Fritz Graf - Magic in the Ancient World.pdf

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G721
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1997
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Revealing Antiquity
. 10 .
G.
W Bowersock, General Editor
MAGIC
IN THE
"
ANCIENT WORLD
Fritz Graf
Translated
by
Franklin Philip
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BLOOMINGTON
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
London, England·
1997
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
TH
E
LAST DECADE has seen a steadily growing interest
in the subject discussed in this book, not the least in the
United States. Without the scholarly work of many peo-
ple, this account would have been impossible. It started
as a series of seminars at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes
(section
des sciences religieueses
)
in Paris, devel-
oped into a book in French, transformed itself into a
significantly changed German version
,
and now presents
itself in English. During this series of metamorphoses, I
have derived enormous benefits from friends and col-
leagues.
John Scheid in Paris invited me to the Ecole and
helped with the French edition, as did Evelyne Scheid-
Ttssinier, Magali Tongas, and Didier Mertens. The partici-
pants in my seminars helped by clarifying several tricky
issues. Jan Bremmer, Christopher Faraone, Sarah lies
Johnston
,
DavidJordan, and Henk Versnel contributed by
discussing and debating various points. I thank each of
them. I especially thank Sarah lies Johnston for the in-
valuable help she gave
in
the production of the book.
Scholarship, unlike magic, is not the business of a solitary
figure
.
THE PRA
CTICE
OF
magic was omnipres-
ent in classical antiquity. The contempo-
raries of Plato and Socrates placed voodoo
doUs on graves and thresholds (some of these dolls can
be found in modern museums), Cicero smiled upon a
colleague who said that he had lost his memory under the
influence of a spell, and the Elder Pliny declared that
everybody was afraid to fall victim to binding spells
.
The
citizens of classical Teos cursed with spells whoever at-
tacked the city; the Twelve Tables legislated against magi-
cal transfers of crops from one field to another; and the
imperial law books contain extensive sanctions against all
sorts of magical procedures-with the sole exception of
love spells and weather magic. The accusation of having
worked magic was wielded against many a prominent
Greek and Roman
,
from Republican senators to the phi-
losopher
Boethius in the sixth century of our era; had
Socrates lived in a place other than Athens, he would
certainly have incurred the same risk. Ancient magic lived
on: Greek spells from Egyptian papyrus books reappear
in Latin guise in astrological manuscripts at the time of
Christopher Columbus; the story of the sorcerer's apprentice,
told in Lucian, is famous in European literature and music; and
the image of the modern witch is unthinkable without Greek
and Roman antecedents. Magic, in a certain sense, belongs to
antiquity and its heritage, like temples, hexameters, and marble
statues.
Ancient magic had more facets than just the harm done
through spells and curses. Magical rites not only helped to harm
enemies and rivals but also gave access to a higher spirituality.
These rites could open the way to the supreme god, or at least
to an intimate dinner with Helios or an encounter with Seth.
Magicians had a direct link to the divine world, and magic was
seen as a gift from the gods as early as Pindar's time. Anyone
with a charismatic personality could be seen as a magician as
well: Apollonius of Tyana, the philosopher Plotinus, and the
orator libanius, as well as Moses and Jesus, were thought to
have powers well beyond those of ordinary people.
But magic is a bit like a black hole; to many people, it seems
invisible
.
Contemporary social anthropologists doubt whether
magic exists at all. The debate about the distinction between
magic and religion has been long and bitter, and without a clear
solution; scholarship, anyway, continued a discussion already
begun by theology. For a long time the science of antiquity
ignored the phenomenon. Despite the revival of interest in
ancient religion
,
interest in ancient magic remains marginal-
curse tablets
,
papyrus books, and voodoo dolls are much less
appealing than are mythological scenes on Attic vases or the
papyrus fragments of Sappho
.
This situation is understandable
and, to a certain degree, perfectly justified; nevertheless, schol-
arly interest in ancient societies should not be fastidious
.
This
book gives a general account of ancient magic, from the inven-
tion of the term in the last years of the sixth century
B.C.
to the
end of antiquity.
2
.,;.>
MAGIC IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
THE SOURCES
The study of ancient magic, like the study of all religious
problems in the civilizations of antiquity, must draw on all
possible sources from literature to the texts on papyri and in
inscriptions, as well as the (rarer) visual material. Besides these
documents that are common to the whole history of ancient
religions
,
there are those specific texts of magic papyri and curse
tablets (primarily engraved on thin sheets of lead) found
throughout the ancient world, from classical Greece to Greco-
Roman Egypt. Among these sources, however, the texts pre-
served on papyrus are certainly the most surprising, and thanks
to their highly detailed ritual scenarios, they constitute the most
important source of information
.
Thus, it is with them that we
shall begin.'
Among these magic texts on papyrus gathered in the two
volumes of Preisendanz's
Papyri Graecae Magicae,
2
distinctions
must be made. First we possess small pieces of papyrus-whose
number, moreover, is still growing-comprising magic texts that
are
,
so to speak, applied: charms against illnesses, formulas for
sympathetic magic
(spells),
and especially binding spells or
defixiones
3
Only the fact that these binding spells, which come
from all of Greco-Roman Egypt, are written on papyrus distin-
guishes them from other similar and much more numerous texts
that the epigraphers call
tabulae defixionum.
These texts, which are
mostly inscribed on small metal sheets, have been found in
almost every part of what was the ancient world. The great
majority of them are on lead.' It must be assumed that such
magic texts also had existed on papyrus outside of Egypt; how-
ever, with rare exceptions, the ancient papyri have been pre-
served only in the extremely dry soil of the Nile Valley.
Besides the short texts
,
there are in Preisendanz's collection
several long texts on papyrus. These long texts are of consider-
Introduction
.,;.>
3

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