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Who practised love-magic in classical antiquity and in the late Roman world?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mathew W. Dickie
Mathew W. Dickie
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
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Extract

INTRODUCTION

Very soon after I began working on the identity of magic-workers in classical antiquity, I realized that it was necessary to come to terms with a thesis about depictions of erotic magic-working in Greek and Roman literature. It asserted that male writers engaged in a systematic misrepresentation of the realities of magic-working in portraying erotic magic as an exclusively female preserve; the reality was that men were the main participants in this form of magic-working. The thesis is based on the supposition that the truth about erotic magic and the people who performed it is to be found in the formularies or spell-books preserved in papyrus and in defixiones. These two sources of information are said to show us that erotic magic was performed by men and not by the women who are the persons depicted engaging in love-magic in literature. The scholar who first presented the thesis was the late John Winkler. A version of it is to be found in Fritz Graf's general account of Greek and Roman magic. There is agreement over what are taken to be the facts, but views diverge over their interpretation. Winkler appeals to the Freudian notion of denial and transference to offer an explanation not only of the discrepancy between life and literature, but of what he took to be the belief held by the young men who cast erotic spells that the girls who were the objects of their spells were as sexually eager as they were: men, when overwhelmed by sexual desire for unattainable women, through a process of denial transfer that feeling to women, whether old or young, whom they fondly imagine suffer the same intense sexual longings as themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , December 2000 , pp. 563 - 583
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2000

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References

1 Winkler made his case in his The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York/London, 1990), 71–98, republished in an abbreviated form as ‘The constraints of Eros’, in Faraone, C. A. and Obbink, D. (edd.), Magika Hiera (New York, 1991), 214–43.Google Scholar Graf's book was originally published in French as La Magie dans I'antiquité grécoromaine (Paris, 1994), then translated into English as Magic in the Ancient World, tr. Franklin, Philip (Cambridge, MA, 1998).Google Scholar There is, however, a revised edition in German:Gottemähe und Schadenzauber: die Magie in der griechisch-römischen Antike (Munich, 1996). The English translation will be cited for the sake of convenience. The thesis has encountered some opposition: the authors, names not given, of the chapter on erotic binding-spells in Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, ed. Gager, J. G. (New York, 1992), 80;Google ScholarMontserrat, D., Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt (London, 1996), 187;Google Scholar and Ogden, D., ‘Binding spells: curse tablets and voodoo dolls in the Greek and Roman worlds’, in The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe II:Ancient Greece and Rome (London, 1999), 63–7Google Scholar hold that Winkler has overstated his case.

2 Winkler (n. 1), 90. Endorsed by Faraone, C. A., TAPA 119 (1989), 149–61Google Scholar; Johnston, S., TAPA 125 (1995), 179,Google Scholar n. 3; and Martinez, D. in Ritual Power in the Ancient World, ed. Meyer, M. and Mirecki, P. (Leiden, 1995), 354–5; with qualifications byGoogle ScholarVersnel, H. in Ansichten griechischer Rituale: Geburtstag-Symposium fur Walter Burkert, ed. Graf, F. (Leipzig, 1998), 257–8Google Scholar and Faraone, C. A., Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 82–5.Google Scholar

3 Winkler (n. 1), p. 90.

4 Graf (n. 1), 185: ‘In Theocritus as well as Vergil, or in the elegiac poets, and generally in the great majority of the literary texts, it is women who practise magic, whether erotic or of another kind. This situation amounts to an astonishing.reversal of what we find in the epigraphic texts and the recipes on papyrus.’

5 Ibid., 186.

6 Ibid., 186. Ogden (n. 1), 66 seems to favour Graf's position, but is ultimately non-committal on the issue.

7 404—5:κά τᾰ Øροδισιάκ άυτς κτελση δεῖνά μετ’ μο, είναδ,εἰς τν ἅπαντα χρ νον το αἰνος.

8 Graf (n. 1), 188.

9 Ibid., 199.

10 Winkler (n. 1), 90 does concede that there are two exceptions:PGM 1.98, IV.2089.

11 The exception is SupplMag 72, a formulary from the Augustan period.

12 On this phenomenon, which he describes as a ‘community of superstition in the oikoumenê in the time of the Empire’, see Jordan, D. R., Hesperia 63 (1994), 123–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 The hands in which the spells are written show that professionals are at work. Whether the professionals were lector-priests is another matter.Ritner, R., ‘Egyptian magical practice under the Roman Empire: the demotic spells and their religious context’, ANRW2.18.5(1995), 3354–8Google Scholar and Frankfurter, D., Religion in Roman Egypt (Princeton, 1998), 224–37Google Scholar assume that they were.

14 I am much indebted to David Jordan for drawing my attention to the pair.

15 l: (a)ΞØος Δάρδνου…κλνει γᾰρ κά ἄγει Ψυχν ἄντκρυς οὑ ἄν θελς, λγων τν λγο κε ἵτι κε νω τν Ψχην το δεῖνε(1716–22); (b)πστρηψον τν ψυχν τν δείνα είς μ τόν δείνα, ΐνα με Øτλή, ΐνα μου ρᾆ, ΐνα μοι δοί τά πστρεΨον τήν Ψνχήν τής δείνα είς έμέ τον δείνα, ΐνα με Øιλή ΐνα μου έρά ΐνα μοι δοί τά έν ταίς χερσίν έαυτής (1806–10); (c)καί έλθών όΨέ είς τήν οίκίαν ής βούλει (1852–4). 2: (a)έστιν γάρ καρτερον λίαν καί άνυπέρβλητο ποιούν πρός πάντας αύθήμερον(1873–5);(b)είτα άνοίξας τήν εύρήσεις παρά ταίς θύραις ήν λέγεις(1906–8); (c)άξον μοι τήν δείνα τής δείνα(1915). 3: (a)σκευή έπιθύματος σεληνιακού άγουσα άσχέτους καί άνουσιάστους μονοημέρους(2441–4); (b)βάδισον πρός τήν δείνα καί βάστξον αύτής τόν ύπνον καί δός αύτή καύσιν Ψυχής(2446–8).

16 David Jordan per litteras tells me that, so far he can see, the form of λαικάζειν visible in line 22 is the passiveλαι]κασθή. If that is the case, I would assume that the pattern of passives established byβινηθή and πυγισθή has led to the form.

17 Cf.SupplMag 38.3—5: ίνα μή δυνηθής έτέρω άνδρί συνμιγήναι πώποτε μήτε βινηθήναι μήτε πυγισθήναι μήτε ληκάζειν μηδέ καθ ’ ήδονήν ποιήοης μεθ΄ έταίρω άνθρώπω

18 That clause is reproduced in a simplified form in only two of the adaptations, but in them no mention is made of any experience being had with the person called the ΐδιος άνήρ (SupplMag 46.21,47.21). He presumably did not exist and was left out.

19 Cf. PGM VII.610:διό άξατέ μοι αύτήν λεγομένην ύποτασομένην.

20 On the spells known as ύποτακτικά, whose express purpose was to make others totally and unquestioningly obedient, see Hopfner, T., Archiv Orientální 10 (1938), 135–46.Google Scholar

21 So Moraux, P., Une Déftxion judicaire au Musée d'Istanbul, Mémoires de I'Académie royale de Belgique, Classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques, 2nd ser. 54.2 (Brussels, 1960), 55–6.Google Scholar Cf. PGM Vll.650–1, XVII.15–16.

22 Cf. the papyrus erotic spell SupplMag 45 (Assiut in Upper Egypt fifth century AD.) with the same wishes (lines 46–50), but not, however, the mention of children.

23 Cf.Robert, L., Collection Froehner I: Inscriptions grecques (Paris, 1936), 18,Google Scholar n. I; id., RPhilAX (1967), 77–81; Emmanuel Voutiras, ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΦΩΝΤΟΣ ΓΑΜΟΙ: Marital Life and Magic in Fourth Century Pella (Amsterdam, 1998), 55–6.

24 On the extension in meaning that έταίρα undergoes in the Roman period, where it becomes a general word for a prostitute, see Leontsini, S., Die Prostitution imfriihen Byzanz (Vienna, 1989), 25–6;Google Scholar Montserrat (n. 1), 107–8.

25 For criticism of Winkler's monolithic view of the Mediterranean, see Paglia, C., Sex, Art, and American Culture (New York, 1992), 193–207.Google Scholar

26 The studies cited are:Du Boulay, J., Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village (Oxford, 1974);Google Scholar id., ‘Lies, mockery and family integrity’, in Peristiany, J. (ed.), Mediterranean Family Structures (Cambridge, 1976), 389–406;Google ScholarHerzfeld, M., The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village (Princeton, 1985);Google Scholar id., Anthropology 9 (1985), 25–44.

27 On sex, marriage, and divorce in Late Roman Egypt, see Bagnall, R., Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), 188–99;Google Scholar on marriage and divorce in Graeco-Roman Egypt, see Montserrat (n. 1), 80–105.

28 On the genre to which the Life of Mary of Egypt belongs, see Ward Slg, B., Harlots of the Desert (Oxford, 1987).Google Scholar

29 Mixed bathing in Rome: Plin. H. N. 33.153; Quint. 5.9.14; SHA Hadr. 18.11 (Dio Cass. 69.8.2); SHA Alex. Sev. 24.2; naked mixed bathing in Rome: Mart. 3.51, 72 (cf. 11.47); mixed bathing in unspecified locations:A. P. 9.621, 622, 783; mixed bathing naked, presumably in Alexandria: Clem Alex. Paed. 3.5.32, 1.254–5 Stählin. See further,Fagan, Garrett G., Bathing in Public in the Roman World (Ann Arbor, 1999), 26–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 For a description with illustrations of the baths at Hammat Gader (Gadara), see Yigül, F., Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 121–4.Google Scholar

31 Dolbeau, F., Augustin d'Hippone, Vingt-six sermons aupeuple d'Afrique (Paris, 1996),Google Scholar no. 5.5.

32 On concubinage, see Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo (London, 1967), 62.Google Scholar

33 PGM XVIIa-c, XlXa, XXXIX, LXVIII;SupplMag 38, 39,40,41,43,44,45,46, 47,48,49, 50.

34 DTAud 264,265, 266,267, 268,269, 270, 271, 292?.

35 For a conspectus of the defixiones found so far in Macedonia, see Voutiras (n. 23), 1, n. 1.

36 E. Trakosopoulou-Salakidou, ‘Κατάδεσμοι από την Άκανθο’ in A.-Ph. Christides and D. R. Jordan (edd.), Γλώσσα και μαγεία Κείμενα από την αρχαιότητα (Athens, 1997), 161, no. 4;Jordan, D. R., ‘Three curse tablets’, in Jordan, D. R., Montgomery, H., and Thomassen, E. (edd.), Magic in the Ancient World, Proceedings of the First International Samson Eitrem Seminar (Norwegian Institute, Athens 4–7 May 1997) (Bergen, 1999), 115–24Google Scholar provides an improved text.

37 It effectively confutes the thesis tentatively propounded by C. A. Faraone,‘The agonistic context of early Greek binding spells’, in Faraone, C.A. and Dirk, Obbink (edd.), Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York, 1991), 15,Google Scholar and repeated more confidently at CP90 (1995), 4, n. 14 that defixiones intended to win the sexual favours of someone ‘represent some kind of hybrid flowering of a later, more complex magical tradition’. To sustain the thesis Simaetha's κατάδεσις of Delphis would also have to be left out of consideration.

38 Voutiras, E., REG 109 (1996), 678–82;CrossRefGoogle Scholar id. (n. 23), 1–7.

39 Faraone (n. 37), 14 speaks of its having been written by a jealous wife or fiancé. He translates it: ‘[I bind?] Aristocydes and the women who will be seen about with him. Let him not marry another matron or maiden.’ For the necessary corrections, see Voutiras (n. 23), 57 with n. 132.

40 For an improved text, see A lex sacra from Selinous, ed. Jameson, M. H., Jordan, D. R., and Kotansky, R. D., Greek. Roman and Byzantine Monographs 7 (Durham, NC, 1993), 130.Google Scholar

41 Ziebarth, E., ‘Neue Verfluchungstafeln aus Attika, Boioten und Euboia’, SB phil.-hist. Kl. 33(1934), 1040.Google Scholar no. 22.

42 Ibid., 1041–2, no. 23.

43 Jordan, D. R., Hesperia 54 (1985), 205–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 I have excluded from the list of men expert in erotic magic the Syrian stranger (Άσσύριοςξείνος) from whom Simaetha has learned the κακά Φάρμακα with which she threatens to break her erstwhile lover Delphis, if her κατάδεσμοι do not bring him back to her (Theoc. 2.159–62). There is nothing to suggest that he is supposed, as Winkler ([n. 1], 228, n. 31) believed, to be expert in erotic magic and more knowledgeable than the old women from whom Simaetha had sought help.

45 She did so, although she was a bit over the hill, because she still wanted to draw men (έξωρονμέν έράσμιον δέ έτι είναι βουλομένην) Lucian puts the same expression into the mouth of Melitta the hetaera who is trying to find an old women who knows how to perform incantations that make women desirable to men:έπάδουσαι καί έρασμίους ποιούσαι(Dial. Meret. 4.1).

46 On prostitution in antiquity the fundamental studies are H. Herter, RAC 3 (1957), s.v. Dirne cols. 1154–1213, and id., JAC 3 (1960), 70–111, esp. 104 for magic and prostitution; on prostitution in the early Byzantine period there is Leontsini (n. 24). On prostitution and magic, see now Voutiras (n. 23), 56, n. 131.

47 Cf.Kleberg, T., Hôtels, restaurants, cabarets, dans I'antiquité romaine, Bibliotheca Ekmania 61 (Uppsala, 1957), 89–91;Google ScholarVanoyeke, V., La prostitution en Grèce et à Rome (Paris, 1990), 105–10.Google Scholar

48 Faraone, C. A., Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge, MA, 1999).Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 30.

50 Φιλτροκτάδεσμοι and άγωγαί: PGM IV.351–2, 396, 1502, 1533–5, 2910, 2931–33, XVI.3–8, XXXVI.81,147,151–52;defixiones: XIXb.53–4, XXXVI.81.

51 Eur. Hel. 1102–4, Polyaenus, Strat. 8.38.1, Joseph A.J. 17.61–62, Ach. Tat. 4.15.4, 5.25.3 with 22.2, Porph. Abst. 2.41–2, Ioh. Chrys. Horn in I. Cor. 7:2 PG 51.216.

52 Men using Φίλτρα:Σ in Dem. 19.281, IG X.2.1.1026 =GVI 1093;LSAM 20.15–22; Iren. Haer. 1.7.4, 16.3; Ach. Tat. 4.15.4; Porph. Abst. 2.41–42; Ov. Ars Am. 2.105–6; [Quint.]Decl. Min. 385.6. Winning new lovers: Ach. Tat. 5.25.3; Clem. Alex. Paed. 3.28.4. In the formularies under the rubric Φίλτρον the masculine gender is employed in prescribing how the spell is to be employed, which at the very least means that the use of such spells by men was envisaged (PGM VII.450,463, 661, XIH.237–9).

53 H.N. 25.25, 160,27.57, 125,28.34, 101,106, 30.141.

54 H.N. 28.101, 106.

55 So Hopfner, T., ‘Philtron’, RE 29 (1941), 208.Google Scholar The term Φιλτροκατάδεσμος has the same form as λτροπόσιμον (Cyran. 1.18,22, 2.2,33, 3.7,37,38 Kaimakis), which is to say a λτροπόσιμον (PGM XIII.319). A λτροπόσιμον may be used by a man to arouse Φιέρωςin a girl (Cyran. 1.18 Kaimakis); λτροπόσιμοε employing the testicles of a fox are effective against women when the left testicle is used and against men when the right is used (Cyran. 2.2 Kaimakis); much the same is true with the dove: the testicles work against women; the womb against men (Cyran. 3.37 Kaimakis).

56 In writing this paper I have incurred certain debts: to J. G. Howie and Alexander MacGregor for forcing me to clarify my thinking and for criticizing many infelicitous sentences; to David Jordan not only for performing these services, but for his generosity in putting his great knowledge of Greek and Roman magic at my disposal.