“μαγεία”, “γοητεία”, Suda, translation Catherine Roth

The Suda is the most important and comprehensive encyclopaedic work surviving from mediaeval Byzantium. It consists of over 31,000 entries written in Greek and arranged in alphabetical order. The Suda was composed around 970 CE and, until the twentieth century, (falsely) ascribed to an author called Suidas – its real authors remain unknown. The work contains two short but interesting statements on “magic”.

Our first excerpt, the entry for the Greek term mageia, distinguishes between three terms. First, mageia is defined as “the invocation of beneficent spirits for the production of something good”. By way of example, the author points to the oracles of the Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana (b. around 40 CE?; d. around 120 CE?; note that his biographer Flavius Philostratus claimed that Apollonius was not a “magician”: Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, e.g., 1.2, 5.12). Second, Greek goēteia (the term predominantly used in Plotinus' Enneads; see Chapter 3) is defined as “the invocation of maleficent spirits” and associated with “graves” (i.e., presumably, with dead people or spirits). Finally, Greek pharmakeia (the term predominantly used in Plato's Laws; see Chapter 1) is defined as harming a person by means of concoctions or potions; the article ends with a short note on haruspicy. This distinction is repeated in our second text, the entry for Greek goēteia, which further adds etymological speculations on goēteia – the author claims that it stems from the Greek verb goáw (“to wail”) – and mageia – here, the author posits a Persian origin of the art.