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Journal of the History Students at San Francisco State University

VOLUME XIX
2010
DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC:
A BRIEF HISTORIOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION

Colleen Marie Bradley

O NE of the basic tenets of History is that one must know the parame-
ters of a subject in order to study it. For some subjects this is quite
easy. For example, it is quite clear what the parameters of nineteenth-
century French political history would be. For some subjects, such as
ancient magic, it is far from clear what is being studied. Ancient Greek
and Roman magic tended to be defined differently by every scholar who
studied it. Sometimes these scholars have been quite inaccurate in their
definitions, forcing modern concepts on an ancient practice. Most
modern scholars have done their best to find a definition that would
accurately reflect the ancient world, but the lack of continuity in the
definition of ancient magic has not been advantageous to the discipline.
In any case, what defines the parameters of ancient magic remains one of
the most debated subjects in ancient intellectual history. The purpose of
this paper is to review some of the scholarly definitions of ancient Greek
and Roman magic and try to decipher the ancient meaning of the
subject, and possibly come to some conclusions on how the word should
be defined and utilized.
There are three ways in which scholarly interpretations of ancient
magic have tended to differ. The first is magics place in the history of
religious and scientific development. Many pre-1960s scholars placed
magic at the beginning of a religious evolution, but more recent scholars
have not found this argument compelling. A second major focus of
scholars has been the theory behind magicwhy did ancient peoples
expect magic to work? Much of this information came from anthropolog-
ical inquiry and often forced a stigma of savagery and foolishness upon
the practitioners of magic. The last point of contention was where magic
ended and religion began. The dividing line was unclear in ancient
societies, which is especially frustrating for many modern scholars, who
largely originate from monotheistic Europe, where there is a clear-cut
line between magic and religion.
150 Colleen Marie Bradley

The debate over defining ancient magic must inevitably start with Sir
James George Frazers The Golden Bough, first published in 1890. Frazers
work had a profound effect on the subject of ancient magic. The Golden
Bough, while centering upon the rituals of Diana at Aricia, was a study in
comparative religion and magic. Frazer believed that religions went
through set stages and that magic, which was eventually eschewed for
1
real religion, was the first and most basic of these stages. He compared
the rituals of the ancient Romans to rituals found more recently in what
he deemed primitive cultures. These cultures were primarily those of
2
Sub-Saharan Africans, South East Asians, and Native Americans.
Frazer designated ancient beliefs into two categories, religion and
superstition. Magic was a part of superstition and more akin to primitive
science than religion. Frazer saw sympathetic magic as a part of ancient
religious belief, and claimed that with ancient magic, we have another
3
mode in which primitive man seeks to bend nature to his wishes.
Frazer saw his religion as superior to that of ancient and non-European
societies, at one point he commented dismissively, There is, perhaps,
hardly a savage who does not fancy himself possessed of this power of
4
influencing the course of nature by sympathetic magic. While Frazers
work was centered on religion and not magic, his definition of magic
embodied the ethnocentric arrogance of his Victorian age. Frazers view
of magic as primitive continued unchecked for many decades.
Joseph Mooneys lengthy discussion at the end of his 1919 translation
of Hosidius Getas Medea elaborated on Frazers view of ancient magic.
Mooney saw necromancy as the earliest form of Roman magic, and that
it, along with other forms of magic, was primarily practiced by women in
5
nocturnal rites. Mooney described magic in great detail and explained
the rituals and devices involved, but could not explain how magic was
different than religion, other than its illegality. He admitted that the line
6
between magic and medicine was largely mixed up by the Romans.
Mooney attempted to systematize Roman magic, but the categories did
not come together to comprise a coherent system. Magic, it seemed, was
the category where ancient beliefs that did not adhere to other categories
were conveniently placed.

1
Robert Ackerman, The Myth and Ritual School: J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists
(New York: Routledge, 2002), 63.
2
Ibid., 50.
3
James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, vol. 1 (New
York: McMillian, 1894), 12.
4
Ibid., 12.
5
Hosidius Geta, Medea, trans. Joseph J. Mooney (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1919),
58, 62, 64.
6
Ibid., 90.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 151

In comparison, Mooneys contemporary Eli Burriss had a very clear-

cut idea of what constituted magic and what was religion. In Taboo,
Magic, Spirits, written in 1929, took Frazers belief in cultural superiority
to a new level. As a deeply religious man, he was disdainful of ancient
religion in general and likened ancient magic to the thinking of child-
7
ren. Buriss concluded that the reason for ancients fallacious belief in
8
magic was their underdeveloped physiology. He succinctly described
the pre-1960s scholarly belief about ancient magic as such:

In the early stage of his development man has no conception of a supe-

rior being on whom he is dependent, whose will he must win; but be-
lieves that by performing some mysterious action, usually imitating the
action desired, and often assisted by an incantation or charm . . . he can
force the desired result. This mysterious action and incantation, passing
9
under the name of magic, arises . . . from a curious twist of logic.

Burriss not only wrote that magic came before, and therefore was more
10
primitive than religion, but that later magic was a degeneration.
Burriss curious addition to Frazerian theory was the idea that in cas-
es where it was not clear if an incantation was religious or magical, the
11
mental attitude of the practitioner was the determining factor. There
were, therefore, magic-like acts within mainstream Roman religion, but
Burriss interpreted these as religious attempts to protect against evil
12
magic. Burriss focus on the mental attitude of the ancient practition-
ers differed from Frazers view of them as it gave practitioners some
albeit not muchagency. This meant ancient peoples were not purely
products of their time. In Burriss magical-religious landscape, ancient
persons could decide to partake in primitive acts of magic, whereas
Frazer had insinuated that all rituals acts in a given period were repre-
sentative of a single stage of religious development.
Cyril Baileys 1932 Phases in the Religion of Ancient Rome softened
Frazers stance on magic, by adopting the stance that religion and
13
therefore magic were difficult to define. He maintained that magic
came before religion, but claimed that primitive elements (magic) were a

7
Eli Edward Burriss, Taboo, Magic, Spirits: A Study of Primitive Elements in Roman
Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1931), 3. His father was a minister, as stated above.
8
Ibid., 124.
9
Ibid., 14.
10
Ibid., 177.
11
Ibid., 177178.
12
Ibid., 144ff.
13
Cyril Bailey, Phases in the Religion of Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1932), 5.

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152 Colleen Marie Bradley
14
part of Roman religion. He kept Frazers general definition of magic,
but claimed that the line between magic and religion was determined by
15
whether an act was public or private in nature. As well as invoking
Frazer, Bailey also utilized the works of the anthologist R. R. Marett, who
16
claimed that magic was the basis for religion. Ultimately Bailey believed
that magic may be distinguished from religion because it believes that
this force [apart from nature] resides in things or persons or acts or
words and not in beings, spiritual or personal, to whom an appeal is
17
made. The difference between how magic and religion worked on a
theoretical basis was far from clear using Baileys definition, which was
clearly created to separate modern monotheism from magic.
Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the most prominent anthologists of
the twentieth century, in his posthumously published 1948 book Magic,
Science, and Religion applied a more scientific approach to Frazers
theories. Malinowski focused on contemporaneous cultures; he found
that the stone-age savages of to-day still practiced magic, which he
explained as an entirely sober, prosaic, even clumsy art, enacted for
18
purely practical reasons, governed by crude and shallow beliefs. He
wrote that the core of magic was the spellthat words were magic and
19
everything else was secondary. According to Malinowski, among these
less-advanced practitioners, magical power was conceived as originating
20
from nature, but in higher societies magic came from spirits. These
theories were crafted from years of anthropological study and reflected a
much more scientific approach to the subject than previous studies.
Because of this careful study, Malinowski also gave magic more credit
than previous scholars. He said that both magic and religion came from
the same need for escape from the stresses of society. Malinowski
ultimately distinguished religion from magic by saying that magic should
be viewed as a practical art consisting of acts which are only means to a
definite end expected to follow later on; religion as a body of self-
21
contained acts being themselves the fulfillment of their purpose. Magic
was physical, while religion was spiritual.
The Scottish classicist W. K. C. Guthrie was best known for his work
with Greek philosophy, where he brought new historicism to classical

14
Ibid., 8.
15
Ibid., 89.
16
Ibid., 3132.
17
Ibid., 33.
18
Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion and other Essays (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1948), 51.
19
Ibid., 54.
20
Ibid., 56.
21
Ibid., 68.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 153

studies. His text, The Greeks and their Gods, published in 1950, showed a
similar forward thinking nature. Guthrie contended that modern
scholars were not able to understand non-European and premodern
people as easily as they had previously believed, and therefore many of
their previous assumptions about the mentality of such people were
22
likely false. Magic, to Guthrie, was an anti-social behavior that existed
alongside religion, as illustrated by the numerous instances of magic in
23
Athens Golden Age. Guthrie did not completely eschew Frazers
theories; in fact he occasionally utilized Frazers words and ideas. Despite
his defense of many Frazerian ideas, his text marked a shift in thinking
about ancient religion and magic. Guthrie denied that magic was the first
stage in religious development and ascertained that it was not a lack of
intelligence that caused people to believe in magic.
Sir Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd is an anthropologist who focuses
on ancient Greek thought. His 1979 book entitled Magic, Reason and
Experience was an attempt to sweep away old anthropological theories
and Frazers concept of magic. Lloyd saw that translating concepts from
another culture inevitably distorts them, but believed some comprehen-
24
sion was still possible. Lloyd, like Guthrie, also saw that magic did not
come before religion, and that it in fact survived long after the ancient
25
world had ended. Religion and science did not supplant magic; they
coexisted, and often the lines dividing them were blurred. Lloyd also
stressed the pluralism of Greek religious beliefs which allowed Greeks
to subscribe to numerous beliefs and partake in various rituals while still
26
acting within the constraints of society.
Lloyds focus was Greek science, but to discuss the origins of Greek
science it was necessary to deal with Frazers theory of magic as a very
primitive form of science. Frazers emphasis had been on magics
crudeness, but Lloyd was a new kind of scholar, one that was not intent
on degrading any beliefs or proclaiming the superiority of his own
beliefs. The new scholarship that emerged from the 1960s and 1970s,
such as Lloyds, was less judgmental and attempted to amalgamate
beliefs rather than place them into rigid Aristotelian categories. The
ghost of Frazer was still haunting the halls of academia, but its strength
was fading.

22
W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), 15.
23
Ibid., 270274.
24
G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of
Greek Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 12.
25
Ibid., 5.
26
Ibid., 1014.

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154 Colleen Marie Bradley

The Judeo-Christian religious scholar Alan Segal tackled the problem

of defining magic in his article Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of
Definition. While appreciating Malinowskis definition, Segal believed
27
that it was impossible to separate magic from either religion or science.
The term magic was used and interpreted differently throughout time
28
and across cultures, which made it indefinable. He faulted previous
historians for their attempts to differentiate magic from religion in the
Hellenistic world, which he claimed resulted in the misinterpretation of
29
documents as fitting exclusively into either one category or another.
Comparing texts deemed magical and religious, he saw no compelling
reason to separate the two into distinct traditions. Segal further refuted
Roman legal and literary usage of the word magic as being useful to
30
scholars because the word always was used in a negative connotation.
In rejecting the possibility of a meaningful yet legitimate definition of
magic, Segal rejected Frazers paradigm of delimitating between magic
and religion.
Robin Lane Fox was not interested in defining ancient magic for its
own sake, but found it necessary to discuss it in his landmark 1986 book
Pagans and Christians. Fox, like Lloyd, emphasized the multiplicity of
religious beliefs accepted in the ancient world. Since Mediterranean
paganism lacked a concept of heresy it was not possible to define magic
31
as heretical religious beliefs. Fox, like Segal, did not see magic as a
separate technology, but as a part of the religious system of the ancient
32
Romans. Ancient Romans may have had a concept of magic being evil,
but Fox claimed this was a false view that needed to be overlooked by
scholars. Fox did, however, make a brief attempt to define two types of
33
magic: one was for purely physical ends, the other for spiritual ends.
Foxs pragmatic approach to magic gave it a place within the ancient
religious system, yet set it apart as somehow different, perhaps because
the ancient Greek and Roman writers considered it different.
The classicist Walter Burkert, professor emeritus of the University of
Zurich, focused much of his career on Greek religious anthropology. Like
Lloyd, Burkert admitted that when one tries to translate one religion
into the language of another, one finds . . .that this is only possible to a

27
Alan F. Segal, Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition, in Studies in Gnostic-
ism and Hellenistic Religions: Presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th
Birthday, ed. R. Van Den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 350351.
28
Ibid., 351.
29
Ibid., 351352.
30
Ibid., 356365.
31
Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York: Viking, 1986), 31.
32
Ibid., 36.
33
Ibid., 37.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 155
34
limited degree. Therefore, the term magic will never mean to scholars
what it meant to ancient Greeks and Romans. When explaining the
reason behind the ritual transformation of the scapegoat he claimed that
it was not magical or non-rational, just not understood by modern
35
Western sensibilities. Burkert focused much of his energies on explain-
ing Greek ritual, but did not explain the difference between magical
ritual and religious ritual, indicating that he either did not perceive there
to be a difference between the two or that they were so far removed from
one another that it was not worth mentioning. He stipulated that rituals
stemmed from obsolete behavioral patterns rather than ideas, making
36
magic and religion obsolete when discussing ritual.
Burkert may not have focused on magic, but his study of religion
hinted at the reasons why magic was seen as something removed from
Greek society. The multiplicity of accepted beliefs within polytheistic
37
Greece was necessary to fill all the needs of society. Mystery cults,
which were occasionally deemed by ancient critics as being magical,
38
existed to calm personal anxieties, such as a fear of death. Public
religion, however, was used not only to calm collective fears, but also as a
39
tool to unify the community under a set of leaders. Anything that
undermined public worship undermined the community and needed to
40
be eliminated for the welfare of the state. Therefore, public and private
religious practices were given unique connotations in the ancient world
because these different forms of religion fulfilled different needs.
Hans Dieter Betz reminded scholars about the goal of placing magic
in its historical context and the development of religion in Magic and
Mystery in the Greek Magical Texts. Betz claimed that no scholar had
done this or come up with a definition of magic that can be substantiated
with copious evidence. Furthermore, it did not matter what the distinc-
41
tion between ancient religion and magic was. According to Betz, if
there is a difference between religion and magic at all, it does not really

34
Walter Burkert, Homo Necans, trans. Peter Bing (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983), xxi.
35
Walter Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1979), 6768.
36
Burkert, Homo Necans, 23, 28.
37
Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, trans. John Raffan (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1985), 216.
38
Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987),
1216, 2425.
39
Burkert, Greek Religion, 58, 257.
40
Ibid., 75, 246, 255.
41
Han Dieter Betz, Magic and Mystery in the Greek Magical Papyri, in Magic Hiera:
Ancient Greek Magica and Religion, ed. Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1991), 245.

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156 Colleen Marie Bradley
42
matter as long as they work in much the same way. Considering how
other scholars have torn each others throats over the subject, this
blatant dismissal of the question of defining magic was quite shocking.
The reasons Betz gave for not needing a definition was that a definition
would always be laden with presumptions and bias. This would lead to a
false belief in the scholars objectivity, and by defining magic and religion
43
rigidly, there would be no room for the two to overlap. Betz took a
radical approach to ancient magic, but his concerns echoed those of
other scholars in the field. This nihilistic view on defining magic does a
disservice to the field because the ancients saw magic as a part of their
world, and ignoring this fact lessens our knowledge and understanding
of ancient society.
Fritz Graf is one of the leading scholars of ancient religion and may
also be the reincarnation of Frazer. His Magic in the Ancient World, first
published in German in 1994, was an overview of ancient magic. Graf
incorporated modern scholars concepts of magics inclusive and spiritual
nature, proclaiming magical rites not only helped to harm enemies and
rivals but also gave access to a higher spirituality. Nevertheless, he held
many of Frazers basic beliefs, such as magic, in a certain sense, belongs
to antiquity and its heritage, like temples, hexameters, and marble
44
statues.
Overall, Graf was more interested in the philology and structure of
magical works than defining magics place within the ancient world. The
step-by-step process of becoming a magician or creating a curse tablet
interested him above all else. One on hand, Graf compared magicians to
45
initiates of mystery cults, placing magic near to religion. But he also
believed Plinys assumption that magic started out as a form of medicine
46
and was fundamentally in the realm of science. In this he harkened
back to Frazer, who described magic as closer to science than to religion.
Grafs work was an uneasy balance of both old and new theories on
ancient magic.
Hans Kippenberg dealt with the legal side of ancient religion in his
1997 work, Magic in Roman Civil Discourse. Kippenburg started out by
writing that the old legal and literary texts once used by historians were
quickly becoming overshadowed by the curse tablets and other archeo-

42
Ibid., 245.
43
Ibid., 246, 247.
44
Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, trans. Franklin Phillip (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1997), 2.
45
Ibid., 99.
46
Fritz Graf, How to Cope with Difficult Life: A View of Ancient Magic, in Envisioning
Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schfer and Hans G. Kippling
(Leiden: Brill, 1997), 109112.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 157

logical finds that give a window into the beliefs that the majority of the
47
Roman population held regarding magic. Kippenburgs assertion meant
that the works of previous generations of scholars lacked insight into a
crucial element of society, making much of their work obsolete. Kippen-
berg invoked the memory of Malinowski when he gave his definition of
magic as an action that gave confidence to a person who was susceptible
48
to forces beyond his or her control. Kippenberg followed the recent
scholarly trend by writing that magic and religion were forever linked
49
and sometimes indistinguishable. He did, however, add a new element
to the definition of magic which appears very basic but was actually
fundamental. Magic was illegal because it was a clandestine ritual.
Without secrecy it would not be magic. The key to defining magic was its
50
secret, and therefore illicit, nature.
The team of Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price wrote and
compiled a two-volume synopsis of Roman religion in 1997, Religions of
Rome. One of the basic principles of their work was that there were no
51
clear-cut definitions of Roman religion. Like religion, magic is not a
single category at all; but a term applied to a set of operations whose
rules conflict with the prevailing rules of religion, science or logic of the
52
society concerned. Magic remained an enigmatic term for the authors,
one that had no definition beyond its distinctiveness from the norms of
society. The authors believed that Frazers theories were inherently
fallacious and detrimental to the study of magic. They suggested that the
ancient sources, not modern theory, should be the backbone of any
53
discussion of magic. As Beard is one of the most notable classicists of
the age, the total rejection of Frazerian theory in this book carries some
weight. The theory put forward by these three authors is in fact in direct
opposition to Frazers clear-cut distinction between the two categories of
religion and magic.
In 2000s, The Gods of Ancient Rome, Robert Turcan opposed magic,
astrology and the occult to the state sponsored religions of Rome. Turcan
proposed that Roman piety, in its various forms, was a way of coping

47
Hans G. Kippenberg, Magic in Roman Civil Discourse: Why Rituals Could Be Illegal,
in Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schfer and Hans G.
Kippenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 137.
48
Ibid., 137.
49
Ibid., 139.
50
Ibid., 153157.
51
Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, vol. 1 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), xi.
52
Ibid., 154.
53
Ibid., 219.

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158 Colleen Marie Bradley
54
with fear. The state religion of Rome, along with the cult of the house-
hold Lars, pacified many of the fears of the population. These traditional
55
religious elements were under the control of the community elites. In
Turcans analysis, magic and the occult satisfied the needs of those who
56
were anti-social or who felt let down by traditional religion. This
harkens back to Guthries view of magic as an alternative to mainstream
religion. Turcans sharp division between religion and magic may have
been a bit of a throwback, but his statement that the division was due to
personal needs and individual agency was concurrent with academic
trends.
Christopher A. Faraones 2001 work, Ancient Greek Love Magic, de-
fined magic as:

a set of practical devices and rituals used by the Greeks in their day-to-
day lives to control or otherwise influence supernaturally the forces of
nature, animals, or other human beings. This type of magic was tradi-
57
tionally mundane and unremarkable to the ancient Greeks.

This banal, yet straightforward, definition of ancient magic obscures

what elements may separate magic from religion, as this definition could
be said to apply to either one. Faraone admitted to the difficultly of
defining magic, and rejected the Frazerian separation of magic from
religion and science, citing the insurmountable cultural differences
58
between ancient Greek and modern scholarly culture. He insisted a
firm Frazerian distinction between magic and religion would be
59
oxymoronic, as they were two sides to the same coin. Throughout the
book, he declared that the magic had at its core the same ideas and
practices that were found in public Greek worship.
In order to come full circle in this historiography, it would benefit to
look at C. M. C. Greens 2007 book entitled Roman Religion and the Cult
of Diana at Aricia. This is appropriate because the focus of Frazers The
Golden Bough, as meandering as it was, was the cult of Diana at Aricia.
Knowing full well the history of the subject, Green felt compelled to
comment on the legacy of Frazer. Green did not find Frazers arguments
and theories compelling, but she did defend him, stating it is now
almost a reflex to disparage Frazers work, and that few recent scholars
54
Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to
Imperial Times, trans. Antonia Nevill (New York: Routledge, 2000), 11.
55
Ibid., 145.
56
Ibid., 146147.
57
Christopher A. Faraone, Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2001), 16.
58
Ibid., 17.
59
Ibid., 137138.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 159
60
were willing to preserve any part of his legacy. Green argued that
Frazers knowledgeable, hands-on approach had virtue and inspired
61
interest and enthusiasm. Green was inspired by Frazers enthusiasm,
but she saw the cult of Diana as belonging firmly to the realm of main-
stream Roman religion, whereas Frazer saw it as containing magical
aspects. While Green may defend the pioneer of her scholarly subject, it
is clear that the theories of Frazer and his like-minded brethren no
longer hold weight among ancient Greek and Roman religious scholars.
The Greeks and Romans did not leave a definition of magic that is
comparable to modern scholars definitions. When and if the ancients
placed the dividing line between religion and magic cannot be easily
ascertained. The evidence available to us is scant, and comes in three
general forms: Laws, opinions expressed by notable persons, and
evidence of magical practice from ordinary citizens. Of these three, laws
provide the best understanding of the norms of society, while the other
two forms of evidence have the potential to show more breadth of
opinions on the matter.
Records of very few laws have survived from ancient Greece, and
those that have survived do not address magic directly. The closest
surviving law to a magic law was from Teos, in which potion (possibly
62
poisonous) making and usage was a capital offense. We are left with a
handful of literary sources that give only a narrow view of the subject.
Plato was a well-known critic of magic, not necessarily on spiritual or
moral grounds, but because he believed that the professional magicians
63
bilked people out of their money. In Laws, he expressed a desire to ban
magic and witchcraft for its ill effects as well as the fraud that could be
64
committed by magical practitioners. Poetic and dramatic works, such
as Euripides Medea, showed magic in a negative light and invariably
associated it with the works of wicked women. None of these elite
sources gave a definition of magic nor explained its place in society.
Popular sources from the Greek world survive mostly in the form of
curse tablets, which were invariably only one manifestation of what the
Greeks would have deemed to have been magic. The earliest curse
tablets often give only names, suggesting that many of these curses relied
heavily on spells orally recited. Curse tablets did not identify themselves
as being magical. Instead, they appeared to be binding spells, created in
60
C. M. C. Green, Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007), xv.
61
Ibid., xvxvi.
62
John G. Gager, ed., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1992), 23.
63
Plato, Laws, 909b.
64
Ibid., 909cd, 933a.

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160 Colleen Marie Bradley

order to affect control over a person in a specific context, be it in an

athletic competition, law case, or a burgeoning relationship. The spell
implored or demanded that particular gods and/or spirits of the dead
accomplish the goals for the practitioner. Curse tablets showed up in
great enough abundance, and with sufficient variety of styles and skill
levels, to prove that their use was not restricted to any singular group.
In comparison to the Greeks, the Romans were paranoid about mag-
ic, as the many laws forbidding various forms of magic attested to. In the
Twelve Tables, there were stipulations for punishments for spells that
harmed other citizens, and these punishments were put alongside other
penalties for harming persons and property using non-magical means.
Later legislation was harsher on magic, demanding exile or death for its
practitioners. A law passed during the reign of Sulla regarding murder
and poison also included substances acting at a distance, or what we
65
call magic in the list of various means to commit homicide. Another
law passed under Sulla dealt directly with magic, condemning those who
66
practiced or knew magic. During the imperial age emperors were clear
in their rationale in legislating against magic, stating that the knowledge
of those who with the aid of magic arts are discovered to have plotted
against peoples well-being or to have diverted chaste minds to lustful
thoughts must be punished and a penalty duly exacted under the
67
harshest of laws. As Tacitus attested to several times in his works,
magic was clearly a threat to the Emperor, who was always at risk of
68
being assassinated.
The Romans laws showed a negative conception of magic, as did the
texts of Roman elites, many of which dealt with magic, albeit briefly.
Love potions were the subject of many poetic works, especially those of
Ovid and Horace, and later Apuleius. Love magic was viewed as being
employed almost exclusively by women, who used a variety of spells,
incantations, and rituals to subdue men. Pliny gave the best ancient
definition of magic as it was applied and understood in this Roman world
in Natural History. He claimed magic was a blend of medicine, religion,
and astrology and that there were several varieties of magic, such as
69
divination. Pliny also claimed that there were few in Rome who were
70
not afraid of magic.

65
Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 261.
66
Ibid., 262.
67
Ibid., 263.
68
Tacitus, Annals, 2.2732, 12.52.
69
Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 264.
70
Gager, Curse Tablets, 253.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 161

The non-elite evidence from the Roman world is similar to that from
Greece, although it is significantly more abundant. Most surviving curse
tablets are dated from the Roman period, and show a variety in not only
their application, but in the supernatural powers which they invoked,
including Semitic deities and angels. The only surviving spell books
come from Roman controlled Egypt. One of the most interesting of the
spells or rituals in these Egyptians books was not a ritual to bind, but a
ritual to connect with the divine. This shows that forbidden rituals were
not confined to short-term goals of psychical gain, but to spiritual
71
matters as well. These ancient sources give only a narrow view of a
particular persons concept of magic, and therefore a culture-wide
definition cannot be ascertained from ancient knowledge alone.
We are still left with the question of what definition should be used
when discussing ancient magic. The Frazerian model was obviously
flawed because it was based both on a faulty concept of religious evolu-
tion and general cultural particularism. These ethnocentric and outdated
ideas must be avoided at all costs. The concept of magic being particular
to ancient or primitive societies is ridiculous. The large number of
astrologers, tarot card readers, metaphysical stores, and magic books
that are sustained by the modern western economy prove that magic is
not primitive, rather ever-present. Furthermore, most ritual acts within a
religion, when viewed by someone outside of the culture, would appear
to be magic. Wouldnt someone who was unfamiliar with Christianity
call the Eucharists transubstantiation of bread and wine to flesh and
blood magic? If a series of non-rational rituals were sufficient to consti-
tute a definition of magic, all religions could be said to contain magic.
Magic and religion were not analogous by Frazers definition; they were
separated by time and cultural advancement. If we reject this separation,
Frazers model must be rejected.
We must also reject trite analogies of ancient magic to modern phe-
nomena as the basis of any new theory, since the religious systems of
ancient Mediterranean polytheism and modern monotheism are too
vastly different. Even if an ancient artifact looks like a modern voodoo
doll, the underlying theories behind its existence and effectiveness are
not necessarily analogous to a modern voodoo doll. An unusual object
does not automatically make a magical object. The ancient system
allowed for almost infinite variation while adhering to the same tenets of
religion; the same cannot be said for modern Christianity. Scholars must
be vigilant not to be anachronistic about intellectual history.

71
Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 269270.

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162 Colleen Marie Bradley

The basic tenets of ancient Greek and Roman religion must be ex-
amined in order to give magic a fair definition. The religions of the
ancient Mediterranean adhered to the do ut des theory of worship, where
temples, prayers, and sacrifice were given to a god in order for the
citizens and devotees to receive something in return from the god. The
human obligation of this tenet was seen in public rituals and religion,
since sacrifices and worship were visible to all. It is difficult to ascertain if
clandestine rituals such as magic abided by the same do ut des tenet.
Curse tablets and magical texts are the only direct window into the
secretive rituals of ancient peoples, as literary or secondary sources were
severely tainted by personal bias. Curse tablets give little information on
their means of functioning, as the text was usually restricted to the intent
of the curse. They followed a basic formula containing the subject to be
bound, the matter in which they were to be bound, and sometimes the
72
reason for the binding. Occasionally, there is evidence of the tablets
creator giving or promising to give something to the god invoked to
perform the binding. An example of this comes from a third or fourth
century curse tablet found in Roman Britain: Whoever stole the proper-
ty of Varenus, whether woman or man, let him pay with his own blood.
From the money which he will pay back, one half is donated to Mercury
73
and Virtue. Yet these examples are rare, and curse tablets, considered
together as a body of evidence, do not prove that secretive rituals abided
by the do ut des theory.
Manuals of magic give a fuller view of the secret rituals of ancient
peoples. These manuals and books sometimes gave step-by-step instruc-
tions on how to perform spells. They often explained what the curse
tablets were lacking and the rituals necessary to make spells and curse
tablets successful. The Papyri Graecae Magicae gave instructions for
several of such rituals, along with the models for curse tablets, which
showed that curse tablets had some concept of, do ut des. The souls of
the dead were often the carriers of spells, and they were either threat-
ened or persuaded with gifts or promises to accomplish their tasks. Small
offerings such as flowers were sometimes given with the deposited
74 75
tablet. Unspecified gifts were also promised to the dead. However, it
was the promise of a happy afterlife that was most often offered in
phrases such as this one found on a curse tablet in Egypt: If you accom-
76
plish this for me, I will set you free. These curse tablets were often

72
Gager, Curse Tablets, 511.
73
Ibid., 195196; see also 156, 189, 191194, 197.
74
Ibid., 95.
75
Ibid., 138.
76
Ibid., 100. See also Beard et al., vol. 2, 266267.

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 DEFINING ANCIENT MAGIC 163

placed in the tombs of those who died violent deaths who roamed the
land as restless spirits. Therefore, such spells could be seen falling into
the tenets of the do ut des system because the completion of the curse
would bring benefits for both sides. Many of these rituals also involved
prohibitions to ensure purity, analogous to those prohibitions found in
77
public rituals.
Curse tablets and spell books do not give enough evidence to prove
that do ut des was the basis of secret rituals in the ancient world. Howev-
er, they do suggest it was the basis in many cases. It stands to reason that
if other rituals were based on the do ut des system, clandestine rituals
would probably follow suit. After all, the practitioners of these rituals
were members of the polis or city-state and therefore took part in public
rituals. This was the system that they were accustomed to, and they were
not likely to have deviated too far despite the fact that the goals of these
rituals were personal instead of public.
If the basic tenets of secret rites did not greatly deviate from the ac-
knowledged public rites, then the Frazer-inspired model of magic as
inferior to religion must be rejected. Yet there was clearly a difference
between secret and public rituals because, after all, one was public and
the other private. Persecution and fear of magic may have been due to
overexcited imaginations, but there must have been some reason why
practitioners of magic were never allowed to practice their craft in the
public sphere. One possibility was that others labeled rituals done in a
secretive manner as magic, and that magic was only differentiated from
religion by its secretive nature.
It was Walter Burkerts study of Greek religion that appears to point
to the real difference between ancient religion and magic. Religion was
in the public sphere, done for the public good. Those rituals labeled
magic, were private or semi-private, done for the personal good of a
small number of people, or even just one person. The good of a single
individual can often conflict with the good of the many, making magic
potentially harmful to society. Julius Paulus Prudentissimus, better
known as Paul, a second and third century CE jurist, explained in his
Opinions that those who administer a potion to cause an abortion or as
an aphrodisiac, even if they do not act maliciously, nevertheless because
78
their action is a bad example, must be punished. Magic was not
necessarily harmful, but any rituals done in private had the potential of
harming society, and therefore had to be stopped.

77
Gager, Curse Tablets, 106. Instructions on one love spell included this: Take care to
keep yourself from intercourse, from wine, and from all (kinds of) meat.
78
Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 2, 262.

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164 Colleen Marie Bradley

Magic was not differentiated from religion because there was a dif-
ference in its theory of functionality, the disposition of the practitioner,
or the level of religiosity involved. It was made distinct because it was
perceived to have the possibility of becoming damaging to the polis or
city-state. The secretive nature of a ritual created a social suspicion about
the rituals intent; the ritual, in turn, became a legally defined act of civil
disobedience and was viewed as potentially harmful to the community.
In other words, magic diverges from religion along legal and political
lines, not philosophical or spiritual ones. Simply put, ancient magic was a
ritual that was forbidden or suppressed by a government or society.
The study of Greek and Roman magic has come a long way, yet still
remains a source of tension within the scholarly community. Frazers
belief in the inherent inferiority of magic reigned for almost a century,
until the 1960s and 1970s brought a new wave of scholars into the fold.
Since the 1980s, most historians, classicists, and anthropologists have
been more sympathetic to magic. They saw it as a means of expressing
burgeoning new ideas, although many scholars were remiss to define it.
Ancient sources written by elites were uniformly negative towards magic,
but they were also unlikely to define it. Ancient magic operated on the
same principles as, and co-existed with, ancient religion. However, it was
feared for its secretive nature and tendency to benefit the few instead of
the many. Magic became distinguished from religion in the ancient
world because it had the potential to harm the community, therefore
becoming a distinct entity in social and legal terms.

Colleen focuses on the history of magic, alchemy, and astrology,

especially during the Greek and Roman periods. She hopes to someday
teach at a community college, where she first found her love for history.

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