Greek Magic

The ancient Greeks commonly resorted to magic spells to attract and keep lovers. Surveying and analyzing various texts and artifacts, the author reveals that gender is the crucial factor in understanding love spells.

Annotation This collection challenges the tendency among scholars of ancient Greece to see magical and religious ritual as mutually exclusive and to ignore "magical" practices in Greek religion. The contributors survey specific bodies of archaeological, epigraphical, and papyrological evidence formagical practices in the Greek world, and, in each case, determine whether the traditional dichotomy between magic and religion helps in any way to conceptualize the objective features of the evidence examined. Contributors include Christopher A. Faraone, J.H.M. Strubbe, H.S. Versnel, Roy Kotansky, John Scarborough, Samuel Eitrem, Fritz Graf, John J. Winkler, Hans Dieter Betz, and C.R. Phillips.

Original and comprehensive, Magic in the Ancient Greek World takes the reader inside both the social imagination and the ritual reality that made magic possible in ancient Greece. Explores the widespread use of spells, drugs, curse tablets, and figurines, and the practitioners of magic in the ancient world Uncovers how magic worked. Was it down to mere superstition? Did the subject need to believe in order for it to have an effect? Focuses on detailed case studies of individual types of magic Examines the central role of magic in Greek life

Greek Magic presents a well-illustrated introduction to the often-neglected aspect of the Ancient Greeks’ legacy to western culture – numerous magical beliefs, practices and figures like the medieval and modern witch and warlock.

In a culture where the supernatural possessed an immediacy now strange to us, magic was of great importance both in the literary mythic tradition and in ritual practice. In this book, Daniel Ogden presents 300 texts in new translations, along with brief but explicit commentaries. Authors include the well known (Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny) and the less familiar, and extend across the whole of Graeco-Roman antiquity.

An accessible historical exploration of the methods and motivations behind using magic in ancient Greece and Rome. In the ancient world, magic was everywhere. The supernatural abounded, turning flowers into fruit and caterpillars into butterflies. In a time before scientists studied weather patterns and figured out what caused the Earth’s most mysterious phenomena, it was magic that packed a cloud full of energy until it exploded with thunderbolts. It was everyday magic, but it was still magical. In Ancient Magic, author Philip Matyszak ushers readers into that world, showing how ancient Greeks and Romans concocted love potions and cast curses, how they talked to the dead and protected themselves from evil spirits. He takes readers to a world where gods interacted with humans and where people could not only talk to spirits and deities, but could themselves become divine. Ancient Magic presents us with a new understanding of the role of magic, combining a classical historiography with a practical how-to guide. Using a wide array of sources and lavish illustrations, this book offers an engaging and accessible way into the supernatural for all.

Ancient Greeks and Romans often turned to magic to achieve personal goals. Magical rites were seen as a route for direct access to the gods, for material gains as well as spiritual satisfaction. In this survey of magical beliefs and practices from the sixth century B.C.E. through late antiquity, Fritz Graf sheds new light on ancient religion. Graf explores the important types of magic in Greco-Roman antiquity, describing rites and explaining the theory behind them. And he characterizes the ancient magician: his training and initiation, social status, and presumed connections with the divine world. With trenchant analysis of underlying conceptions and vivid account of illustrative cases, Graf gives a full picture of the practice of magic and its implications. He concludes with an evaluation of the relation of magic to religion.

Arranged chronologically with sections on ancient, Byzantine and modern Greece, this set of studies shows how magic provides a unifying theme through Greek history. As the contributors show, magic was, even in ancient times a private practice rather than part of the established public polis religion, and later chapters show how it was intertwined with Christian belief, whilst remaining largely outside the official realm of the church. Continuing belief in the evil eye forms the subject of the modern chapters. The final section is theoretical, seeking to define magic, particularly in relation to religion, and asking whether it is something which inevitably declines with technological and scientific advances.

This study is the first to assemble the evidence for the existence of sorcerors in the ancient world; it also addresses the question of their identity and social origins. The resulting investigation takes us to the underside of Greek and Roman society, into a world of wandering holy men and women, conjurors and wonder-workers, and into the lives of prostitutes, procuresses, charioteers and theatrical performers. This fascinating reconstruction of the careers of witches and sorcerors allows us to see into previously inaccessible areas of Greco-Roman life. Compelling for both its detail and clarity, and with an extraordinarily revealing breadth of evidence employed, it will be an essential resource for anyone studying ancient magic.