cosmic power in Apollonius’s Argonautica. Simaetha in Theocritus’s second Idyll actively pursues her errant lover with magic, yet, like Medea, she has been seduced and abandoned. Her magic ritual thus appears justified in protecting her honor and wounded heart (on Simaetha’s identity as a courtesan see note 47). Neither character is depicted as cruel, demonic, nor as committing necromancy. Ogden, Greek and Roman Necromancy, 128, notes that the imperial period constitutes the “heyday” of Roman depictions of necromancy. This suggests that its importance as a discourse of alterity parallels that of magic, which also flourished in the imperial period. 4. It is well established that curse tablets became more complex over time. The earliest tablets, which date to the fifth century bce, usually state only the name of the person to be bound, suggesting that a verbal command figured prominently in the rite. See Gager, Curse Tablets, 5–9. Later tablets recovered archaeologically as well as recipes from the PGM collection, which dates to the 4th century ce and derives from Egypt, indicate increasing complexity in binding rituals, including, for example, the use of nonsense language (voces mysticae) as well as bizarre ingredients. PGM 1.247–62, for example, instructs one to “take the eye of an ape or of a corpse that has died a violent death.” See also PGM 2.1–64; 1. 262–347; 4. 2943–66, 1390–1495, and 2145–2240 for examples of spells that employ macabre ingredients. LiDonnici, “Beans, Fleawort, and the Blood of a Hamadryas Baboon,” discusses the existence of codes used to conceal the real (and more normal) meanings for many seemingly bizarre ingredients in the PGM. In which case, Apuleius’s description of Pamphile in the Metamorphoses reflects the ignorance of an outsider while reinscribing magic’s terrifying exoticism in popular imagination. See also Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho,” 235–37, who discusses what “knowledge of magic” may have entailed in the first century ce. 5. Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho,” 239–41; Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons, 206–8. 6. Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome, 212–14, 219–22. 7. Most of the evidence for this discourse dates to the first and second centuries ce and is therefore contemporaneous with the emergence of magic discourse.

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8. 9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Nonetheless, certain quotations from earlier writers, such as Cicero and Sallust, indicate the operation of this discourse already in the late Republic. See notes 10, 28, and discussion in this chapter. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 36. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, 4. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 1, criticizes what she calls “an exaggerated estimate of the self-assertiveness and independence of Roman women.” Milnor, “Suis Omnia Tuta Locis,” 52, critiques Gardner’s view. I am tracing the beginning of this discourse to 215 bce, when the lex Oppia was passed (see discussion this chapter), although certainly one could suggest the poisoning trials of 331 as a likely starting point as well. Both events are related by Livy, who did not write until the end of the first century bce—as much as three centuries later. His representation of the events may, therefore, be colored by his own perspective. See notes 26 and 29 in this chapter. Lefkowitz, “Influential Women,” passim, notes that upper-class women could intervene in male politics for the benefit of their male relatives. This sort of female activism was praised in Roman rhetoric, while women’s activism on their own behalf was regarded as selfish and a violation of women’s proper decorum. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 5–11; Grubbs, Women and the Law, 20. By the first century ce marriages that transferred the woman to her husband’s power (cum manu) were rare, so rare in fact that it was difficult to find people whose parents were married in this way, which was a requirement for certain priesthoods (on the problem of finding men to serve as flamen, see Tac. Ann. 4.16). See also Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 12; Grubbs, Women and the Law, 20; and Fau, L’Émancipation féminine, 3. Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 80, does not see any evidence that this form of marriage was revived in a later period. This requirement was abrogated by Augustus in 18 bce for women who had borne three children or more. See note 18. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 14–22. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 155. Fau, L’Émancipation féminine, 10; Grubbs, Women and the Law, 21. See also Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 318, on women’s social freedom after marriage. This changed in 18 bce, when Augustus sought to encourage procreation by relaxing women’s requirement for a tutor (tutela mulierum) to handle her legal affairs if she had birthed a certain number of children. According to the ius liberorum, freeborn women with three children and freedwomen with four children were granted exemption from tutelage. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 151, remarks that this law did not change women’s behavior much, since women who wanted to manage their own affairs had been

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19. 20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

able to find ways around the disapproval of a tutor. See also Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 168, and the discussion in this chapter. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, 90. Ibid., 29, 54–55. Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” 285, notes that Clodia Metelli’s wealth and family connections enabled her to maintain “a wide network of contacts and acquaintances” as well as to act in politically significant ways independent of either her husband or her brother. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, 78–79. Ibid., 59; Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 154. Clodia Metelli, for example, chose to support her brother over her husband during a political rivalry. See Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” 280 and Fau, L’Émancipation féminine, 50. The lex Voconia (169 bce) may have sought to curtail women’s wealth by limiting their ability to inherit; for example, it restricted “agnate succession by women to full sisters of the deceased.” Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 171. On rules of inheritance more generally see Gardner, Family and Familia, 20–24. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 163. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, 93; and Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 162. Except as part of a publicly recognized sacred festival (nisi sacrorum publicorum causa veheretur, 34.1.3). Livy constitutes the first extant reference to this event. Milnor, “Suis Omnia Tuta Locis,” 56–57, regards the account as a reflection of concerns in Livy’s own day. See also Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 177–81; and Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 25–27, 31–34, who sees the passing of the law as a measure to limit wealthy women’s political influence and the law’s repeal as due to women’s direct political involvement. On Livy’s reliability as a historian, see Walsh, Livy, 150–51 and chapter 6, passim. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 34, 43–46. While Livy lived almost two centuries after the event he describes in this book and almost certainly invented Cato’s speech, it is generally agreed that he presents Cato’s point of view accurately. Based on Cato’s extant speeches and writings, he was a traditionalist, opposed to women’s liberty and advancement. See, for example, his complaints about well-dowered wives (CRF3 fg. 158, quoted in Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 72). Cicero presents a similar view (attributed to Scipio) that if women enjoy the same rights as their husbands it will lead to utter anarchy with even the beasts of burden rejecting their masters’ hand (Resp. 1.67), indicating that this type of discourse about women and power was operating in the late Republic. Walsh, Livy, 219–20, states that Livy composed his speeches with great care and used them to “get inside” the speaker and present “a psychological portrait of his qualities.” For this reason his speeches were respected by other ancient authors.

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29. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, demonstrates the degree to which locating women and their proper role in society became a preoccupation in the Augustan period. From Livy’s description of the debate over repeal of the lex Oppia to Ovid’s love elegies, Augustan literature reflects a concern over the location of women and the division between public and private roles. 30. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 14. Although Bauman constitutes an excellent resource on women’s political involvement in Roman history, he often accepts at face value accounts of women’s activities (such as poisoning), attributing political motivations to what he regards as archaic forms of political subversion rather than questioning the accusation’s veracity in the first place. 31. Cicero charges that Clodia Metelli poisoned her husband (Pro Caelio 56–62). Similarly, Cornelia and her daughter Sempronia were suspected of poisoning the latter’s husband, Scipio Aemilianus, because he opposed the legislative reforms instituted by Cornelia’s sons, the famous Gracchi (Livy Per. 59). The empresses Livia and Agrippina the younger were both suspected of using poison to secure the throne for their respective sons, Tiberius and Nero (Tac. Ann. 1.5, 2.69; Suet. Tib. 52, Claud. 44; Dio 56.30.1–2, 57.18.8–9). See also Barrett, Agrippina, 8–9, on the deployment of poisoning as a trope in Roman literature. 32. Although Catherine Edwards notes that there does not appear to have been much concern about confirming children’s paternity (despite the claim that aristocratic women were rampantly committing adultery), she does suggest that accusations and fears of poisoning symbolically reflect “concern with women’s capacity to ‘pollute ’ their husbands’ lines by conceiving children in adulterous relationships.” Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 51–52. In light of the lack of evidence that paternity was a serious social concern in Rome (unlike in Athens), I would tend not to interpret accusations of poisoning in this way but rather to see these charges as merely another aspect of the discourse of wicked women, which registered anxiety over women’s independence and threat to male control more generally. 33. See discussion of Augustan reforms, this chapter. 34. See note 28 for additional examples. 35. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 70–71, notes that Cicero’s attack not only undermines Clodia’s credibility but also indirectly challenges her right to appear in court, since prostitutes were not competent witnesses according to the lex de vi (D. 22.5.3.5). For other instances where he labels her a courtesan or prostitute (meretrix), see pro Caelio 49–50. See Long, Claudian’s In Eutropium, 70–75, on using sexual slander to discredit an opponent. 36. The charges, among other things, include theft and attempt to poison. In both cases the victim of the crime is Clodia. 37. The effectiveness of this invective is witnessed both by the acquittal of Caelius and even more so by the enduring reputation of Clodia. Later writers, includ-

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38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48. 49. 50.

ing many modern scholars, have drawn on Cicero’s speech to reconstruct the life of a typically debauched “emancipated” Roman woman. Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” 273–74, offers examples. On the incest charge, see Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” 276; and Fau, L’Émancipation féminine, 46–47. On arousing the jury’s envy, see Skinner, “Clodia Metelli,” 285–86. Marshall, “Ladies in Waiting,” 172, 173, 174–75. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 54–57. Ibid., 46. See note 44. On the introduction of magic through Hellenistic sources, see Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 37–39; Gordon, “Imagining Greek and Roman Magic,” 164–65; and Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 127, 141. See also discussion in chapter 1. Catullus 90, which predates Virgil’s Eclogue 8, mocks Persian magi. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 131–33, discusses some fragmentary texts from the second century bce that include references to the use of love magic. Tupet, La Magie, 223–24, states that these texts are too fragmentary, however, to determine exactly how they treated the theme of magic. Tupet, La Magie, 224. Both Theocritus’s original and Virgil’s Eclogue 8 reflect a Hellenistic fascination with the sufferings and aspirations of common folk as well as a baroque interest in the exotic. See Fowler, The Hellenistic Aesthetic, passim. Although Jason tries to argue that Medea is merely his barbarian concubine, Medea perceives herself to be his legitimate wife. Tradition usually accords her this status, and Jason sometimes admits to it as well (Euripides’ Medea, 1336). See also Apollonius’s extensive description of their marriage in Argonautica, book 4. The status of Virgil’s “sorceress” is hotly debated along with that of the sorceress in Theocritus’s Idyll 2. Griffiths, “Home Before Lunch,” reads Theocritus’s description of Simaetha as evidence for women’s emancipation in Alexandria. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 153–54, rejects this position and reads Simaetha’s independence to be that typical of and recognizable to an ancient audience as a courtesan’s. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 102–3, follows this interpretation but further tries to reconstruct the historical world of Simaetha. See also Faraone, “Clay Hardens and Wax Melts.” Eighty-six percent of extant erotic spells from antiquity are performed by men on women. See Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 43, n. 9. See also Gager, Curse Tablets, 244–45 and chapter 2, passim. Faraone, “Clay Hardens and Wax Melts,” passim. Ero¯s, according to Greek thought, was a form of possession or a disease that afflicted one. Consequently, it has been argued that the language of erotic magic projected the symptoms of the lover onto the beloved, displacing the

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51. 52.

53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68.

psychological suffering of desire through transference onto the Other—the desired victim. See Winkler, “The Constraints of Desire.” See note 48. In both cases, Greek and Roman, the magic involves gender inversion and the transgression of social roles. In Roman examples the inversion is exaggerated and the women are generally depicted as predatory rather than protective. It has been argued that Hellenistic women experienced more independence than Athenian women (referring primarily to women from the middle and upper classes). See, for example, Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 120–48; and Griffiths, “Home Before Lunch.” If this is the case, it may contribute to shaping the different representations of sorceresses in Hellenistic and Athenian literature. Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 44. A fourth-century figurine discovered in Egypt (now at the Louvre) corresponds almost exactly to the directions of the PGM recipe 4.296–466 cited here. For a discussion (and photograph) of the figurine and its text, see Gager, Curse Tablets, 97–100. See also Martinez, A Greek Love Charm from Egypt. See further discussion in this section. Oliensis, “Canidia, Canicula,” 127, for example, describes her “plant[ing] a child in Mother Earth to die” as a “monstrous perversion of motherhood.” On the woman behind Canidia, see Oliensis, “Canidia, Canicula,” 114–15; and Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 180. Tavenner, “Canidia and Other Witches,” 17 (my emphasis). Oliensis, “Canidia, Canicula,” passim, explores Canidia’s association with dogs. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 180–81. Ibid., 180. Ibid., 181, admits that this portrait may be invective but argues that it “will nonetheless represent a reality of a kind: Gratidia cast in the rôle of prostitute and sorceress.” On the trope of libidinous old women in satire, see discussion further in this section and Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 109–16, and “Invective Against Women in Roman Satire,” passim. See discussion, in previous section, “The Discourse of Wicked Women.” Knust, Abandoned to Lust, 1–3. PGM 1.38, for example, requires that the petitioner walk barefoot (ἄβλαυτοϚ ἴθι). This is the only example, however, that I can find for this stipulation. More common is the requirement to walk backward, which does not feature in these literary depictions (see PGM 4.44, 4.2493; 36.273). The late date of the PGM makes it possible that this ritual is, in fact, influenced by the literary depictions rather than the other way around. See Stratton, “Ritual Inversion.” Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho,” 237; and Stratton, “Ritual Inversion.” Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, 176. See also his Epode 17, in which both Canidia and magic figure again.

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69. They are writing in the period just after the destructive and violent civil wars. See Conte, Latin Literature, 323. 70. Prop. 1.1.19–23; 2.1.51–56; 2.28b, 35–38; 3.6.25–30; and Tib. 1.5.11–16; 1.5.48– 56. 71. I translate docta (wise or educated woman) as “witch” to reflect Propertius’s sinister description of Acanthis and her magic arts. He may be using the term ironically here since it more often positively describes the beloved in Roman poetry. I thank James Rives for pointing this out to me. 72. Much ink has been spilled over the nature of Propertius’s relationship with Cynthia, and even more over her identity. Conte, Latin Literature, 323, writes that Propertius figured his relationship with Cynthia “as a conjugal relation and therefore to be bound by fides, safeguarded by pudicitia, and suspicious of luxuria and urban sophistication.” Propertius’s idealization of the relationship is, thus, according to Conte, ironic since Cynthia belongs to a class of women with whom Augustus’s lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus forbids marriage (see discussion below). Propertius’s relationship with her compromises his social status and respectability. Cynthia, for her part, Conte describes as haughty, capricious, tyrannical, and unfaithful, yet also elegant, refined, and “of great literary and musical culture,” Latin Literature, 333–34. Some caution should be used, however, when reading Propertius or other of the elegiac poets autobiographically. The description of the poet’s beloved complies with stock themes and stereotypes of the willful courtesan and functions in the poems to express the poet’s sense of subjugation and powerlessness—enslaved as he is to love. Furthermore, the identity of the beloved is either vague or changes according to the needs of the poem. In one poem she is married, in another she is modeled as a courtesan. The women that populate the elegies, therefore, could be read as caricatures or stereotypes, functioning semiotically to facilitate the poets’ discourse on love and suffering. They may only very roughly represent historical women, if at all. See, for example, Veyne, Roman Erotic Elegy, 1–14, who writes that the women of elegy should be read as “signs.” He believes that the women depicted suggest courtesans and “free” women of the demimonde, not noble or respectable women. Milnor, “Suis Omnia Tuta Locis,” 183–87, in contrast, reads Cynthia as a “respectable” woman, functioning in a discourse on private versus public; Propertius sings about Cynthia because she is often inaccessible to him, being respectfully enclosed in the privacy of her domus. He contrasts this with the prostitute who occupies public space. 73. Richlin, “Invective Against Women in Roman Satire,” 70, notes that animal imagery for invective purposes is relatively rare. When employed it is most often applied to women, especially old women. 74. On the erotic use of horse imagery in Coptic magic, see Frankfurter, “The Perils of Love,” especially 484–97. 75. In that case the milk helps attract shades rather than drives them away. See also note 76.

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76. Usually in magic spells one spits, for example, on or in something a certain number of times, not just randomly; the spit constitutes a magical substance (ὀυσία) for use in the ritual. Also, milk is usually poured as an offering, not sprinkled to chase the dead spirits away: see, for example, Odysseus’s necromantic ritual in the Odyssey (11:23–27), which provided a model for later magic rituals. Queen Atossa also pours milk at the tomb of Darius in Aeschylus’s Persians (611ff ) and the Derveni papyrus describes pouring milk as a libation for the dead. See Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persopolis, 118. See also Tupet, La Magie, 340, who makes this same point but credits the poet with artistic brevity rather than invention. She suggests that he employs the essential traits—hissing, sprinkling milk—because these were the operations most associated with magic in popular belief and therefore the most evocative. 77. It appears that Tibullus and other writers may have had some vague knowledge of “magic” rituals such as those found in the PGM. This does not suggest, however, that the literary portraits should necessarily be read as descriptive of real practices or real magicians and witches. Rather, the similarities indicate a process of reciprocal influence. Aspects of the PGM, which date to the 4th century ce, suggest that those rituals may be influenced by literary depictions rather than the other way around. See Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho,” 236–37; and Stratton, “Ritual Inversion.” 78. See also Pollard, “Magic Accusations Against Women,” 205–8. 79. Newlands, “The Metamorphosis of Ovid’s Medea,” 178, notes that Ovid concentrates on those elements of Medea’s story in which magic features most strongly in contrast to Euripides, who played down Medea’s magic power. 80. While Greek maenads, as far as can be determined, practiced their rituals chastely, by the Roman period, maenadism, and bacchanalia more generally, had become associated with wine and sexual license. See Heinrichs, “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” 135–36, 155–59. See also McNally, “The Maenad in Early Greek Art,” 118–22, on the evolution of the maenad in Greek art. Ovid’s comparison of Medea to a maenad may, therefore, be intended to invoke notions of uncontrolled female sexual passion in addition to sinister ritual sacrifice, resonating with the discourse of wicked women. 81. Newlands, “The Metamorphosis of Ovid’s Medea,” 179, makes this same observation. 82. In Heroides 12, however, Ovid attributes more emotion to Medea, emphasizing the excessive passion, jealousy, and barbarism that lead her to murder. This may also have been true of Ovid’s depiction of Medea in his now lost play by that name. 83. Following Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul.” See also Rosenmeyer, Senecan Drama and Stoic Cosmology, x and 186. 84. It is possible that Ovid’s missing Medea may have already introduced some of these changes. See discussion in Chaumartin, Sénèque Tragédies, 149. 85. In Pindar’s telling of the myth, for example, Jason is the first to employ magic when he ensnares innocent and virginal Medea with a seductive ἴυγξ spell,

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86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97.

turning her magic powers against her own family to capture the golden fleece. Although ultimately critical of Medea and portraying her as the dangerous barbarian mistress, Euripides’ version of the story complicates Medea’s portrait by representing Jason as a thoughtless self-promoter; he seeks to enhance his status through a royal marriage to the princess of Corinth, recklessly discarding Medea when he no longer finds her useful. Apollonius spends the entire book 3 of his Argonautica detailing Jason’s seduction of Medea with magic and false promises. Medea emerges in this story as a modest maiden, observant of her filial duties and reputation, while Jason appears as deceitful and self-promoting. See also Clauss, The Best of the Argonauts, passim, on Apollonius’s presentation of Jason as the new heroic model; he has human failings and is morally questionable but realizes his goals nonetheless. I would like to credit my colleague, Roland Jeffreys, for pointing this out. See Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” 229–31, for a discussion of Seneca’s Stoic position against Aristotle ’s positive valuation of love. These were common features that marked the maenad’s trance. Heinrichs, “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” 122. Nussbaum, “Serpents in the Soul,” 234–37, suggests that Seneca deliberately employs snakes as an ambivalent symbol of sexual desire, passion, and ero¯s in his Medea. Numerous critics have chosen to dismiss Lucan’s “deviant syntax” and “dismembered bodies” as mere rhetoric that conceals the poem’s meaning. Critics applying a deconstructionist approach to Lucan, on the other hand, have argued that his style enacts the chaos of civil war. See Bartsch, Ideology in Cold Blood, 4, 6–7. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome, 2–7, discusses the general approval and enjoyment of the games by all classes of Romans. See, for example, Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 106 and chapter 5 passim. Sextus Pompey emerges as an ambivalent character in this poem. In fact, Bartsch, Ideology in Cold Blood, 7–8, argues that there are two Pompeys in the epic: “One is Caesar’s rival for Roman supremacy, a man as greedy for regnum as his energetic father-in-law” and the “other is Pompey the hero . . . the last defender of the Roman Senate.” Bartsch points out that the portrait is conflicted; the narrator praises Pompey as a hero even as the narrative itself presents him as a grasping tyrant. Lucan’s Pharsalia can also be read as a comment on the moral depravity and corruption of power under the Caesars, especially Nero, his former friend and now enemy. On Erictho as a symbol of civil chaos, see Gordon, “Lucan’s Erictho,” 233– 35; and Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome, 220. Bartsch, Ideology in Cold Blood, 2–3. See his Apologia and discussion in chapter 4, this volume. Lucius never does learn the arts of magic about which he is so curious. See my discussion of the Egyptian prophet (Aegyptius propheta, 2.28) and Chaldean diviner (2.12) in chapter 4, this volume. While these men practice arts fre-

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quently associated with magic, they are not demonized by the morbid activities ascribed to the women portrayed as witches in this novel. 98. At first she is described as “rather attractive” (1.7), but later, when she comes to take revenge, the narrator of the story, who has not been bewitched and can see the “real” woman, describes her and her accomplice as “women of rather advanced age” (1.12). 99. This is not to suggest that sorceresses in Greek legend did not also control nature to some extent: Aristophanes Nubes, 749–50, for example, refers to a γυναιˆκα φαρμακίδεϚ from Thessaly who can draw down the moon. The association of Thessalian women with magic, and, specifically, the cryptic art of drawing down the moon, thus has very ancient roots. 100. Although Johnson, Momentary Monsters, sees humorous elements in Erictho also. 101. See, for example, Scobie, Apuleius and Folklore, 75–154, with a discussion of “night-witches,” 97–99; and Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons, 207. 102. See note 4. 103. Descriptions of the old woman’s sagging buttocks or pendulous breasts parody love elegies’ standard praise of the beloved’s smooth stomach and firm bosom. Furthermore, the hag’s sexual eagerness and desire, itself a source of repulsion as well as humor, inverts the inaccessibility of the beloved in elegy. Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 110–11. 104. Translation from Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 110. 105. As in the case of love elegy, we can assume that this description does not represent a real woman as much as Horace ’s own fantasy of the grotesque. It presents him with an opportunity to explore his impotency in the same way that love elegy enabled Propertius the chance to meditate on his misery and slavish suffering. 106. Education and law were also spheres in which men appear to have felt threatened by female “intrusion.” The comic poet Titinius, for example, who is known from only a few fragments and titles to his plays, wrote a comedy called Iurisperita that seems to have mocked a woman for acting as her own lawyer and “parad[ing] her legal knowledge.” Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 46. Valerius Maximus, a first-century ce moralist, also describes women who, he claims, abandon their matronly pudor in order to plead cases in court. One woman was so skillful at her own defense that she was given the moniker “Androgyne” to characterize her manly spirit. Another woman, Carfania, was so notorious for making speeches before the praetor that her name became synonymous with “impudence” and, he states, is still applied to women who act shamelessly (8.3.2.). See Grubbs, Women and the Law, 61, for text and commentary. Juvenal’s sixth satire also castigates women of the literary set for what he perceives to be overbearing demonstrations of intellect and education (434–440). Juvenal’s primary source of complaint with such a woman lies in her intrepid treading on male territory.

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107. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 54, notes that “[when wealthy women can buy sex] notions of sexual and economic freedom are elided. Money buys a woman the right to indulge her desires as she pleases. What are the implications of this for the husband? A man who is poorer than his wife is less of a man (a reminder that Roman notions of masculinity are bound up with perceptions of power).” On the comic exaggeration of fears and fantasies in satire see Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 114, “Invective Against Women in Roman Satire,” 67; and Braund, “Introduction,” 1. 108. Caligula. 109. See Clark, Thinking with Demons, 11, and passim. 110. Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, 113. Oliensis, “Canidia, Canicula,” 120–26, argues that invective against oversexed old women compensates for the poet’s own impotence, both physical and political—“civil war and war between the sexes are inextricably linked.” 111. I am not using emancipated here in the modern sense of self-aware and politically empowered. Rather I mean economically and legally liberated from the control of male relatives or husbands. 112. On the erosion of senatorial influence and the resulting sense of resentment and malaise, see Syme, The Roman Revolution, chapter 22; and Salmon, A History of the Roman World, 39–52. 113. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 42–44. 114. Sallust, for instance, identifies luxuria and licentia as two vices that began to infect Rome under Sulla’s regime (Cat. 11–13). See also Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 5. 115. See note 44. 116. See, for example, Barrett, Agrippina, 7–8; Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, 5–10; and Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 42–43. 117. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome, 78–79, notes that Augustus was not the first to use legislation to govern moral conduct. The Gracchi sought similar policies. Metellus Macedonicus, censor in 131–130, for example, promoted marriage and child rearing. It was his speech that Augustus read to the Senate as a precedent for his own marriage legislation in 18 bce. See Holmes, The Architect of the Roman Empire, 43–44, for a clear summary of marriage laws, compiled from various historical and legal sources. The lex Popia-Poppaea of 9 ce modified the lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus in response to noncompliance and complaints among the elite; it is difficult now to tell which part of the legislation belongs to which date. See Grubbs, Women and the Law, 84. See also Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 322–23; Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 77–78. 118. See Grubbs, Women and the Law, 84, for a succinct summary. In reality this law may not have been such an incentive since the tutor was, by this time, more or less a formality; women were able to petition to have a guardian

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changed if he did not cooperate with her wishes. On the effects of the law on women’s tutela, see Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 20–21. 119. Most scholars have assumed that the law targeted and primarily affected the upper class; McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome, 79–80, suggests that the law may have reached farther down the social scale than some have previously argued. 120. Holmes, The Architect of the Roman Empire, 41–42, for example, describes a “growing repugnance to marriage” expressed by the younger members of society and a preference for amusement over responsibility and children. Southern, Augustus, 148, similarly states that the increasing independence and autonomy of upper-class women made them unbearable as wives and suggests that men preferred docile former slaves as mistresses. 121. Hänninen, “Conflicting Descriptions,” proposes that Livy’s historical account of Cybele ’s arrival as an officially sanctioned cult at Rome in 204 bce and his description of the so-called Bacchanalia scandal of 186 bce represent a discourse on women’s morality. In his contrasting depictions of those two events, she writes, Livy delineates an ideal for women’s proper behavior, concentrating on their sexual comportment. 122. See Holmes, The Architect of the Roman Empire, 41. Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 288–89, writes that scholarship since the 1930s has tended to concentrate on demographic concerns of population decline rather than moral or eugenic motivations. Recently, for example, Southern, Augustus, 147, accepts the legislation as a means to increase procreation among the upper classes. Others challenge the theory that Rome suffered from population decline and focus on the ideological aspect of the law. See also Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 283–84, for a review of previous positions on the issue. 123. Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 37, argues for dating both laws to 18 bce. 124. Milnor, “Suis Omnia Tuta Locis,” 40, insightfully points out that not only does this law challenge the private/public dichotomy but it also grants women “a kind of legal subjectivity which they had never before enjoyed, and thus places the question of women’s role in public life squarely on the table.” 125. See Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 310–19, on lex Julia de adulteriis, which includes discussion of previous scholarship. 126. Tac. Ann. 2.85, for example, mentions the case of Vistilia, daughter of a praetorian family, who registered as a prostitute with the Aediles to avoid a charge of adultery. She was sentenced to exile on the island of Seriphos. See also Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 318; Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society, 252; and Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 160–62. 127. Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage,” 282. 128. See Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, 5–10; and Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 15.

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129. See, for example, Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage”; Galinsky, “Augustus’ Legislation on Morals and Marriage”; Carey, Population Problems of the Time of Augustus; McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome; Gardner, Family and Familia; Syme, The Roman Revolution, 59; Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, 143–54. 130. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, 150–51. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 16, records the trial of a group of matrons for stuprum in 295 bce. 131. Milnor, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus, 3–4. 132. On women of the imperial house functioning as icons, see ibid., 80–93. 133. Accusations of magic ruined the careers and cost the lives of many prominent people (see discussion, this chapter). 134. According to the cases compiled by Marshall, “Women on Trial Before the Roman Senate,” 362–65, out of eleven charges of adultery, twenty charges of maiestas, and nine charges of magic, adultery and maiestas are combined five times, magic and maiestas four times, and magic and adultery (including also maiestas) occurs only once. These figures are based on explicit charges and do not take into consideration the fact that charges, such as adultery, may be brought for political purposes where “evidence” for maiestas was harder to “uncover.” Additionally, the accusations of magic do not necessarily include other related phenomena, such as consulting an astrologer, which frequently formed part of a maiestas charge. 135. For a woman, half her dowry and a third of her other property; for her male lover, half his property. Grubbs, Women and the Law, 83–84. 136. Tacitus notes that Tiberius changed the intention of the law, which had originally covered offenses such as betrayal of an army, seditious incitement of the people, or other similar acts that destabilized the Roman nation (Ann. 1.72). 137. Similar cases occurred in which false friends led someone to commit maiestas by encouraging them to complain about the emperor and then serving as a witness against them (Dio 57.23.1, 58.11). 138. Other cases include Furius Scribonianus, who was driven into exile for consulting astrologers about the death of the sovereign (Tac. Ann. 12.52); Calpurnius Piso was accused of hiding poison (venenum) at his house (Tac. Ann. 4.21). 139. This may reflect the bias of the historians and their rhetorical use of magic discourse as much as the actual distribution of accusations. See further discussion in this section. 140. See also the accounts in Suet. Tib. 52 and Dio 57.18.8–9. 141. Recently an inscription was discovered in Spain that sheds new light on the episode and on Tacitus’s methods and reliability. See Damon, “Senatus Consultum.” 142. Joshel, “Female Desire and the Discourse of Empire,” 222–23, for example, demonstrates that, in Tacitus’s history, Messalina’s “violence, her excessive desire that produces chaos and emasculates” functions as a sign “in a dis-

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course of imperial power that simultaneously informs, if not determines, her image.” See also Marshall, “Ladies in Waiting,” passim. 143. In a similar case preceding this one, Sosia Galla, a close friend of Agrippina, was accused and convicted on charges of extortion—the real crime being her devotion to Agrippina (Tac. Ann. 4.19). 144. One has to include Sejanus in this discussion also since he was fueling the ire against Agrippina for his own ambitious purposes. Nonetheless, he fed existing hostilities and rivalries, to which Tacitus makes frequent allusion—calling them “feminine” jealousies or rivalries. 145. Messalina’s alleged adultery, while it seems to have been the cause of her execution, according to historians, functions as a trope in Tacitus just as much as magic does. See note 142. Both constitute central features of the “wicked” woman discourse. 146. Syme, History in Ovid, 209–10. 147. Suetonius states that they had divorced twenty years earlier and suggests that the charges were motivated by greed (Tib. 49). 148. Such as transferring her slaves to the consul in order that they may be questioned under torture against her. This novelty was introduced, according to Tacitus, by Tiberius during the trial of Libo Drusus (Ann. 2.27) (previously discussed). 149. See note 147. 150. One woman, for example, on an extant spell from Boeotia seeks to break up a marriage. Gager, Curse Tablets, no. 18, 85–86. The petitioner in this spell appears to be the mistress or “other woman” in a love triangle who desires to separate a man from his wife in order to have him all to herself. This tablet may date to as early as the fourth century bce (based on the simple style of the petition). Women also used erotic magic to attract other women. Bernadette Brooten, for example, devotes an entire chapter to women’s use of magic to pursue other women erotically. Love Between Women, 73–113. Additionally, evidence exists for women’s use of magic in situations of economic and social competition. See Gager, Curse Tablets, 161–62, 168–71. 151. Marshall, “Women on Trial Before the Roman Senate,” passim. 152. See, for example, Horace ’s Ode 1.37, which celebrates Cleopatra’s defeat and describes her suicide. It has been suggested that, in fact, she was executed by Octavian’s forces. See Mulroy, Horace’s Odes and Epodes, 14. 153. . . . dum Capitolio / regina dementis ruinas / funus et imperio parabat, Hor. Odes 1.37.6–8. 154. A year later. See also note 152. 155. One could not celebrate a triumph over fellow Romans in civil war. Too much guilt and shame attached to such a victory, which was won at the cost of Roman lives. Civil war inverted the traditional honors and virtues that attached to warfare—“victory” was equivalent to “murder”; “loyalty” equaled “betrayal” or “treason.” For this reason, exaggeration of Cleopatra’s role in the war enabled Augustus to turn the battle of Actium into a mythic battle

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of West against East, civilization against barbarians. See Gurval, Actium and Augustus, 149–56. 156. See Clark, Thinking with Demons, passim.

4 . m y m i r acle, your magic 1. For example, magic discourse abetted persecution of Jews and “heretics,” early modern witch hunts, and the elimination of the Knights Templar as well as operated in numerous individual conflicts. See Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons. Charges of magic are also often coupled with other marginalizing discourses such as sexual misconduct, foolishness, or irrationality. See Knust, Abandoned to Lust; and Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly. 2. See, for example, Anderson, The Second Sophistic. 3. Paranormal here reflects a modern post-Enlightenment designation of these phenomena, but, as the discussion indicates, the men themselves describe these phenomena as incredible or miraculous. In the end, they affirm their belief in such events. Lucian, however, mocks such men as foolish for believing in superstition. 4. Lucian’s satire illuminates one ancient skeptic’s perception of the degree to which belief in magic and the miraculous held sway even among intelligentsia. The elder Pliny, for example, records medicinal aids that seem outlandish to us but were “almost universally believed” (consensu prope iudicii) in his time and, he asserts, “for which careful research can assure us” (Nat. 28.2). On this list Pliny includes ingesting a salamander preserved in honey for an aphrodisiac (Nat. 29.24), a cure for baldness that involves ash of sheep’s dung with cyprus oil and honey, or hooves (reduced to ash) of a mule of either sex applied in myrtle oil (Nat. 29.34). Pliny also includes verbal formulas (carmina) to charm away disease and injury (Nat. 28, 29). These practices constitute legitimate forms of medicine, rather than magic, for Pliny. Lucian thus presents a rare criticism of such beliefs, presaging post-Enlightenment attitudes toward these sorts of practices. 5. In this case the model is of Cupid, who goes to fetch the desired woman, Chrysis. In rituals that employ figurines the model usually represents the beloved who is made to suffer, through torture inflicted upon the figure, until she (rarely he) gratifies the lover who commissioned the spell. 6. According to Lucian’s own testimony Alexander’s cult was popular and well regarded (18, 30). On Lucian’s attitudes toward religion and myth more generally, see Betz, Lukian von Samosata, 23–28. Nock, Conversion, 96, notes that Lucian “was deeply out of sympathy with popular religion and in the tradition of ancient invective some very unpleasant charges were conventional.” For this reason, Lucian’s description of Alexander should not be regarded as representative of common attitudes. On the other hand, Nock, Conversion, 97–98, accepts that some established cults did produce false miracles. Yet, he also cautions us to “beware being over free with charges of deliberate

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7. 8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15.

bad faith.” Ancient ritual “rested on the assumption that material objects and persons could be given a new and supernatural content and significance.” He concludes, “there can be no doubt of the sincerity of those who recorded the miracles by which they believed themselves to have benefited.” Apuleius may hint of Lucius’s future conversion to Isis in this scene by portraying the efficacy and sanctity of the Egyptian priest in respectful terms. Even though the Chaldean oracle-giver mentioned earlier accurately predicts Lucius’s fate, the portrait there is more negative in that he ultimately is unable to predict his own future. Thus, his prophecy for Lucius may only be accidentally accurate. See discussion in chapter 3, this volume. The common translation of μάγοι as “wise men” (RSV and NRSV) rather than “magicians” or even “magi” attests to the continuing influence of magic discourse as translators try to avoid the negative connotations associated with magi and magic. See, for example, Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 351–54; Nock, Conversion, 103– 4; Walbank, The Hellenistic World, 210; Martin, Hellenistic Religions, 23–24; Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, 2 and passim. E.g., Tacitus Hist. 4.81–82, regarding Vespasian, and Philo Legat. 144–145, regarding Augustus. Cited in Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity, 40– 41. See also discussion in Penner, “Res Gestae Divi Christi.” Most date to the fourth century bce. Inscriptiones Graecae, IV2, 1, nos. 121–22. Text and translation from Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, T. 423.9, pp. 223, 231–32. See also the extensive collection of miracle accounts in Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity, passim. Howard Clark Kee locates Mark’s use of miracle within Jewish apocalyptic tradition, which used power over evil as a sign that “God’s Rule is already manifesting itself in the present.” Medicine, 73. See Cotter, “Cosmology and the Jesus Miracles,” 118–19, for a different opinion. This “apocalyptic” meaning of miracle as a sign of God’s Kingdom is in tension with an understanding of miracle as the act of a θειˆοϚ ἀνήρ (Divine Man). On the problem of using the “divine man” typology see Koskenniemi, “Apollonius of Tyana,” who argues against the existence of a Hellenistic θειˆοϚ ἀνήρ type that influenced the representation of Jesus in the Gospels. He proposes that the model for Jesus’s miracles is not Greek but rather Jewish holy men such as Elijah and Moses. See also Barry Blackburn, Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions, for a critique of the θειˆοϚ ἀνήρ concept. Other scholars understand the secrecy motif (Mark 1:43–44, 5:43, 7:36) to oppose a popular understanding of Jesus as ordinary miracle worker. See, for example, Kee, Medicine, 85. The secrecy motif alerts the reader to a deeper theological significance than the obvious “popular” one and prepares the reader for Mark’s passion narrative. Despite this tension and desire to represent the deeper mystery of Christ’s identity, Mark nonetheless capitalizes on Hellenistic expectations of miracle to demon-

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16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

22.

strate Jesus’s eschatological power. As Wilson, Related Strangers, 43, writes: “There can be little doubt that Mark wishes to present [Jesus] positively as a powerful and impressive figure, a sort of divine man.” But as the fulfillment of scripture, Jesus is not a heroic messianic figure in Mark; rather, he must suffer, die, and be raised (8:31). It is this new conception of messiahship that heralds the apocalyptic age in Mark: “And he said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power’” (9:1). Much scholarship has examined the role of miracles (“signs”) in John’s gospel. Following Bultmann’s proposition of a Signs-Source (Semeia-Quelle), numerous scholars have examined John’s redaction and use of this source. See, for example, Fortna, The Gospel of Signs; and Smith, Johannine Christianity, 62–79. See, for example, 4:48, 12:37–43, and 20:29. Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 139. Beginning with Moses in the Hebrew Bible, including also Elijah, Elisha, and numerous figures from the rabbinic period such as Hanina ben Dosa and Honi ha-meagel, Jewish tradition had accepted miracles as testimony of spiritual power and charismatic piety. In the Greek and Roman tradition, heroes traditionally perform miracles and manifest divine powers. See, for example, Kee, Medicine, chapter 3, passim; Smith, Johannine Christianity, 25, 76; and the articles collected in Cavadini, Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity. See also Koskenniemi, “Apollonius of Tyana,” passim. This diary is largely regarded by classical scholars to be Philostratus’s invention. See Bowie, “Apollonius of Tyana,” who argues that not only is the diary an invention of Philostratus but the person of Damis is also a fiction and would have been understood by ancient readers to be a “novelistic topos.” See Koskenniemi, “Apollonius of Tyana,” 456–64, who discusses the history of this interpretation and critiques it. On charges that Apollonius was a magician, Lucian already a century earlier identifies Alexander “the false prophet’s” teacher to be a disciple of Apollonius of Tyana in an obvious effort to disparage Alexander by identifying him with a “disreputable” lot. See Harris, “Apollonius of Tyana,” 189–90. See also Mead, Apollonius of Tyana, 53–64; and Conybeare, “Philostratus,” v–xv. On the other hand, Bowie, “Apollonius of Tyana,” 1671–73, proposes that Apollonius was already associated with Pythagorean philosophy before Philostratus wrote his VA; this characterization, therefore, was not invented to legitimize a goe¯s. Noticing that Q does not contain miracle stories, some form-critical scholars attributed Jesus’s miracles to Hellenistic influence and to the gospel writers’ desire to compete with Apollonius. They thus tried to dissociate the “historical” Jesus from the miracle-working Jesus of the gospels. See Kee, Medicine, 75–79, for discussion and bibliography. Koskenniemi, “Apollonius of Tyana,” rejects this view.

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23. See Mead, Apollonius of Tyana, v; and Kee, Medicine, 85, on the VA as a kind of “counter-gospel.” 24. Both Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians (12:11f ) and John’s Gospel (4:48), for example, testify to the public demand for miracles as signs of charismatic power. See also Mark 8:12 where some Pharisees demand a sign from Jesus to test him but he remarks that “no sign shall be given to this generation.” See also Herczeg, “Theios Aner Traits,” 38. 25. Kee, Medicine, 86, notes that many of Apollonius’s cures fall under the heading “natural therapy,” reflecting commonsense knowledge of the body rather than superhuman interventions into nature. 26. See also Reimer, Miracle and Magic, 13 and passim. 27. Ibid., 130–39. Neyrey, “Miracles, in Other Words,” illuminates the economy of miracle and breaks down this dichotomy somewhat. He demonstrates that all social acts, including healing, involve a value exchange; the god or miracle worker expects honor and acclaim for his miraculous cures. 28. See also Reimer, Miracle and Magic, 98 and passim. 29. On miracles and emperors see note 12 above. 30. See chapter 3, this volume. 31. The charge of magic was brought by her in-laws who had hoped to retain her inheritance within their own family, according to Apuleius’s defense. 32. The speech probably reflects original arguments presented in court that have been reworked, polished, and elaborated for publication as was common practice for rhetoricians of that day. 33. See discussion in chapter 3. See also Kippenberg, “Magic in Roman Civil Discourse,” 144–49, who discusses the laws under which Apuleius was most likely charged and their anticipated punishment. 34. “Salvation” is understood broadly to include anything from the promise of life after death, access to special wisdom or knowledge (γνω ˆ σιϚ), and liberation from the vicissitudes of Fortuna, to merely advocating the philosophic and ascetic life. 35. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 355, notes that Isis is said to be “above” Fate. See also Nock, Conversion, 103; and Martin, Hellenistic Religions, 24–25. It is important to emphasize that not all Christians—perhaps only a small minority at this point—were “Pauline” and followed this interpretation of Christianity. 36. On baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection, see Romans 6:2–11; on the imperishable body, see 1 Corinthians 15:42–57. See also discussion in Segal, Paul the Convert, 59–61. 37. See Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 85–94, on the language of “belonging” and experience of communitas in early Pauline churches. See also Segal, Paul the Convert, 110–14, on messianic and sectarian elements in the earliest Christian communities. 38. Mark 13:5–37 predicts persecution of the faithful in preparation for the apocalyptic judgment and restoration. See Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, on the role of martyrdom in shaping early Christian identity and community.

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39. Revelation 17 portrays Rome as a harlot, arrayed in scarlet and jewels and drunk on martyrs’ blood, whom Jesus defeats while the faithful look on. 40. See Wypustek, “Magic, Montanism,” especially 277–80. 41. See Beard, North, and Price, Religions of Rome, 211–44. 42. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny, 705, does not find the linguistic similarities between Livy 39.18.3 and Pliny 10.96.7 to be convincing evidence that Pliny is deliberately echoing Livy here (contra Grant). Nonetheless, it is highly likely that Pliny and many of his readers would have seen a structural similarity between early Christian ritual and Livy’s description of the Bacchanal affair. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 109, for example, cites this event as a precedent and justification for the Neronian persecutions of 64 ce. 43. On the use of ao¯roi in magic see Johnston, Restless Dead, 71–80. 44. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, 35–37, highlights what he regards as a “feminist” aspect of the Bacchanal movement, which he sees as a form of “social protest.” Bauman tends, however, to accept ancient testimony at face value without questioning the veracity of the account. In other words, he accepts as true charges against the Bacchanals and interprets them as deliberate acts of political subversion. He does not entertain the possibility that the charges may be trumped-up and ideologically motivated or that Livy’s account may be exaggerated. See also MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 37 and especially 56, where she notes that Livy’s description of the Bacchanal scandal may have influenced Pliny’s attitude toward this new cult and its female participants. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, 217, notes that the cult of Bacchus was tolerated in Rome as long as it was confined to women; the Bacchanal scandal resulted from opening the cult to male participation, which led to licentious misconduct. Kraemer, Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World, 16, notes that the association of Bacchanalia with women could function as a defamatory trope in Greek rhetoric as early as the fourth century bce. 45. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 37, 50–59. 46. See Wypustek, “Un Aspect Ignoré,” who discusses the association, in Roman minds, of certain Christian practices with erotic magic. 47. See discussion in earlier section “Magic Stereotyping in the Second Century.” 48. See Remus, “Does Terminology Distinguish?” for a discussion of the different perceptions and ways of naming acts of power in Christian, Jewish, and pagan writings. 49. Smith, Jesus the Magician, 61–64; and Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, xlv, discuss the use of Jesus’s name in extant “magical” texts such as the PGM and various amulets. On the use of Jewish themes in magical papyri, see Betz, “Jewish Magic.” See Meyer and Smith, Ancient Christian Magic, for examples of amulets and spells that employ the name of Jesus, the title “Christ,” or historiolae from Jesus’s life. See also Frankfurter, “Narrating Power,” on the use of historiolae in Coptic spells.

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50. On Jewish accusations that Jesus was a magician, see Smith, Jesus the Magician, 46–50. Because these rabbinic sources date to the fourth century ce or later, I do not discuss them here in the context of the early contest for power. But see chapter 5 where I discuss rabbinic responses to the use of Jesus’s name in magic. 51. Lincoln, Authority, 78. 52. Christianity was not always proscribed in the empire. Except for a few instances of imperial decrees, its status and treatment varied depending on local authorities, whose duty and prerogative it was to prosecute crime. See Castelli, Martyrdom and Memory, 37–38; and Wypustek, “Magic, Montanism.” 53. This laconic story was greatly developed in postexilic sources. See: 1 Enoch 6.1, 19.1; Testament of Reuben 5.1, 5–6; Jubilees 4.22, 5.1; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 56.10; Tobit 6.14, 8.3; Josephus, Antiquities 1.73. 54. See Reed, Fallen Angels. 55. See, for example, Garrett, The Demise of the Devil. 56. The process continued for several more centuries. See essays in Becker and Reed, The Ways That Never Parted. 57. Daniel Boyarin sees this process being initiated by Christian apologists, such as Justin, and imitated by rabbis. See Border Lines, 11 and introduction. Robinson and Koester, Trajectories Through Early Christianity, 15, in contrast, sees the “emergence of normative Christianity” as part of an empire-wide trend toward “stabilizing, normalizing, rigidifying, standardizing” expressions of religiosity in both Jewish and “pagan” circles. 58. See Guelich, “Anti-Semitism and/or Anti-Judaism in Mark?” on Mark’s polemic against Jewish authorities, which includes earlier bibliography. 59. See, for example, Mark 1:22, 27, 8:11–13, 10:2–9. 60. E.g., Mark 2:23–28 and 3:1–6 on Sabbath observance, 7:1–8 on washing hands, 7:9–13 on vowing property to the temple instead of supporting ones parents. 61. Jesus’s ability to perform miracles and cast out demons demonstrates that he possesses an authority that the Pharisees do not. See, for example, Mark 1:23– 27, 2:9–12, 3:22–27. He also outsmarts the Pharisees with parables and clever answers to their legal challenges (Mark 7:1–23). 62. See Evans, “Faith and Polemic,” 4. 63. McKnight, “A Loyal Critic,” passim. 64. Ibid., 56. This is qualified by Matt 28:15, where his use of the term Jews suggests that the communities are already divided. 65. See John 9:22, 12:42, and 16:2 for references to Jesus’s followers being put out of the synagogue. The cause of this division can be identified as either theological or practical or a combination of both: it seems that the communities split over the correct way to conceive Jesus’s identity and role, part and parcel of which may have been a disagreement over the correct way to observe Torah. Traditionally, it has been argued that the split was theological, resulting from a reluctance among the “Jews” to accept John’s high Christol-

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66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78.

ogy. See, for example, Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple, 71–73; and Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. Recently, Reinhartz, “Martyn’s Method Revisited,” has challenged this reading, which emphasizes doctrine over praxis, and points out that the text itself suggests the conflict was over correct observance of Passover and Shabbat. Kysar, “Anti-Semitism and the Gospel of John,” 114–17. See also Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple, 52–53. Tiede, “‘Fighting Against God,’” 102–12, for example, analyzes Luke ’s negotiation of identity vis-à-vis the Jews and notes that, like the other three evangelists, Luke is preoccupied with Israel’s rejection of Jesus. Segal, Paul the Convert, 7, for example, shows how Luke depicts Paul’s conversion experience in terms of biblical calls to prophecy. Luke is not alone in his interpretation of events; other Jewish texts also interpreted the war with Rome as divine judgment leading to repentance and restoration. Tiede, “ ‘Fighting Against God,’ ” 105–7. On Israel as a model for salvation and judgment in Luke, see Flender, St. Luke, 107–17. It is not clear whether in passing to the gentiles Luke saw salvation as open or closed to the Jews. See Wilson, Related Strangers, 64–66, for discussion and bibliography. See also Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician, 82–91. Following Schüssler Fiorenza, “Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics,” 12–16. On Jews’ reputation for magic and the reality behind this myth, see Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition, introduction. See Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, on the power of the Holy Spirit in LukeActs. Schüssler Fiorenza, “Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics,” 9. Luke’s depiction of Paul places him at the juncture between Jesus’s ministry and the church’s salvific history. On the one hand, Luke seems to subordinate Paul to the apostles (see 14:4 as an exception). On the other hand, he depicts Paul as in every respect equal to the apostles and in some respects superior to them. Miracles, especially, serve to display Paul’s spiritual authority and equality with the twelve. Flender, St. Luke, 129–32; and Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 112–14. Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition, 115. E.g., Acts 11:2–3, 15:1–29, 15:37–41; Gal 1:7–9, 2:4, 2:11–14; 2 Cor 10:10–13, 11:3–6, 11:13–15, 12:11. See also Betz, “In Defense of the Spirit,” passim, on Paul’s struggles with the church in Galatia. Rev 2:9, 2:13–17, 2:20–23, 3:2–6, 3:8, 3:15–17. “The power of God that is called Great” ἡ δύναμιϚ τουˆ θεουˆ ἡ καλουμένη Μεγάλη (8:10). See Schüssler Fiorenza, “Miracles, Mission, and Apologetics,” 14, on the messianic implications of this title. On Simon’s identity as the Samaritan “messiah,” Ta’eb, see Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, 112.

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79. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, passim; and Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 308. 80. The category gnosticism is problematic. See, for example, Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism.” Nevertheless, I will continue to use it, not as a heuristic category, but as an emic definition employed by the ancient authors I am considering. 81. According to Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 74, an inscription found on the island in 1574 actually reads: SEMONI SANCO DEO FIDIO—a dedication to a god of oaths, heaven, thunder, and lightning. It may have been related to a shrine of Jupiter, and since Simonians were accustomed to identifying Simon with this god, they may have attributed the inscription to him: an interpretation which Justin learned from them. See Roberts and Donaldson, “First Apology,” 171, for an argument against Grant’s suggestion. 82. If we accept Luke ’s report as accurate, at least chronologically, we locate Simon in roughly the same time period as the apostles. This concurs with later traditions recorded in the Pseudo-Clementines that he was a disciple of John the Baptist; in which case Simon’s ministry would have been concurrent with that of Jesus. See Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, 47–48. 83. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles, 307; and Conzelman, Acts of the Apostles, 66. 84. See also Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, 60–61; and Tuzlak, “The Magician and the Heretic,” 416–26. 85. He may have derived this information from Justin, quoted previously. 86. The Greek text for this section has been lost; the text’s reconstruction relies on Old Latin and fragments from Syriac and Armenian. 87. Many scholars have accepted this as “evidence” for Simon’s gnosticism and explored the possibility that gnosticism emerged from a combination of Hellenism and dualistic Judaism found in Samaria. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord, 74, for example, identifies Samaritan messianism and dualism as a possible origin for Simonian gnosticism. Based on Luke ’s depiction of Simon as a μάγοϚ, Barrett, “Light on the Holy Spirit,” 286, suggests that μαγεία may have contributed to the development of gnosticism. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 92–93, proposes that Simonian γνω ˆ σιϚ arose out of Judea-Samaritan sectarianism in three stages: first, the period close to Dositheus and the notion of the “standing one” as a prophet like Moses. Second, the period when apocalyptic turned into gnostic, when Simon would come to regard himself, or be regarded by his disciples, as the power not of but above the Creator and when his fellow schismatic Helen would be regarded as “Wisdom, the mother of all.” At this point would come the coordination of Simonian mythology with Helen of Troy and with Christology. Only the later stage of Simonian doctrine was known to the church fathers, and this is why they treat Simonianism as the beginning of gnosticism, ascribing its origins to interest in magic or simply to the paranoid mad-

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88.

89. 90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95.

ness of Simon. Wilson, “Simon and Gnostic Origins,” 485, also accepts the “gnostic” character of Simon’s religious movement: “Irenaeus’s description of Simon’s trinitarian claims, the myth of Helen and the account of the creation of the World reveal that this system may be regarded as fairly primitive. As with other early Christian-gnostic groups there is as yet no Demiurge.” See also Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, for a review of the different positions in favor of Simon’s gnosticism. While it is likely that Simon must have been some sort of religious leader who contended for power with the earliest Christians, it is far less clear that he was the gnostic founder described by the church fathers. See discussion further in this section. See Haenchen, Acts, 307; and Conzelman, Acts, 66. According to Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, 60–61, the main objection to viewing Simon as a representative of a fully developed gnosticism is the fact that Acts, our earliest account, portrays Simon as a magician rather than as a gnostic. Haenchen argues that this only means that the NT tradition has degraded Simon from a divine redeemer into a mere sorcerer. Haenchen, “Gab es eine vorchristliche Gnosis?” 348. The possibility, however, that Luke “downgraded” Simon to the status of magician does not necessarily mean that Simon was a gnostic either. Rather, the early literary evidence suggests he was a religious leader of some sort but not a gnostic as this term comes to be understood in the second century. Quispel and Cerfaux both identify Simon with pregnostic γνωˆσιϚ: his teachings provided a seedbed in which gnosticism could later grow. See Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, 61–62, for discussion and bibliography. See also Garrett, The Demise of the Devil, 61–62, who proposes that Luke ’s portrait of Simon has less to do with the historical Simon than with Luke ’s use of him as a narratological device to demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit over Satan and his minions, magicians. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 70–71. Forms of Christianity that later became both “orthodox” and “heterodox” identified with Paul and claimed him as the authority for their teachings. See, for example, MacDonald, The Pauline Churches; MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle; and Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy, 104–5. Priscillian was not actually accused of being “gnostic” but was, for similar reasons, accused of practicing magic. On Priscillian, see Breyfogle, “Magic, Women, and Heresy.” On Marcus, see my further discussion, this chapter. Wilson, “Simon and Gnostic Origins,” 485; my emphasis. My emphasis. Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism, 58. It is possible, of course, that elements of Simon’s religion resembled aspects of gnosticism. But, as Williams points out, “gnosticism” is so broadly construed as to be almost meaningless as a heuristic device. Certainly the claim that Simon is the “father” of gnostic heresy is trumped up by the heresiologists. Gwatkin says, “I see nothing in Simon’s system beyond a generalized orientalism and an incidental use of Christianity which may well belong to the first

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century. There is no specific mark of Gnosticism upon it.” Early Church History to A.D. 313, ii, 31. Similarly, Wilson writes: “While Simon may reasonably be described as a Gnostic in the sense of Gnosis it is by no means clear that he was a gnostic in the sense of the later developed Gnosticism.” Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament, 49. See also Wilson, The Gnostic Problem, 99ff. Quoted in Barrett, “Light on the Holy Spirit,” 285. 96. Paul, for example, speaks in praise of Phoebe, a deacon (διάκονον) of the church at Cenchreae (Rom 16:1), Prisca, whom he describes as a fellow worker in Christ (συνεργούϚ, Rom 16:3), and Chloe, who seems to lead a community of believers in Corinth (1 Cor 1:11). See also Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her; Torjesen, When Women Were Priests; Jensen, God’s Self-Confident Daughters; the essays in Kraemer and D’Angelo, Women and Christian Origins; Gryson, Le Ministère des Femmes; and King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala. 97. Beginning in the third century this trend begins to change. See discussion later in this chapter. 98. Helena, for example, was said to travel about with Simon. She, however, is never accused of practicing magic herself and, in fact, seems to be one of the many followers beguiled into believing that Simon had special divine powers. See discussion below. 99. See Nasrallah, An Ecstasy of Folly, 26 and passim, on the relationship between discourses of rationality and irrationality, claims to authority, and the construction of group boundaries. 100. See MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 109. 101. See Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol,” 232, who describes the sexually permissive “heretical woman” as the polar opposite of the “orthodox female virgin.” The one leaves “all the gateways of her body unguarded” while the other remains obediently silent, closing her mouth as well as her genitals. 102. See Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 1–19; and MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 30–40. 103. See Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome, 46, 57, and discussion in chapter 3. 104. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 30–31. 105. Castelli, “Romans,” 274, persuasively argues for the importance of recognizing the existence of multiple “readings” or “meanings” in a single text. Similarly, Virginia Burrus suggests that the reality behind a rhetorical trope does not exclude the ability to consider its “symbolic” or ideological function in a text. Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol,” 233. I present merely one possible approach. Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism,” 174–75, for example, reads Irenaeus’s accusation as a misunderstanding of a Marcosian rite called “spiritual marriage.” 106. Irenaeus uses the passive form of κρατέω (κρατηθεὶϚ γυναικὶ and κρατηθηˆναι γυναικόϚ, 1.12.34–1.12.36) to describe Marcus’s effect on the women, emphasizing the perception of them as passive, victimized, and de-

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ceived. See also Castelli, “Romans,” 284. Women’s “foolishness” as a literary topos has a long history, dating back at least to the fifth century bce. See chapter 2, this volume. 107. Corrington, “The ‘Divine Woman?’” 172–73, traces the long-standing association in Greek and Roman thought between women’s sexual penetration and prophetic ability. Corrington notes Chrysostom’s reference to Lucan, who attributes the Pythia’s prophecy to her “being raped by the god” (Bell. civ. 5.166f ). See also Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol,” 232. 108. The issue of women’s participation operated also in the condemnation of other so-called heresies such as Montanism and Carpocratianism. See, for example, Trevett, Montanism; Breyfogle, “Magic, Women, and Heresy,” passim; Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol,” passim; Cardman, “Women, Ministry, and Church Order”; and Heine, Women and Early Christianity, 130–46. 109. Greek text from Detorakis, “To Anekdoto Martyrio tou Apostolou Andrea,” 345. 110. As Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 58 and passim, argues, such an attack on marriage constitutes an assault on the Roman state, its institutions, and its survival. 111. Wypustek, “Un Aspect Ignoré,” 57, discusses this passage in connection with accusations that Christians were manipulating converts with love magic. 112. Page 10 of Papyrus Coptic Utrecht 1. Text and translation (with slight changes) from MacDonald, The Acts of Andrew, 244–47. See also translation and commentary in Hennecke, Writings Related to the Apostles, 124–25. 113. See Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, chapter 2, and the example of the inflated wineskins from Apuleius’s Metamorphoses discussed in ch. 3, this volume. 114. See the introduction to the Acts of Andrew by Jean-Marc Prieur in Hennecke, Writings Related to the Apostles, 111–12. 115. Ibid. 116. The magician could also represent Rome. Boyarin, Dying for God, 79 and chapter 3 passim, considers the ideological function of “virgins” in early Jewish and Christian martyrologies; he posits that both rabbis and church fathers “identified” with female virgins as a mode of “disidentification” with violent and aggressive Rome. This insight into the symbolic role of virgins in early Christian discourse may illuminate the above narratives of magical attack where the virgin represents the pure church and the magicians symbolize violent, invasive, and phallic Rome. See further discussion in this chapter and note 127. 117. Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol,” 239, identifies the pure virgin with the true church: “To violate the virgins constituted a rape of the true church and a defilement of its purity.” 118. Castelli, “Romans,” 280–81; and Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 11. This is not to say that the depictions have no relationship to or shed no light on the lives and experiences of “real” historical women, as MacDonald, Early

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Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, 74–75, emphasizes. See also Matthews, “Thinking of Thecla,” 46–50, who cautions against erasing women’s history by overemphasizing the rhetorical use of women as tropes in ancient writings. 119. For similar examples and discussion see Gager, Curse Tablets, 78–115; and Ogden, “Binding Spells.” See also discussion and notes in chapter 2, this volume. 120. See Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic, 43–55; Winkler, “The Constraints of Desire.” See also Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells”; Faraone, “Aphrodite ’s KESTOS” and “Clay Hardens and Wax Melts,” passim, which examine issues of power and violence in ancient ἀγωγη´ spells. 121. Et magis reddita sanitate increpuit / virginem, cur fecisset talia, per / quae daemon intrare potuisset. 122. See also Frankfurter, “The Perils of Love,” 497–500, on the opposition of “monks” and “magicians” in Coptic miracle stories. 123. Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy, argues that the Apocryphal Acts originated as folktales in a female milieu; as such, they reflect women’s interests and selfperception. If true, this would help account for the divergent representations of the two virgins—the first successful, the second victimized. Castelli, “Virginity and Its Meaning,” insightfully points out that “the ideology of virginity” was equivalent to the “ideology of marriage” in that both commodified women’s sexuality and used it as an object in social or spiritual trade. While virginity may have afforded women some degree of social freedom, it did so at the expense of women’s identity and sense of selfhood by calling for a rejection of their inferior “feminine” nature. 124. I thank Ayse Tuzlak for pointing this text out to me. 125. E.g., Hom. Col. 8 (PG 62.357–9); Catech. 2 (PG 49. 240). 126. Boyarin, Dying for God, chapter 3; and Burrus, “Reading Agnes.” 127. As Boyarin, Dying for God, 79, writes: “Identification with the female virgin was a mode for both Rabbis and Fathers of disidentification with a ‘Rome ’ whose power was stereotyped as a highly sexualized male.”

5. c a u t i o n i n the kosher kitchen 1. See, for example, Braun-Holzinger, “Apotropaic Figures at Mesopotamian Temples”; and Burkert, “Itinerant Diviners and Magicians,” 116–19. 2. See, for example, Cohen, “The Place of the Rabbi”; Levine, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine; Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 103–28; and, most recently, Boyarin, Border Lines. 3. Starting with Hillel and Shammai. On the Mishnah as oral tradition see Neusner, Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaism, 59–75. 4. On reception of the Mishnah see Halivni, Midrash, 59–65. Hermeneutical techniques were often employed to limit, amend, or undercut rulings in the

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Mishnah. See, for example, Kraemer, “The Formation of Rabbinic Canon,” 616–27; Goldberg, “The Mishna,” 243–44; Goldberg, “The Babylonian Talmud,” 327–33; and Neusner, Uniting the Dual Torah. 5. I follow the dating of the redaction proposed by David Weiss Halivni, who argues that the Talmud was redacted by anonymous sages (stammaim) in the sixth century in Babylonia from a body of oral tradition (mostly legal rulings but also some narrative as well), which had been passed down from the early rabbinic period. This theory has been worked out in critical studies of individual tractates: Vol. 1, Nashim, Vol. 2, Yoma-Hagiga, Vol. 3, Shabbat, Vol. 4, Eruvin-Pesahim, and Vol. 5, Bava Qama. See also Halivni, Peshat and Derash and Midrash, chapter 5, for an accessible introduction to his theory and method. For other opinions on dating the redaction see Kalmin, The Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, who argues for a Saboraic redaction, and Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya, who argues that most sugyot developed earlier and consisted of a collection of Tannaitic statements (baraitot) upon which Amoraim later commented. According to her theory, the stam redacted the Gemara so that it appeared as if baraitot were introduced by the Amoraim to support their positions or answer questions, when, in fact, Hauptman argues, the baraitot were already part and parcel of the original proto-sugya. On this topic also see Rubenstein, The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud; Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors; and all the essays in Avery-Peck, The Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism, part 1. 6. See Goldberg, “The Palestinian Talmud,” 314–15, for a concise explanation. 7. After the conquest of Israel by the Assyrians and Judah by the Babylonians, Hebrew no longer functioned as the official language of these regions. While Hebrew continued to be spoken by local populations, Aramaic and later Greek became the languages of commerce and international interchange. It is difficult to know exactly what percentage of the population in Judea and Galilee spoke Hebrew at this time. Synagogue inscriptions appear in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, as do epitaphs. See Foerster, “The Ancient Synagogues of the Galilee,” 298, and Weiss, “Social Aspects of Burial in Beth She‘arim.” Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Hebrew as were some of Bar Kokhba’s correspondences. However, since the majority of Bar Kokhba’s epistles are in Aramaic, the lead excavator, Yigael Yadin, suggests that Bar Kokhba was trying to revive Hebrew by decree as part of his messianic ideology. Yadin, Bar-Kokhba, 124, and his published field report, The Finds from the Bar Kokhba Period. In contrast, Rendsburg, “The Galilean Background of Mishnaic Hebrew,” 235–36, argues that the Hebrew of the early rabbis (Tannaim) reflects the dialect spoken in Galilee (where the Mishnah was redacted) and derives from the pre-exilic Hebrew of Israel rather than Judah, which is the Hebrew represented in the Bible. Steven Fraade, however, significantly complicates the debate by arguing that the bilingualism of the Mishnah and Talmud does not reflect the language of the speakers but rather a rhetorical framing device employed by the redactor: Hebrew is the language of instruc-

5 . c a u t i o n i n t h e k o s h e r k i t c h e n   233

8. 9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

tion while Aramaic is the language of “debate, question and answer, as well as the editorial connecting and framing structures.” See Fraade, “Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum,” 275–76. Similarly, he claims that inscriptions do not indicate the language spoken by the majority of the population in a particular location but rather formal genres appropriate to the type and use of a particular inscription (277–81). He concludes that the Jewish population of Galilee in the rabbinic period were able to use and understand (at least partially) all three languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—switching between them as demanded by context and rhetorical intent. See also Alexander, “How Did the Rabbis Learn Hebrew?” who assumes that Hebrew was no longer in use after ca. 300 ce outside of rabbinic schools. See especially Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 18–22, and The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, 1–7. Kraemer, “On the Reliability of Attributions,” 187, makes this point well. For good examples of this approach see Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis; Valler, Women and Womanhood in the Talmud; and Kalmin, “Holy Men, Rabbis, and Demonic Sages.” Many scholars are skeptical of attributions and the ability to use them to reconstruct history. See especially Neusner, Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaism, chapter 2; Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 10–11; Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, 12–23; and, more recently, Stern, “Review of Shaye D. Cohen (Ed.).” This narrative of a magical contest between Rav Hisda, Rabbah bar Rav Huna, and a matron appears in almost identical form on b. Shab. 81b, where it is quoted to demonstrate that one should avoid wiping oneself with a pottery shard after using the toilet on Shabbat because someone could have used the pottery shard to write down a curse—these types of curses are well documented archaeologically. See Gager, Curse Tablets, 3, n. 5; and Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 17. The talmudic redactor uses this anecdote here to endorse rabbinic dietary innovations. See further discussion in this chapter. On the identity of the “Matrona” in rabbinic texts see, for example, Gershenzon and Slomovic, “A Second Century Jewish-Gnostic Debate,” 9. See discussion of ‫ מלה‬in Sperber, Magic and Folklore, 60–66. See discussion in chapter 4, this volume. Geller, “The Influence of Ancient Mesopotamia,” 50. Sperber, Magic and Folklore, 63, emends text to read ‫ אמר מה דאמר‬and states that it plainly means “cast a spell.” See, for example, Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 4–8, Rebecca’s Children, 148– 58; Wilson, Related Strangers, 176–94; Boyarin, “On Stoves, Sex, and SlaveGirls,” 171, and, most recently, Border Lines, 29–30, 54–65. In another version of this story, Rav Hanina and Rav Oshaia are said to be studying from the “book of creation” (‫ )ספר יצירה‬when they create the calf (b. Sanh. 65b). This has often been understood to refer to the well-known

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18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

book of early Jewish mysticism. See, for example, Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, 24–35. See y. Sanh. 41a where this is explicitly stated. In ancient literature eating is a way to demonstrate the corporal reality of something that might otherwise be regarded as fantastical. For example, in the gospel of John (21:9ff.) the resurrected Jesus is said to have shared not only bread with his disciples but fish as well, establishing his physical existence. I thank Alan Segal for this insight. For example, according to one story, a certain man was protected from the magical designs of his ex-wife as long as he abstained from eating or drinking in pairs. When his vigilance was down one night, due to inebriation, she gave him an even number of drinks; he fell victim to demons and died (b. Pesahim 110b). A textual parallel to this passage appears in y. Sanh. 41a, where it explicitly states that R. Eliezer used “magic” (‫ )מכשפה‬to plant cucumbers. Here it is inferred from the subsequent discussion. The Jerusalem Talmud, however, records only R. Eliezer’s teaching that the one who does an actual act of magic is guilty of a crime while the one who performs an illusion is not. It does not narrate the following story of R. Eliezer and R. Akiva planting and gathering cucumbers with magic, suggesting that this part of the sugya was introduced by the editors of the Bavli. On “pseudo” baraitot see Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 261–62; and Friedman, “Uncovering Literary Dependencies,” 43–44. Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen, 26–27, accepts this justification as applying to all cases where rabbis are reported to practice magic. Supporting this position is R. Yohanan’s statement that no one could sit on the Sanhedrin without mastering knowledge of magic (‫( )בעלי כשפים‬b. Sanh. 17a). See, for example, the infamous “witch of Endor” episode in 1 Sam 28:7ff, in which a woman calls up the ghost of the prophet Samuel for King Saul when all other methods of divination had failed him. Ezek 8:14 and 13:19 also associate Israelite women with illicit foreign practices, such as necromancy and idolatry. The association of women with magic occurs explicitly in Second Temple Jewish writings, which identify magic as one of the dangerous arts passed to human kind through women by the fallen angels of Gen 6. See 1 Enoch 6.1, 19.1; Testament of Reuben 5.1, 5–6; Jubilees 4.22, 5.1; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 56.10; Tobit 6.14, 8.3; Josephus, Antiquities 1.73. See also Reed, “Angels, Women, and Magic.” R. Yohanan is treating the word for magic (‫ )כשפים‬as an acronym, standing for: “they diminish the heavenly family.” This type of wordplay and impromptu etymology is common in rabbinic literature. R. Hanina’s opinion that magic has no power over God contradicts that of R. Yohanan, who claims that magic can harm even the divine assembly. See b. Hullin 7b for a slightly different version of this passage. It is not necessary to regard this biographical narrative as historically “true” to see how it established or reinforced a legend surrounding the persona of

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27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39.

Rabbi Hanina that, as a renunciate, his devotion, piety, and self-restraint could wield protective power. On the problem of accepting rabbinic biographies, see Neusner, In Search of Talmudic Biography, and Development of a Legend. Francis, Subversive Virtue, discusses both the social power that could derive from asceticism and also the suspicion that extreme forms of asceticism generated as deviant and subversive practices. See also Brown, The Body and Society. On the laws pertaining to ‫ נזירות‬see Num 6.1–21. See Tertullian’s Jejun. 6–8, on fasting and prophecy among Montanists. On Montanism in general, see Trevett, Montanism. Clearly not all women are considered to be outsiders, but certain passages suggest that as a category “women,” even Jewish women, were regarded in this way by certain rabbis. See discussion below. The ‫ פירוש‬by Korban ha-Edah clarifies that it was Joshua ben Levi, loc. cit. s.v. ‫בר בריה‬. It is not clear from the language of the text if the “magician” is a Christian or just utters an incantation in the name of Jesus Pandira. Possibly a leech or a bone. See Korban ha-Edah’s ‫פירוש‬, loc. cit. s.v. ‫הוה‬ ‫ליה בלע‬. Standard printed editions do not contain the phrase “in the name of Jesus Pandira” (‫)מן שמיה דישו פנדירה‬. Manuscript variants can be found in Schäfer, Synopse Zum Talmud Yerushalmi. See note 12. See Smith, Jesus the Magician, 46–50, on this and other versions of Jesus’s name in rabbinic literature. See also Sperber, Magic and Folklore, 61, who discusses the previous passage. My translation is based on the first printed edition (‫ )דפוס ראשון‬of the Tosefta in comparison with the Vienna MS and the London MS, according to Friedman and Moscovitz, Primary Textual Witnesses to Tannaitic Literature, available online from Bar Ilan University. See parallels in y. Avod. Zar. 2.2; y. Shab. 14.4; and b. Avod. Zar. 27b. Elsewhere it is stated that they may only heal if there are no other options and death seems certain (b. Avod. Zar. 27a–b). The Acts of the Apostles (19.13) suggests that the use of Jesus’s name to exorcise demons was in use by both Christians and non-Christians in the late first and early second century ce; the name Jesus appears also on amulets and in “magical” papyri from the rabbinic period. See discussion in Smith, Jesus the Magician, 61–64; Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, xlv. Extant examples are collected in Meyer and Smith, Ancient Christian Magic. These spells often employ the title Christ and historiolae of Jesus’s life in place of or in addition to the name of Jesus. See also Frankfurter, “Narrating Power,” on the use of historiolae in Coptic magic.

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40. Contrast this with the attitude toward other forbidden practices collectively labeled “ways of the Amorite” (‫)דרכי האמורי‬: if something is shown to heal, it does not belong to the “ways of the Amorite,” which is to say it is not forbidden (y. Shab. 6.9 and b. Shab. 67a). See also Veltri, “The Rabbis and Pliny the Elder.” 41. This statement has a parallel in Vayikra Rabbah 37.3 where it is attributed to R. Yaakov bar Zavdi in the name of R. Abahu (both Palestinian Amoraim). Furthermore, that version states simply that “now (‫ )עכשו‬one passes edible food on account of magic (‫ ”)מפני כשפים‬and lacks the explanation that “the daughters of Israel widely engage in magic.” 42. .‫הכשירה שבנשים בעלת כשפים‬ 43. My translation follows Rashi (loc. cit.), who explains ‫ לגמר את הכלים‬to mean that they used the spices to scent clothing. 44. See, for example, Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World, 86; Lesses, “Exe(o)rcising Power,” 343; Ilan, “Cooks/Poisoners,” 121; and Aubin, “Gendering Magic in Late Antique Judaism,” 141. 45. See Braun-Holzinger, “Apotropaic Figures at Mesopotamian Temples”; Scurlock, “Translating Transfers in Ancient Mesopotamia,” and “Magical Uses.” On the use of incantations to counter the harmful magic of “witches” see Abusch, “The Demonic Image of the Witch.” 46. On the magical expertise of Abaye ’s mother, see Lesses, “Exe(o)rcising Power,” 362–64. 47. See Bar-Ilan, “Between Magic and Religion,” 385–96, on the use of “sympathetic magic” as an accepted practice by rabbis. He notes that scholars are quick to lump a variety of ancient practices into the category magic, such as astrology, that do not belong there; they were regarded as legitimate science by the ancients including Jewish sages (384). He also correctly notes that many of the medical treatments he discusses in his article as sympathetic magic are not actually labeled magic by the rabbis. 48. Veltri, “Defining Forbidden Foreign Customs,” 32, argues that the “Ways of the Amorite” is “in Rabbinic Judaism a relative concept, not an essential quality of an act.” See also Veltri, “Der Magier im antiken Judentum,” 153–60. 49. Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World, 24. 50. .‫כל שהוא מרפא אין בו משום דרכי האמורי‬ 51. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols. Neusner recently published an abridged version that is very useful for gleaning the most important contributions. 52. See Betz, “Jewish Magic.” Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 35– 38, also discuss this. 53. Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 9. See also Morony, “Magic and Society in Late Sasanian Iraq.” 54. Pliny records innumerable “bizarre” medicinal practices popularly believed to be effective in his day (Nat. 28.6–8), many of which resemble those encountered in rabbinic literature. While some of these Pliny admits appear to be “outlandish” (barbaros), he asserts that he has chosen to record only those

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55. 56. 57.

58.

59.

60.

61. 62.

medicinal aides “almost universally believed” (consensu prope iudicii) and “for which careful research can assure us” (Nat. 28.2). For example, he relates that ingesting a salamander preserved in honey (after entrails, feet, and head have been removed) acts as an aphrodisiac (Nat. 29.24). Pliny also mentions the use of incantations (carmina) to charm away disease and injury (Nat. 28, 29). See also Veltri, “The Rabbis and Pliny the Elder,” 68–78. See discussion in Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, 101–2. Veltri, “The Rabbis and Pliny the Elder,” 83–84. The dating of these texts is problematic: manuscripts of this visionary literature date to the middle ages and represent centuries of accretions and redactions. See Schäfer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur, for a synopsis of the different manuscripts. It is largely accepted, however, that this literature reflects a visionary tradition (whether practical or exegetical is debated) that originated in Palestine between the third and sixth century ce. Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” 39. See also Alexander, “Mysticism,” who dates this literature to the fifth to eighth centuries ce. For different approaches to interpreting and situating this literature in its social and historical context, see Segal, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism”; Himmelfarb, The Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses; Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot; Davila, Descenders to the Chariot; and, most recently, Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic. See, for example, Swartz, Scholastic Magic; Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” 39–43; Schäfer, The Hidden and Manifest God, 150–57; Davila, Descenders to the Chariot, 25–51; and Lesses, Ritual Practices to Gain Power. The text was reconstructed from various geniza fragments and published in Margalioth, Sepher Ha-Razim. Margalioth, Sepher Ha-Razim, 24–26, dates the text to the late third century based on a number of criteria. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, 226, in contrast, dates the text to the sixth or seventh century; Alexander, “Sefer Ha-Razim,” 188, dates it to between the fifth or sixth centuries ce (inclining toward the later date) and offers, in my opinion, a persuasive argument for this conclusion. Margalioth, Sepher Ha-Razim, 10–11, suggests that the author belonged to a group opposing the rabbis, perhaps one of the ‫מינים‬. Alexander, “Sefer HaRazim,” 189, argues that the author of Sefer ha-Razim had at least some rabbinic training. Alexander sees the harmful aspects of some of these spells as the biggest challenge to understanding this text, not the syncretistic elements and apparent lapses into idolatry. See also discussion on the relation of rabbis and magic in Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” 37–38; and Swartz, Scholastic Magic, 214–21, who addresses this question in relation to the Sar Torah texts. See p. 170 for text and commentary. Amora/Amoraim (pl.) refers to rabbinic scholars who lived in the period after the Mishnah was compiled (circa 200 to 500 ce) and comment on it. The

238  5 . c a u t i o n i n t h e k o s h e r k i t c h e n

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80.

term Tanna/Tannaim (pl.) applies to rabbis whose teachings are recorded in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and various baraitot. They lived during the first two centuries of the common era. The story of R. Hanina is in Hebrew while the anonymous comment that he is saved by merit is in Aramaic. I attribute this comment to a Palestinian Amora rather than to a Babylonian one; this passage—Hebrew story and Aramaic comment—appears elsewhere as a unit (b. Hullin 7b), suggesting that it was already a received tradition by the time it came to Babylonia. See Hauptman, Development of the Talmudic Sugya, and note 5 in this chapter for discussion of the early date and Palestinian provenance of many sugyot. See note 26. A similar conception of the Holy Spirit’s role as harbinger of the messianic era can be seen in early Christian writings such as Acts 1:8 and 2:2–21. Parallel passages similarly state that God’s presence (‫ )שכינה‬rests on one who merits her through piety and humility (b. Sanhedrin 11a; b. Sotah 48b). Neusner, Talmudic Judaism, 57. See note 62 for explanation of terms. Green, “Palestinian Holy Men,” 636. Ibid., 644–46. For this reason no legal rulings are issued in his name. Bokser, “WonderWorking,” 42. See Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, who makes a similar argument and notes further the generally negative attitude toward asceticism among Babylonian rabbis. See also Segal, “Hellenistic Magic”; Remus, “Magic or Miracle?”; Remus, Pagan-Christian Conflict; Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness”; Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World. See also Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition; Nock, “Paul and the Magus”; Smith, “Prolegomena” and Jesus the Magician. It appears increasingly likely that these practices were not actually foreign at all but were condemned as such by the Deuteronomic redactor. See Schmidt, “Canaanite Magic.” There was, however, a certain ambivalence regarding asceticism and its power. See Francis, Subversive Virtue, xiv–xviii and passim. See North, Sophrosyne, for an exhaustive survey of the conceptualization and utilization of σωφροσυ´νη in Greek and Roman thought. Pages 273–285 focus, specifically, on its adaptation and employment as a topos in Roman political rhetoric. See also Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, 60–61; and Rademaker, Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint. Wimbush, Renunciation Towards Social Engineering. Francis, Subversive Virtue, 131–79. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, 138. Ibid., 131–32.

5 . c a u t i o n i n t h e k o s h e r k i t c h e n   239

81. Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society, 75–79, also notes that Palestinian sources attribute power more often to piety than to great learning or knowledge. He suggests that this reflects the influence of Byzantine Christianity, “which exhibits the same tendency to treat people who are not religious professionals as ‘loci of the sacred.’” See also Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 297–402, who identifies rabbis with Peter Brown’s description of the Syrian holy man. Oddly, Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, downplays any association between renunciation and spiritual power, favoring instead to concentrate on the association between mourning, sacrifice and asceticism. 82. T. Sotah 15:10–12; b. Baba Batra 60b. Fraade, “Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” 271. 83. Fraade, “Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” 272. 84. This is not to ignore the tension present in rabbinic discourse between ascetic impulses and the desire to curtail radical world negation. See Biale, Eros and the Jews, chapter 2; Satlow, Tasting the Dish; and Boyarin, Carnal Israel. 85. Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, 7. 86. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion, 34. 87. Moses fasted forty days (Exod 34:28, Deut 9:9, 18) as did Elijah (1 Kgs 19:8). Daniel also fasted before his visions (Dan 9:3, 10:3). 88. Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era, 161–72; Geller, “The Influence of Ancient Mesopotamia,” 47–52; and Elman, “Ashmedai and Lilit,” describe the extensive influence of Persian demonology on Babylonian Jews, including rabbis, and affirm that belief in astrology, demons, and magic amulets was high culture and science in its day. 89. Babylonian sages do, however, accuse women of practicing harmful magic, demonstrating that magic could, in certain circumstances, be enlisted as a discourse of alterity there. See also Abusch, “The Demonic Image of the Witch,” for a discussion of women’s ritual practices being denigrated and demonized in Mesopotamia while equivalent practices of men are not. 90. See note 88. 91. Demons figure also in pre-Zoroastrian Mesopotamian medical theory and treatment. See Braun-Holzinger, “Apotropaic Figures at Mesopotamian Temples”; and Scurlock, “Translating Transfers in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Bidez and Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés, 146–47, followed by Zaehner, Zurvan, 13–23, suggest that in contrast to the form of Zoroastrianism represented in the Avesta, which they designate “orthodox,” the form of Mazdaism that dominated the Sassanian empire (Zurvanism) canonized the worship of demons by creating a cult to Ahriman and offering him sacrifices. This they identify to be the origin of magic and demonology. See also Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 152, 191. 92. Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 152. Elman, “Ashmedai and Lilit,” also supports this view. 93. Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era, 167–72; Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore, 22; and Lightstone, The Commerce of the Sacred, 37, 50–56,

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all attest that demons play a diminished role in Palestinian, especially Tannaitic, writings relative to Babylonian sources. This contrasts sharply with the New Testament, in which demons figure prominently. See also Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition, chapter 3, who explores the role of demons in Jewish cosmology from antiquity through the Middle Ages. 94. The date is disputed. Zaehner, Zurvan, 7; and Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 1, give the date as 226. Frye, The Heritage of Persia, 198; and Boyce, Zoroastrians, 101, state the date as 224, but acknowledge that the exact date is uncertain. 95. Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, chapter 2, discusses persecutions of the Babylonian Jewish community. See also Frye, The Heritage of Persia, 210–11; Boyce, Zoroastrians, 102–3; and Zaehner, Zurvan, 8, who quotes from a Sassanian account by Zoroastrian priests in the fourth book of the Denkart. 96. Zaehner, Zurvan, 25. 97. Agathias 2.26, quoted in Christensen, L’Iran Sous les Sassanides, 117. My translation from the French. 98. Ibid., 120. 99. Neusner, Talmudic Judaism, 81. 100. Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” 131, n. 141. 101. Shaked, From Zoroastrian Iran to Islam, 211. 102. Ibid., 208–9. 103. Ibid., 211. 104. Oxtoby, “The Zoroastrian Tradition,” 163–77. 105. Elman, “Ashmedai and Lilit.” 106. See, for example, Green, “Palestinian Holy Men,” on the rabbinization of Honi ha-meagel; Bokser, “Wonder-Working,” on the Hanina ben Dosa legends; and Kalmin, “Holy Men, Rabbis, and Demonic Sages,” 234–41, on the rabbinization of such unlikely characters as the demon Ashmedai. 107. My theory differs from that of Neusner, Talmudic Judaism, 54–55, in that Neusner does not take as fully into account, as I attempt to do, the imaginary and rhetorical component of the depictions. In other words, I argue, magic is being used “to think with” in these narratives. See also Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 147–50. Furthermore, Neusner does not distinguish between Babylonian and Palestinian sources, regarding them as equally representative of Babylonian Jewry. For this reason, he identifies the rabbis simultaneously with holy men, after the manner of Peter Brown’s Syrian renunciates, and with magi. See Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 297–402. Brown, himself, points out the incompatibility of Neusner’s rabbinic “Magi” with Holy Men (see note 100). This difficulty could be avoided, I suggest, by distinguishing between Palestinian sources that attribute power to ascetic renunciation and Babylonian sources that depict power inhering in esoteric knowledge. 108. Rubenstein, The Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, chapter 3.

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109. Ibid., chapter 5. 110. See Boyarin, “On Stoves, Sex, and Slave-Girls,” 180–81. 111. Lightstone, The Rhetoric of the Babylonian Talmud, 275. 112. These texts form a strata within the early “mystical” tradition known as Merkavah or Hekhalot. 113. Swartz, Scholastic Magic, 218. 114. Davila, Descenders to the Chariot, 19. 115. See, for example, Janowitz, Magic in the Roman World, 86; Lesses, “Exe(o)rcising Power,” 343; Ilan, “Cooks/Poisoners,” 121; and Aubin, “Gendering Magic in Late Antique Judaism,” 141. 116. This statement asserts an absence of virtue among women and concludes that a man pleasing to God flees woman, whose heart is a snare and her hands fetters. 117. Rav Ilish is here questioning the source of the women’s power; miracles demand extraordinary merit and Rav Ilish doubts that such virtue is possible in women, based on the verse cited from Ecclesiastes. 118. B. Kid. 70a–b; b. Ber. 51b; b. Hul. 109b; b. Nid. 20b; b. Git. 63. I thank Susan Weingarten for pointing out this connection to me. Rav Nahman also had conflicts with members of his community. See b. Kiddushin 70a–b. I thank Richard Kalmin for pointing this out to me. 119. See the provocative and insightful investigation of rabbinic discourse on menstrual purity in Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity. 120. This passage functions to demonstrate that a woman is believed when she gives testimony about the status of her blood. Nonetheless, the structure of the narrative serves to contain women’s control over their own bodies by focusing on the authority of the rabbis to legislate. Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, 122–25. 121. Charlotte Fonrobert discusses both cases in “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Blood,” 156–57. In Menstrual Purity, 118–22, she discusses just b. Niddah 20b. 122. Fonrobert, “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Blood,” 158–59, and Menstrual Purity, 126–27. 123. Fonrobert, “Women’s Bodies,” 158. 124. Lesses, Ritual Practices to Gain Power, 136, notes that four early adjuration texts, prescribing rituals for mystical revelation, stipulate that “the adept bake his own bread, in two cases specifically mentioning that he should not allow a woman to bake it.” In these texts the concern seems to be with ritual purity and accompanies other stipulations that the adept avoid intercourse with women (sexual or social) in order to preserve a high state of ritual purity. 125. Jastrow, s.v. ‫שתיתא‬. 126. Rashi correctly or incorrectly suggests that Yannai appears without his rabbinic title in this passage to indicate displeasure with his use of magic (loc. cit. s.v. ‫)ינאי איקלע לההיא אושפיזא‬.

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127. Rashbam holds that this is an allusion to Ezek 13:18f (loc. cit. s.v. ‫)פרח פרהייכו‬. A formula similar to this one appears in an incantation bowl; see Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls,183. I thank Yaakov Elman for pointing this bowl out to me. Fishbane, “Most Women Engage in Sorcery,” 154–56; and Bar-Ilan, “Witches in the Bible,” regard this passage as evidence for the existence of an “association” of women who practice magic. I suggest that both this account and that of Rav Papa’s encounter with the demon Yosef be classified as fiction (‫ )אגדה‬and be read more as marvelous exaggerations than as evidence of women’s social history. 128. Various texts refer to this episode: m. Sanh. 6.4; b. Sanh. 45b; y. Hag. 2.2; y. Sanh. 5.9. 129. See discussion of this phrase in Sperber, Magic and Folklore, 63–64. 130. See y. Hagigah 2.2 for a parallel version of this narrative. Murray, “The Magical Female,” notes that the women in this story gain their magical power from the earth while rabbis gain their power from God. 131. Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine, 222–23, closely examines the list of activities prohibited in the Tosefta for being “the ways of the Emorites [sic]” and classifies them according to gender. The activities associated with women, Ilan notes, “fall into areas in which women were normally occupied” such as lamenting the dead and cooking. See also Ilan, “Cooks/Poisoners,” 110–12. Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen, 26, states that household remedies (Hausmittel) applied by women were naturally coterminous with magical cures (Zaubermittel). Lesses, Ritual Practices to Gain Power, 144–55, describes various food restrictions that were part of the ritual preparations for mystical adjurations in Hekhalot literature, including “any kind of vegetable,” and bread baked by women or by gentiles. These foods apparently rendered one “impure.” 132. Antiphon, In novercam. See discussion in chapter 2, this volume. 133. Circe is an exception: she puts herbs (φάρμακον) into a drink. But this representation predates the development of “magic” as a distinct discourse (see the discussion in chapters 1 and 2). Circe ’s herbs are best understood within the context of ancient pharmacology rather than magic discourse. On the symbolic significance of weaving as women’s work in ancient Greece, see Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece, 72, 141. 134. In one case lack of food is responsible for the death of a boy, whose liver is then used for a love potion (Hor. Epod. 5). Poisoning figures in numerous accusations or allegations made against women of the imperial house in particular. Livia was suspected of poisoning Augustus’s grandsons and heirs, Drusus and Lucius, so that her son, Tiberius, could inherit the Principate. Agrippina the younger was said to have given her husband, the emperor Claudius, poisonous mushrooms the night that he died. In each case, royal women were suspected of using poison to ensure the ascension of their sons over others. 135. See chapter 4, this volume.

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136. A derogatory term for nonrabbinic Jews. 137. David Kraemer, “Jewish Eating Practices in the Early Rabbinic Age,” paper presented at the annual congress, Society of Biblical Literature (Denver, 2001), 5, now published in Kraemer, Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages, 41. 138. Kraemer, Jewish Eating, chapter 3. 139. Ibid., 46. 140. Ibid., 50. 141. Ibid., 53. 142. Diamond, Holy Men and Hunger Artists, 11, follows this line of thought by regarding Jewish dietary observance as a form of asceticism but does not link it to spiritual power or charisma. 143. Kraemer, Jewish Eating, 40. 144. Neusner, Talmudic Judaism, 67, also discusses the importance of sacred meals and eating rituals for marking the “existence of a holy community or brotherhood” among the rabbis. 145. Kraemer, Jewish Eating, 66. The same argument appears in “Problematic Mixings,” 47. 146. Kraemer, Jewish Eating, 68. 147. Kraemer, 39-40. See also the essays collected in Levine, The Galilee in Late Antiquity. 148. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 114–28. 149. Segal, Rebecca’s Children, 123–28. 150. See Cohen, “The Place of the Rabbi,” passim, and Levine, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine, chapters 3–4. Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia, 83–99, describes challenges to rabbinic authority in the geonic period and the need to justify rabbinic leadership with reference to scripture. 151. Segal, Rebecca’s Children, 128–41. Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society, chapter 4, discusses the urgency with which rabbis forbid contact with sectarians (‫ )מינים‬and Christians, suggesting that such contact did occur and that boundaries were perceived to be fuzzy. Social separation was effected by prohibiting “social and sexual intercourse with Minim, forbid[ding] their food and drink, and label[ing] their children mamzerim (‘illegitimate ’).” Boyarin, Border Lines, 11, sees this as a response to Christian efforts to define identity and establish firm boundaries. 152. Segal, Rebecca’s Children, 132; Cohen, “The Place of the Rabbi,” 163. 153. Pace Kraemer, Jewish Eating, 66, and “Problematic Mixings,” 47, who argues that rabbis entrusted women, as “resident experts” of their kitchens, with enforcement of dietary legislation. Greenberg, “Here Come Israel’s Passover Police!” reports that in modern Israel a team of inspectors descended on Israeli restaurants during the week of Passover to enforce the prohibition against possessing or consuming leavened products (‫ )חמץ‬during the holy week. This is an extreme measure that demonstrates the need to police dietary

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observances. Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, 275, acknowledges the difficulty of supervising “every kitchen in Babylonia.” 154. This statement corroborates Kraemer’s argument that nonrabbinic Jews cooked meat in milk. See also Abrams, The Women of the Talmud, 13f, on women’s observance of kashrut; and Cohen, “The Place of the Rabbi,” 163, on rabbis’ powerlessness to enforce. They had to rely on persuasion and, when that failed, excommunication and refusal to bury as their primary weapons of coercion. 155. Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, 126, makes this same point about menstrual purity. 156. I thank Susan Weingarten for suggesting this connection and line of inquiry to me, following my 2001 AAR presentation of this material. 157. Sexual intercourse with one ’s wife is compared to eating kosher meat; it doesn’t matter how you cook it, it is still kosher. Also, sexual congress in a nonmissionary position is referred to as turning over the table (b. Nedarim 20a–b). See Satlow, Tasting the Dish; and Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 72, 110. 158. See, especially, Wegner, Chattel or Person? 159. Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 113–22; see also Hauptman, “Review of Chattel or Person?” 14. 160. Douglas, Purity and Danger, 125. 161. I am fully aware of dangers involved in uncritically applying contemporary anthropological research on Mediterranean cultures to the ancient Mediterranean. See, for example, Herzfeld, “Honour and Shame”; and Chance, “The Anthropology of Honor and Shame.” Selective and judicial use of this material can, however, illuminate certain aspects of ancient societies. Such is the case here. 162. Dubisch, “Culture Enters Through the Kitchen,” 195; page numbers hereafter will appear parenthetically in text. 163. See note 161. 164. Wegner, Chattel or Person? passim. Numerous scholars have critiqued Wegner for overdetermining the chattel/person dichotomy to fit a feminist model. They point out that while husbands did control women’s sexual production, women were not merely “chattel,” that is, possessions of their husbands to be treated as objects. Rather, numerous rabbinic laws indicate the large degree to which women’s subjectivity was taken into account and accommodated or protected—albeit within a decidedly patriarchal system. See Hauptman, “Review of Chattel” and Rereading the Rabbis, 74, n. 1; King, “Review of Chattel”; Peskowitz, “Review of Chattel”; and Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 114–15, n. 6. 165. See previous note. 166. Boyarin, “On Stoves, Sex, and Slave-Girls,” 179. 167. Fonrobert, “When Women Walk.” Heschel, “Sind Juden Männer?” 95–96, similarly links rabbinic elaboration on the laws of menstrual purity with this period of religious and social change. She suggests (drawing on Freud) that rabbinic “fetishizing” of menstrual blood reflects male associations between

e p i l o g u e   245

menstruation and the punishment of the mother for her lost phallus. In her view, blood, loss, and punishment (Blut, Verlust und Strafe) would have taken on “new connotations as metaphorical expressions for the political and social upheaval following the destruction of the Second Temple.”

1. 2. 3. 4.

epilogue

Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiii. Ibid., 66. See Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, especially 136–39, 144. Demosthenes [Neaer.] raises questions not only about the status of Stephanus’s wife/concubine but also about his daughter, which is the more serious charge. Isaeus 6.18–24, presents a case in which a woman’s citizen status is challenged in order to prevent her sons from inheriting the paternal estate. Apparently, her sons are from a second marriage or relationship, and the sons of the first marriage seek to disqualify their rivals. 5. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion.

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index

Abaye, 145, 147–48, 155, 172 Acanthis, 84–85, 212n71 Accusations, 21, 34, 188n104, 197n31; gender and, 25, 100, 107–8; illegitimacy, 65–66; otherness and, 35, 109; Persian magi as aim of, 32; poisoning, 67, 76, 77, 209n31; politics and, 100–105, 114–16; scholarly focus on, 6–7, 10; sorcery, 115–16; witchcraft, 6; of women, 74–79, 139–40, 178, 245n4 Accusations of magic, 10, 21, 100, 114– 16, 186n60; Apuleius of Madaura, 32–33, 115–16; Christianity and, 107–8, 117–20, 126, 185n58; against Jews, 120, 124–25, 220n1; modern contexts of, 182n3; rabbinical Judaism, 150, 166–68; reign of Tiberius, 34, 99, 100, 101, 103, 114–15, 218n136 Acts of Andrew, 135, 137, 138 Acts of Paul and Thecla, 135 Acts of the Apostles, 13, 124, 235n39; see also Luke Aeneid (Virgil), 32, 84 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 61 Aesclepius, 109–10, 112 Aeshines, 62

Against Heresies (Irenaeus), 131–32 Agamemnon (Aeschylus), 61 Ago¯ge¯ (rituals), 80, 84–86, 213n76 Agrippina, 101, 102–3, 209n31, 242n134 Ailments, female, 59 Alexander, miracles/cult of, 109–10, 220n6, 222n21 Alexandrian poetry, magic term as introduced through, 33 Alterity, see Discourse of alterity; Otherness Ambivalence: ideology/authority and, 111; magic discourse, 143, 146, 149–50; miracle discourse, 113 Amulets, 155, 156 Andromache (Euripides), 57–58 Angels, fallen, 120–21 Animals, rabbis creating, 147–48 The Apocryphon of John, 128, 130 Apollodorus, 171 Apollonius of Tyana, 113–14, 116 Apologists, Christian, 120–21 Apuleius of Madaura, 15; magic accusations towards, 32–33, 115–16; Metamorphoses, 72, 92–93, 110–11 Aramaic terminology, Hebrew and, 34–38, 145, 146–47

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Archaeology, 15, 16, 63, 79, 137, 233n10; amulet, 155; textual evidence v., 19 Archaic period, 63, 67; ritual as introduced during, 41–42; women in, 63, 67 Archetype, night witch, 72 Aristophanes, on herbs, 29 Aristotle, magic terminology and, 28–29 Asceticism, 136, 137, 158–62; authority and, 161–62; celibacy, 151; food and, 172; spiritual power accessed through, 158–62 Assyria, 41 Astrologers, banning of, 34, 100 Athenian vase, 63 Athens (classical), 39–69; citizenship law of, 40, 64–69, 203n118; democracy of, 40, 52, 194n2; discourse of alterity in, 39–47, 68; Persia and, 39–40, 42; politics/power in, 62–69; women’s independence in, 63–64, 203n117, 205n135; see also Greece Augustan era, 33–34, 72–73, 76, 80–81, 97–99 Augustus, 97–99, 216n117 Authority: ambivalence and, 111; asceticism and, 161–62; gender and, 25; ideology and, 111, 158; miracle legitimizing, 113; New Testament and, 123–25; rabbinical, 158, 161–76; secret teachings and, 164; sexuality and, 176; spiritual, 139, 176; text and, 165–66; women under father’s, 73–74 Avesta texts, 164 Babylon, 109, 130, 141, 162–66, 173; demonology in, 162; Jews and, 156, 157, 158; power/knowledge in, 162–64; Sassanian, 162, 163–64,

165; spiritual power and, 162–66; see also Talmud Bacchae (Euripides), 47–49, 61 Bacchanal scandal, 118, 224n44 Baer, Yitzhak, 161 Baptism, 116 Barbarians, 40, 42, 47–48, 68, 180; religion and, 68; stereotypes of, 47–48, 68 Bartsch, Shadi, 91 Bauman, Richard, 76 Bavli, 145, 150–51, 157, 165, 166–74, 176 Ben Dosa, Hanina, 159–60 Bethsaida, 123 Bible, see Acts of the Apostles; Hebrew Bible Binding spells, 19, 41, 42, 43, 195n13 Bokser, Baruch, 159 Book of Daniel, 35, 36 Book of the Watchers, 36 Boyarin, Daniel, 140, 174, 176 Brown, Peter, 161 Burkert, Walter, 28, 29 Burrus, Virginia, 140 Canidia, 80–82 Caprification, 157 Cassandra, 61, 202n104 Catiline conspiracy, 77–78 Cato’s speech, 74–76, 208n28 Catullus, 32, 210n44 Celibacy, prophecy and, 151 Celsus, against Christianity/Jesus, 118, 119, 185n58 Charlatan, 27 Charm, Greek term for, 27 Chastity, 93, 95, 97, 198n49; see also Asceticism; Celibacy; Virginity Chorazin, 123 Christianity (pre-Constantine), 107– 41; accusations of magic in, 107–8, 117–20, 126, 185n58; apologists and, 120–21; competition and, 114,

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116–30; discourse of alterity in, 107–41; Greco-Roman worship and, 120–22; infidelity and, 111; Judaism and, 122–25; magic discourse in, 124–25, 140; Memar Marqah and, 129; miracle discourse in, 112–14; otherness and, 108–9, 124, 179; political intrigue and, 114–16; Protestant, 8; rationality and, 112, 131; rituals in, 19–20, 116–18; stereotypes in, 108–12; superstition in, Pliny on, 117–18; third-century, 141; women in, 108, 130–41, 179 Chrysostom, John, 140 Chthonic offerings, 41, 86, 96 Cicero, 32, 76–77 Circe, herbal by, 26, 29, 43, 50, 199n59, 242n133 Citizenship law, Athenian, 40, 64–69, 203n118 Clark, Stuart, 22–23 Classical period, 63 Clement of Alexandria, 9 Cleodemus, 109 Cleopatra, 104 Clytemnestra, 61, 190n129, 202n89, 202n104, 202n145 Coercion, worship v., 12 Competition: Christianity, 114, 116–30; Judaism/Christianity, 122–25; religious, 111 Context, 3, 7–8, 14, 71, 143, 177; poisoning and, 26, 27 Control: over women, resistance to, 168–69; self, 51, 55 Cooking, see Food/cooking Cooper, Kate, 25 Corinth: cult of the dead children, 50; epic tradition of, 49 Counterspell, terminology and, 146 Cult: of Alexander, 109–10, 220n6, 222n21; of the dead children, 50; of Yahweh, 34

Cultural identity, Roman worship and, 20–21, 187n93 Culture, ix, 177; magic concept in Western, 17–18, 37; Rabbinic, 155–66 Curse tablet, 41–42, 155, 195n12, 206n4 Curse, terminology for, 9–10 Cynthia, Propertius and, 86, 212n72 Damah, Rabbi Elazar ben, 152 Danger, 17, 27, 46, 67, 131, 143, 153–54, 166–76, 234n19; context and, 143; food/cooking and, 166–76, 234n19; mythology and, 42, 46, 196n20; of rationality, 49; sexuality, 61; women and, 61, 166–74 Daphnis, effeminacy of, 79–80 Davila, James, 166 Death, 28; buried/starved youth’s, 82; Deianeira’s erotic, 56, 60 Deceased, rituals for, 28, 42, 196n19 Deceit, herbs/drugs linked with, 29 Defense strategy, predatory nature v., 71–72 Deianeira myth, 55–57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 67, 202n89 Delia, mascula libido in, 85–87 Democracy, Athenian, 40, 52, 194n2 Demonology, 82–83, 148–49, 162; Greek gods and, 121; medicine/ healing and, 239n91; Zoroastrianism, 162 Demosthenes, 44, 62, 68, 245n4 Derveni papyrus, 28 Deuteronomy, 34, 35, 150, 162 Dickie, Matthew, 33, 83 Dido, Virgil’s, 32, 84 Dionysos myth, 47–49, 198n46, 198n47 Discourse, magic as, 15–18 Discourse of alterity, 37, 39–47, 147; Christianity, 107–41; Greek/Athenian, 39–47, 68; rabbinic, 147; see also Barbarians

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Discourse of miracles, 112–14, 225n61; in defense of Jesus, 119 Discourse of wicked women, 73–79; Cato’s speech and, 74–76; sexual license and, 75 Discursive strategies, power and, 16 Divination (term), 9–10 Divine, coercion/supplication of, 12 Domesticity, 99 Donkey: Lucius and, 91–92; rabbinic story of spell/counterspell, 169–70 Dosa, Hanina ben, 159–60 Douglas, Mary, 173 Dream interpretation, Joseph’s, 35 Drugs, see Herbs/drugs Drusus, Libo, 100 Dubisch, Jill, 174–75 Eclogue (Virgil), 79–80, 185n56 Edwards, Catherine, 72, 78 Effeminacy, 25, 79–80; otherness and, 40, 44, 47–48, 49, 63 Egyptian prophets, accusations towards, 110 Egyptian temple rituals, 13 Emic terminology, 10 Emotions, 62 Epao¯ide¯/epaoidé (Greek), 26, 27, 30, 42, 43, 45, 47–48 Epidaurus inscriptions, 112 Epode (Horace), 82, 87, 185n55 Erictho, 90–91 Eros, 59 Eros/passion, 61; magic/Greek tragedy and, 61; poisoning and, 59–60 Eumelos, Medea of, 49 Eumenides, incantation and, 27 Euripides: Andromache, 57–58; Bacchae, 47–49, 61; Ion, 57; Medea, 49–54, 68, 187n89, 198n58–199n58, 202n94 Europeans, rationality and, 4 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 6

Evidence: archaeological, 15, 16, 19, 63, 79, 137, 155, 233n10; magic practice, 14–15; textual, 19 Evil deed, terminology and, 31 Execration (term), 9–10 Fallen angels, 120–21 False prophets, 36 Faraone, Christopher, 79 Father-daughter relationship, Rome and, 73–74 Fear, of women, 67 Female ailments, Greek medicine and, 59 Feminization, 46, 62 Firmilian, 139–40 First Apology (Justin), 120 Fonrobert, Charlotte, 168, 176 Food/cooking: danger and, 166–76, 234n19; rabbinic Judaism and, 169– 76; religion and, 171–74, 244n154; sex metaphor in, 174–76; women and, 169–76 Foreignness, see Otherness Foucault, Michel, 15; discourse theory of, 16–17, 18 Fraade, Steven, 161 Francis, James, 160–61 Frankfurter, David, 13 Frazer, James, 5, 182n16 Garett, Susan, 8 Geller, M. J., 146 Gender, 24–25, 47–62, 79, 108, 189n113; accusations and, 25, 100, 107–8; authority and, 25; Greek tragedy and, 47–62; imperial ideology and, 96–99; rabbinical texts and, 154, 166; see also Misogyny; Women Gender inversion, 53, 56, 57, 61, 79, 211n52 Genealogy, Foucalut theory of, 16–17

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A General Theory of Magic (Mauss), 5–6 Genesis, 35, 36, 120–21 Germanicus, death of, 100–101 Gnosticism, 126, 127–29, 134, 164, 227n87, 228n88, 228n95–229n95 Goe¯s (Greek), 26, 27, 28, 48, 62 Goe¯tes (Greek), 28 Goodenough, E. R., 155 Gordon, Richard, 33 Gospels, miracles of Jesus in, 112–14, 221n15, 225n61 Graf, Fritz, 49, 84 Greco-Roman worship, 86; Christianity discourse against, 120–22; Jewish themes in, 155–56; polytheism of, 120–22, 186n67; variety in, 20–21, 187n93 Greece: Archaic period overview of, 41–42, 59, 63; discourse of alterity in fifth century, 39–47, 68; magic terminology in ancient, 12, 26–30, 32; masculinity in, 55–56, 63; medicine in, 44–45, 59; New Comedy of, 65; Rome v., stereotyping of, 22; sorceress of, 49–54, 215n99; see also Athens Greek tragedy, 46–62; danger in, 46; eros, 61; gender and, 47–62; masculine identity in, 55–56; otherness in, 50, 54, 61; potions in, 46; see also Myths/mythology Green, W. S., 159 Hall, Edith, 40, 61 Hallett, Judith, 74 Hartummim (Hebrew), 35 Hebrew Bible, 34, 35, 36, 37, 222n19; see also New Testament Hebrew, terminology in, 34–38, 145, 146–47, 150, 232n7 Hecate, 42, 89, 109, 196n20

Heinrichs, Albert, 87 Helena, Simon Magus and, 127–28, 227n87–228n87, 229n98 Hellenistic period, 28, 37, 72, 160, 161 Heracles, 55–57, 58, 61, 63 Heraclitus, 45–46 Herbs/drugs, 26, 29–30, 46, 54, 57, 67, 68, 112; Circe ’s use of, 26, 29, 43, 50, 199n59, 242n133; deceit linked to, 29; early perceptions of, 29; potions, 31, 46, 54, 82, 132, 170–71; see also Medicine/healing; Poisoning Heresy, 129, 131–32, 140–41, 146–47, 152–53; creation of, 122–25; magic and, 129, 140–41, 146–47, 152–53; rabbinic Judaism and, 146–47, 152– 53; Simon Magus, 125–30; women and, 130 Herodotus, 29 Hesiod, Medea rendered by, 49 Hippocratic medicine/healing, 44–45 Hippolytus, Refutations, 134–35 Hisda, Rav, 146, 158 History: ideology v., 64, 139; Latin text read as, 83; magic definition, 4–12; terminology and, 26–38 Hoffman, C. A., 9, 12 Holy man, 160, 161, 164, 239n81 Holy men; see Spiritual power; specific people Homer, Odyssey, 26, 27 Honi ha-meagel, 159 Honor, 41; sexuality and, 62–63, 127, 178 Horace, 84, 97; Epode, 82, 87, 185n55; Satire, 80 Hosea, 123 Hostility, in women, 145–46 Huna, Rabbah bar Rav, 146, 158 Hydra’s venom, 61 Ideology, 22–23; ambivalence and, 111; asceticism, 136, 137; authority and,

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Ideology (continued ) 158; chastity, 93, 95, 97, 198n49; history v., 64, 139; imperial, 96–99; sexual misconduct and, 133; virginity, 136, 138, 140, 231n123 Iliad, 26; lamentation in, 27 Ilish, Rav, Rav Nahman’s daughters and, 166–68 Illegitimacy, 152–53, 176, 177; accusations of, 65–66; ritual, 118 Imperialism, 44, 102; gender and, 96–99 Incantation, 48; Greek term for, 27; Hebrew/Aramaic term for, 146–47; Latin term for, 32 Incense, 154 Independence: Athenian women, 63–64, 203n117, 205n135; Roman women, 73–75, 84, 95, 98 Infidelity, 57, 64, 65–66, 75, 99; Christianity and, 111; poisoning and, 77, 87, 209n32; rabbinic Judaism and, 166–68; Roman laws against, 98, 99–100, 216n117 Inscriptions, Epidaurus, 112 Intertextuality, 29–30 Ion (Euripides), 57 Ionia, sixth-century, 29 Irenaeus, 128, 134; Against Heresies, 131–32 Isaiah, 123 Isis, 91, 116 Italy, astrologers/magicians as banned in, 34, 100 Janowitz, Naomi, 15, 155 Jason, Medea and, 27, 49–54, 57, 58, 60, 88–90, 190n130, 201n74, 210n46 Jealousy, sexual, 47, 52, 58, 61 Jeffers, Ann, 35 Jeremiah, 123 Jerome, Life of St. Hilarion, 137 Jerusalem Talmud, 144, 157–58, 170

Jesus, 119, 123; contemporary miracle worker of, 113–14; gospel accounts/ miracles of, 112–14, 221n15, 225n61; as magician, 118, 119–20, 185n58; rabbinical law and, 152; rabbis against, 152 Jews, 155–56; accusations of magic against, 120, 124–25, 220n1; Babylonian, 156, 157, 158; Palestinian, 156, 157–62; rabbinical authority over practicing, 176; sorceresses, 154; women, 153–54 John, Gospel of, 123–24, 223n24 Joseph, dream interpretation of, 35 Josianic reforms, 34 Judaism: competition against Christianity of, 122–25; food and, 171–74; in Greco-Roman worship, 155–56; see also Rabbinic Judaism Julia, wife of Septimius, 113 Justin, 127, 128; First Apology, 120; Second Apology, 120–21 Juvenal, Satire, 95–96, 97 Kathartai (Greek), 44 Kee, Howard Clark, 114, 221n15 Keshafim (Hebrew), 36, 150 Kings (Hebrew Bible), 36 Knowledge, Magi power and, 162–64 Kraemer, David, 172, 173 Lacey, W. K., 65 Lamentation, 27 Latin: magic in, 12; terminology, 12, 30–34, 72, 85, 115, 119; witch in, 33, 85 Latin text, magic discourse in, 79–96 Laws: Athenian, 64–69; citizenship, 40, 64–69, 203n18; infidelity, 98, 99–100, 216n117; magic, 30–31, 150; against magic, 31; marriage, 64–69, 74, 97, 207n13; oral, 144; rabbinical, 144, 150, 152, 158, 172; reign of

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Tiberius, 34, 114–15, 218n136; sexuality, 98, 99–100, 216n117; Twelve Tables/Roman, 30–31, 74, 192n154; see also Accusations; Accusations of magic Lex Julia de adulteriis, 98, 99–100 Lex Oppia, 78 Life of St. Hilarion (Jerome), 137 Lightstone, Jack, 165 Literal interpretation, 83 Literary representation, 18–19 Livy, 97, 118; Cato’s speech of, 74–76, 208n28; Pliny and, 224n42 Lloyd, G. E., 45 Love charms: Christian literature and, 109; Greek tragedy and, 46 Lucan, Pharsalia, 90–91 Lucian of Samosata, 109–10; Philopseudes (The Lover of Lies), 108–9 Lucius, donkey and, 91–92 Luke: Acts, 124–26, 127, 136, 184n38, 226n68; Gospel of, 8, 126, 226n68 Lydia, barbarian symbol, 47 Lyotard, Jean-François, 178 Mageia (Greek), 12, 40; religion and, 40 Magi: knowledge/power of, 162–64; Persian, accusations of, 32, 115; as philosophers, 28–29; as unholy, 29 Magia (Latin), 12, 33 Magic: amulets and, 155, 156; charm term in, 27; death and, 28; herbs/ drugs and, 26, 29–30, 46, 54, 57, 67, 68, 112; incantation, 27, 32, 48, 146–47; laws against, 30–31, 150; love charms, 46, 109; potions, 31, 46, 54, 82, 132, 170–71; science v., 156; Western culture concept of, 17–18, 37; see also Accusations of magic; Miracle(s); Spells Magic (term), 2, 12–15; Alexandrian poetry theory, 33; avoidance of, 9;

counterspell, 146; definition history of, 4–12; emic terminology and, 10; Greek, 12, 26–30, 32; historical definitions of, 4–12; Latin, 12, 30–34; see also Terminology Magic discourse, 15–18; ambivalence in, 143, 146, 149–50; Athenian, 62–69; Christianity, 124–25, 140; Latin texts and, 79–96; politics and, 62–69, 99– 105, 114–16; Roman, 99–105; Talmud, 143, 145–54; see also Discourse of alterity; Discourse of miracles; Discourse of wicked women Magicians, banning of, 34, 100; see also Magi Magoi, 28–29, 44, 111 Magos, 6–7, 62, 108; Persian root of term, 28–29 Magos (Greek), 26 Magus (Latin), Persian/Greek derivation/use of, 32, 115 Male magician, 111 Male promiscuity, 57 Maleficium (Latin), 32, 33, 119 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 6 Mandean church, 163 Manslayer, Deianeira as, 55 Marital property, 74 Mark, Gospel of, 21, 113, 122–23 Marriage law, 74; Athenian, 64–69; Roman, 97, 207n13 Marshall, Anthony, 78, 104 Mascula libido, 72, 79–96; Lucan’s Erictho and, 90–91; Propertius’s Acanthis and, 84–85, 212n71; Sempronia, poisoning accusation of, 78, 209n31; Tibullus’s Delia and, 85–87; Virgil’s Eclogue and, 79–80, 185n56 Masculinity: Greek, 55–56, 63; sorceress, 79; witches and, 72 Mathew, Gospel of, 15, 111, 113, 123 Mauss, Marcel, A General Theory of Magic, 5–6

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Medea: Hesiod/Eumelos on, 49; Jason and, 27, 49–54, 57, 58, 60, 88–90, 190n130, 201n74, 210n46; Ovid’s depiction of, 84, 87–88; Seneca’s depiction of, 88–90; Tibullus use of, 85–86 Medea (Euripides), 49–54, 68, 187n89, 198n58–199n58, 202n94 Medicine/healing, 156, 193n176, 236n54; archaic/ancient Greek, 44–45, 59; demons and, 239n91; female ailments and, 59; Hippocratic, 44–45; see also Herbs/drugs Mekhashef (Hebrew), 34, 35 Memar Marqah, 129 Menstruation, rabbinic law and, 164, 168, 241n120 Mesopotamia, 143–76; demons and, 162, 239n91; rituals of, 146 Metamorphoses (Apuleius of Madaura), 72, 92–93, 110–11 Metamorphoses (Ovid), 72, 87 Metelli, Clodia, 76–77, 209n31 Milk, 86, 213n76 Miracle(s), 7–8, 13, 222n19; Alexander’s, 109–10, 220n6, 222n21; discourse, 112–14, 119; Epidaurus inscriptions on, 112; Jesus and, 112–14, 119, 221n15; spiritual power as sign of, 113 Miracle workers, 109–12, 159 Mishnah, 144, 158, 172 Misogyny, 154, 166 Modern day: accusations of magic, 182n3; otherness, 180 Moral legislation, Rome ’s, 97–99; see also Rabbinic law Mount Ida, 28 Mourning, 28 Murder of Pelias, 87 Mystery religions: philosophy v., 29; secrecy rhetoric and, 119, 164; stereotype and, 48, 109; see also Rituals

Mysticism: rabbinical texts on, 156, 237n57, 237n61; See also Gnosticism Myths/mythology, 69, 82, 84, 121; Cassandra, 61, 202n104; Circe, 26, 29, 43, 50, 199n59, 242n133; Clytemnestra, 61, 190n129, 202n89, 202n104, 202n145; Deianeira, 55–57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 67, 202n89; Dido, 32, 84; Dionysos, 47–49, 198n46, 198n47; Heracles, 55–57, 58, 61, 63; Hydra, 61; Medea, 84, 86, 87–90; Medea (Euripides), 49–54, 68, 187n89; murder of Pelias, 87; Pentheus, 47, 48; Pindar versions of, 17, 50, 88, 200n72; Sophia, 128 Nag Hammadi, The Apocryphon of John, 128, 130 Nahman, Rav, 241n118; See also Rav Nahman’s daughters Naturalis historia (Pliny), 31, 193n176 Naveh, Joseph, 156 Neaera, 68 Nero, 115 Neusner, Jacob, 159 New Comedy, Greek, 65 New Testament, religious competition in, 122–25 Night witch archetype, 72 Nock, 6–7 Odyssey (Homer), 26, 27 Old Testament; see Hebrew Bible On the Sacred Disease, 42, 44, 109 Oral law, Talmud and, 144 Origen, 21, 118–19 Ortner, Sherry, 67, 178 Otherness, 150–54; accusations and, 35, 109; Christian literature and, 108–9, 124, 179; effeminacy and, 40, 44, 47–48, 49, 63; Greek tragedy and, 50, 54, 61; as Hellenistic, 37; modern, 180; rabbinical Judaism and,

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124, 150–54, 157, 166; Roman, 88, 140; see also Barbarians; Discourse of alterity Ovid: Medea depicted by, 84, 87–88; Metamorphoses, 72, 87 Palestine, 173; Hellenistic influence on, 160, 161; Jewish attitudes and, 156, 157–62; spiritual power and, 158–62, 165 Papyri graecae magicae (PGM), 13–14, 81 Passion; see Eros/passion Pausanias, 50 Pentheus, 47, 48 Pericles, 65, 67–68, 203n118 Period(s): Archaic, 41–42, 63, 67; classical, 63; Foucault theory, 16; Greece/ Archaic, 41–42, 59, 63; Hellenistic, 28, 37, 72, 160, 161; postexilic, 36; Second Temple, 121 Persian magi, accusations against, 32, 115 Persian terminology, 28–29; magus, 32, 115 Persian wars, 39–40, 42 Peter (Biblical), 13 PGM; see Papyri graecae magicae Pharmakon/pharmakeia (Greek), 26, 29–30, 46, 54, 57, 67, 68, 112 Pharsalia (Lucan), 90–91 Philip (Biblical), 13 Phillips, C. R., 8 Philopseudes (Lucian of Samosata), 108–9 Philosophers, magi as, 28–29 Philostratus, 113 Phorinis text, 28, 191n133 Pindar, 17, 50, 88, 200n72 Plato, 30, 45–46, 187n90 Pliny, 117–18; Livy and, 224n42; Naturalis historia, 31, 193n176 Pliny the Elder, 156, 187n90

Poisoning, 12, 43, 46, 54, 61, 87, 192n147; accusations of, 67, 76, 77, 78, 209n31; context and, 26, 27; eros/passion and, 59–60; infidelity and, 77, 87, 209n32; Medea and, 49, 54, 60; semantic constellation for, 43; terminology and, 26, 27, 29, 30 Politics, 40; accusations and, 100–105, 114–16; Athenian power and, 62–69; Christianity and, 114–16; magic discourse and, 62–69, 99–105, 114–16; Roman, 99–105; women and, 224n44 Polytheism, 120–22, 186n67 Postexilic period, 36 Potions: Christianity and, 132; food and, 170–71; Greek tragedy use of, 46, 54; Latin terminology for, 31; Roman literature and, 82 Power: Athenian politics and, 62–69; discursive strategies and, 16; fathers’, 73–74; knowledge and, 162– 64; rabbinic Judaism and, 146–50; see also Spiritual power Predators: witches as, 71–72, 91–92; women as, 79–96; see also Hostility Priapus statue, 80–81 Prieur, Jean-Marc, 137 Primitive Culture (Taylor), 4 Prince of the Torah, 166 Propertius, Sextus, 84–85, 212n72 Property, marital, 74 Prophets/prophecy, 35–36, 110; celibacy and, 151 Prostitute witch, 83 Protection, spiritual power as, 151 Protestant Christianity, 8 Punic War, 74 Purity, 196n24; spiritual power and, 164 Qosem (Hebrew), 34 Rabbinic Judaism, 34, 143–76; accusations of magic in, 150, 166–68; anti-

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Rabbinic Judaism (continued ) magic attitude in, 150–54; Bavli text in, 145, 150–51, 157, 165, 166–74, 176; cultural influence in, 155–66; discourse of alterity in, 147; food/ cooking in, 169–76; gender and, 154, 166; history of, 172; misogyny in, 154, 166; otherness in, 124, 150–54, 157, 166; power in, 146–50; Sassanian empire in, 162, 163–64, 165; Sefer ha-Razim mysticism/text in, 156, 237n57, 237n61; social context in, 155–66; spiritual power in, 158–66; women in, 164, 168, 169– 76, 234n22, 241n120; see also Acts of the Apostles; Hebrew Bible Rabbinic law, 150, 152; Mishnah text of, 144, 158, 172 Rationality, 52; Athenian/Attic, 49; Christian, 112, 131; danger of, 49; European, 4; sensuality v., 60 Rav Nahman’s daughters, 166–68, 169 Refutations (Hippolytus), 134–35 Reign of terror, 100, 114–15 Reign of Tiberius, accusations of magic during, 34, 99, 100, 101, 103, 114–15, 218n136 Religion, 5–6, 14, 115, 157–58, 182n16; barbarian, 68; competition in, 111, 114, 116–30; food/cooking and, 171–74, 244n154; magic and, 5–6, 14, 115, 157–58, 182n16; Persian/ mageia, 40; see also Christianity; Rituals; Worship Remus, Harold, 7–8 Representation, stereotype v., 23–24 Resistance, women and, 168–69 Revenge, 47, 49–54, 61, 87–88, 167, 205n142 Richlin, Amy, 95, 96 Ritner, Robert, 13 Rituals: ago¯ge¯/Roman, 80, 84–86, 213n76; Archaic period and, 41–42; Babylonian, 164; baptism, 116;

Christian, 19–20, 116–18; chthonic offerings, 41, 86, 96; for deceased, 28, 42, 196n19; Egyptian, 13; Hebrew Bible and, 36; Mesopotamian, 146; sacrifice, 41–42; terminology and, 8–9, 13–14, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34–35, 36, 37; see also Religion; Worship Rives, James, 31–32, 33 Rome (early imperial), 20–21, 71–105, 140, 192n154; accusations of magic in, 114–16; Augustan era, 33–34, 72–73, 76, 80–81, 97–99; authority over women, 73; chastity, 93, 95, 97, 198n49; cultural identity variety/worship in, 20–21, 187n93; discourse of wicked women in, 73–79; father-daughter relationship in, 73–74; infidelity/sexuality laws in, 98, 99–100, 216n117; Latin text and, 79–96; marital property in, 74; marriage law in, 74, 97, 207n13; Medea myth of, 84, 87–90; otherness in, 88, 140; politics/magic discourse of, 99–105; women independence in, 73–75, 84, 95, 98 Rubenstein, Jeffrey, 165 Sacrifice, 41–42 Saga (Latin), 33, 72 Sagana, 80–82 Sallust, 77–78 Sar Torah, 14 Sassanian Empire, 162, 163–64, 165 Satire (Horace), 80 Satire (Juvenal), 95–96, 97 Satlow, Michael, 174 Schäfer, Peter, 36 Schmidt, Brian, 34 Scholarship: accusations focus of, 6–7, 10; categories of, x, 181n1–181n4 Science, 162; magic v., 156 Second Apology (Justin), 120–21 Second Maccabees, 155

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Second Temple period, 121 Secrecy, 119, 164 Sefer ha-Razim, 156, 237n57, 237n61 Segal, Alan, 7 Self-control (so¯phrosune¯), 47, 49, 51, 160, 161, 238n76 Semantic constellation, 2; Athenian, 40–41; binding spells, 43; herbs/deceit link example of, 29; negative associations in, 29–30; otherness in, 37, 50, 54, 61, 69, 88, 108–9, 124, 140, 150–54, 157, 166; Persian wars and, 40; poison in, 43; term intermingling, 35 Sempronia, poisoning/masculinity and, 78, 209n31 Seneca, Medea depicted by, 88–90 Sensuality: rationality v., 60; women and, 59–60 Sexual jealousy: male promiscuity and, 57; women and, 52, 58, 61 Sexuality: danger and, 61; fallen angels and, 120–21; food as metaphor for, 174–76; honor and, 62–63, 127, 178; misconduct in, 75, 132–36; Roman laws governing, 98, 99–100, 216n117 Shaked, Shaul, 156 Shamanism, 10, 28 Shetah, Shimon ben, 170 Simon Magus, 125–30, 134, 227n82, 228n88, 228n95–229n95; Helena and, 127–28, 227n87–228n87, 229n98 Smith, Jonathan Z., 10–11 Social conflict, 8 Social construct, 12 Social context, 6; Athenian, 62–69; discourse of wicked women, 73–79; rabbinical, 155–66; Roman Empire, 72–79, 93–94; worship in, 34 Sophia myth, 128 Sophocles, Trachiniae, 54–61, 68 So¯phrosune¯, 47, 49, 51, 160, 161, 200n69, 238n76

Sorceress: Greek, 49–54, 215n99; Jewish, 154; masculinized, 79; stereotypes of, 22; Tibullus, 85–86; Virgil’s, 79–80 Sorcery, 108; accusations of, 115–16; terminology and, 191n133 Spells: binding, 19, 41, 42, 43, 195n13; counter spells and, 169–70; curse tablets and, 41–42, 155, 195n12, 206n4; against demons, 148–49; food impregnated with, 169–70; milk use in, 86, 213n76 Spiritual power: asceticism giving access to, 158–62; authority and, 139, 176; Babylonian, 162–66; magi, 162–64; miracles v., 113; Palestinian Jews and, 158–62, 165; as protection, 151; purity and, 164; rabbinic Judaism and, 158–66; virginity attesting to, 138 Stereotypes: barbarian, 47–48, 68; Christian, 108–12; definition of, 23; Greek v. Roman, 22; ideal wife, 58; Jew as magician, 120, 124–25; male magician, 111; miracle worker, 109–12; predatory witch, 91–92; representations v., 23–24; sorceress, 22; witch, ix, 84–86, 90, 93, 139, 140, 178 Styers, Randall, 4 Suetonius, 114–15 Superstition, Christianity as, 117–18 Supplication, 12 Swartz, Michael, 166 Tacitus, 101–2, 114–15 Talmud, 141, 143, 144–45, 163–64; Jerusalem, 144, 157–58, 170; magic discourse in, 143, 145–54; purity rituals in, 164 Tavenner, Eugene, 83 Taylor, Edward, Primitive Culture, 4 Terminology: charlatan, 27; Christian rituals and, 19–20; divination, 9–10;

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Terminology (continued ) emic, 10; evil deed, 31; execration, 9–10; Greek, 12, 26–30, 32; Hebrew/Aramaic, 34–38, 145, 146–47; herbs/drugs, 26, 29–30; history and, 26–38; intermingling of, 35; Latin, 12, 30–34, 72, 85, 115, 119; Persian, 28–29, 32, 115; poisoning and, 26, 27, 29, 30; potions/Latin, 31; rituals and, 13–14, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34–35, 36, 37; sorcery, 191n133; spell/counterspell, 146; see also Semantic constellation Tertullian, 121 Text/textuality, 188n104; archaeological evidence v., 19; authority and, Text/textuality (continued) 165–66; Avesta, 164; intertextuality, 29–30; Latin, 79–96; literal interpretation of, 83; Memar Marqah, 129; Mishnah, 144, 158, 172; Nag Hammadi, 128, 130; Phorinis, 28, 191n133; rabbinical mystical, 156, 237n57, 237n61; see also specific texts Thessalian witch, 90–91 Tiberius, accusations of magic in reign of, 34, 99, 100, 101, 103, 114–15, 218n136 Tibullus, 84, 85–87, 213n77 Tisiphone, 80 Torah, 163, 164, 165–66, 171, 172; Sar, 14 Tosefta, 144 Trachiniae (Sophocles), 54–61, 68 Tractate Pesahim, 148 Trajan, Pliny’s letter to, 117–18 Travenner, Eugene, 83 Twelve Tables, 30–31, 74, 192n154 Urbach, Ephraim, 161 Veneficus (Latin), 32 Venenum (Latin), 31 Versnel, H. S., 9, 12

Victims, women as, 108, 130–41 Virgil: Aenid, 32, 84; Eclogue, 79–80, 185n56 Virginity, 136, 138, 140, 231n123; see also Asceticism; Chastity Wealth, women inheriting/managing, 74, 208n23 Weapon, 62 Wegner, Judith, 175–76 West, Martin, 50 Western culture, magic concept in, 17–18, 37 Wicked women, discourse of, 73–79 Witch(es): Acanthis, 84–85, 212n71; archetype, 72; Canidia/Sagana, 80–82; cosmic, 89; Erictho/Thesalian, 90–91; Horace ’s depiction of, 80, 82, 84; Latin terms for, 33, 85; mascula libido and, 72, 79–96, 185n56, 209n31; predatory, 71–72, 91–92; Propertius, 84–85; prostitute, 83; Rav Nahman’s daughters as, 168; Sagana, 80–82; stereotype, ix, 84–86, 90, 93, 139, 140, 178 Witch hunts, 105 Witchcraft: definitions of, 6, 183n22; social motivation/accusation of, 6 Women, 46, 62; accusation of, 74–79, 139–40, 178, 245n4; ailments of, 59; Archaic, 63, 67; chastity and, 93, 95, 97, 198n49; Christianity and, 108, 130–41, 179; danger and, 61, 166–74; demonized, 82–83; discourse of wicked, 73–79; fear of, 67; food/cooking and, 169–76; heresy as involving, 130; hostile, 145–46; independence of, 63–64, 73–75, 84, 95, 98, 203n117, 205n135; Jewish, 153–54; magic as emotional weapon of, 62; as magic victims, 108, 130–41; mascula libido and, 79–96; menstruation and, 164, 168, 241n120; misogyny, 154, 166; poli-

i n d e x  289

tics and, 224n44; predatory, 79–96; rabbinic Judaism and, 164, 168, 169–76, 234n22, 241n120; resistance of, control and, 168–69; sensuality and, 59–60; sexual jealousy of, 52, 58, 61; virginity ideology and, 136, 138, 140, 231n123; wealth/inheritance and, 74, 208n23; see also Gender Worship: coercion v., 12; GrecoRoman, 86, 120–22, 155–56; social context of, 34; variety of, Roman

Empire and, 20–21, 187n93 Yahweh cult, 34 Yair, Rabbi Pinhas ben, 158, 164 Yalta, 168–69, 174 Yamauchi, 129 Yannai, donkey/spell story of, 169–70 Yohai, Rabbi Shimon bar, 158 Yosi, Rabbi, 154, 158 Zoroaster/Zoroastrians, 115, 164; demonology and, 162

Gender, Theory, and Religion Amy Hollywood,  editor

The Gender, Theory, and Religion series provides a forum for interdisciplinary scholarship at the intersection of the study of gender, sexuality, and religion. Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making Elizabeth A. Castelli When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David Susan Ackerman Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity Jennifer Wright Knust