Week four The practioners
Terminology - GREEK & ROMAN:
Greece:
¯ magos (magoi = pl) – a Persian word
- mageia = magic
- magos (magoi) = priests and scholars of astrology, divination, etc
- also known as wise men
- when magic began to increase in Greece in the 6th and 5th Centuries BC – the term ‘magos’ began to acquire more negative associations
- Graf writes: “for an Ionian of the end of the archaic era, the magos was put in the same category as the itinerant experts of private cults, men on the fringe of society, ridiculed by some, secretly feared by others” (22)
pharmakeia = the employment of drugs or potions
- these were employed in a variety of situations, from relatively mundane forms of murder (straightforward poisoning), to medical usage, to more exotic applications (to affect both harm and healing)
- the noun that denotes a practitioner of such magic is pharmakeia (= feminine)
other nouns are:-
¯ pharmakeus = male poisoner or sorcerer, a druggist
¯ pharmakis = female poisoner, a sorceress or witch
nb: the latter two terms are the more common nouns to denote a practitioner of pharmakeia
- one example of the non-magical use of pharmakeia from a Greek rhetorical source is Antiphon’s Against the Stepmother for Poisoning
- amid the passion and rhetorical exaggeration comes the following statement: “… this woman, my opponent’s mother, had planned to prepare poisons [pharmaka = plural] for our father on a previous occasion as well, that our father had caught her in the act, and that she had admitted everything – save that it was not to kill him, but to restore his love that she alleged herself to be giving him the potion [philtron] .”
goêteia = wizardry or witchcraft – using a variety of techniques including potions
- there is also the word ‘goês’: a figure that combines ecstasy with ritual lament, healing, and divination.’ (Graf: 24)
- Luck argues that “The term goeteia is a synonym for mageia, but has even more negative undertones” (21)
- in Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon, the term ‘goês’ is defined: “a sorcerer, wizard” with a secondary meaning “a juggler, cheat”
agurtês = beggar priests
- we aren’t really sure what these priests did
- they were clearly not state-sanctioned
- itinerant
- probably similar to goês
- probably participated in divination
Rome:
¯ magia: the science of the magi (Greek magoi); magic; sorcery
- and from this word comes magicus (adj) = of or belonging to magic; magical
- and also magus (m) / maga (f)
- in the masculine = a magian, magician, a learned man
- in the feminine = a female magician, an enchantress
The Roman Wizard
¯ sagi = diviners, wise men, fortune-tellers, soothsayers (sagus = singular)
¯ malefici = magicians, enchanters (maleficus = singular). Nb also evil-doers and criminals
¯ venefici = poisoners, sorcerers, wizards (veneficus = singular) – keep in mind the term veneficus can denote a poisoner – but is more general than the Greek term pharmakeus
¯ vates = foretellers, seers, soothsayers, prophets (same form in the singular)
keep also in mind a point noted by Graf on the use of such terms for magic practitioners in Rome – particularly the term magus and the related term magia: “The words began their career as ethnographic terms” (39) – i.e. as terms that denoted foreigners and their mystic or philosophical ways – e.g. a practitioner of the teachings of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, a Pythagorean, may well be referred to as a magus – the terms were not linked to indigenous Roman magic and its practitioners
¯ it was not till the age of Augustus – late 1st Century BC / early 1st Century AD – that the term can to specifically mean ‘sorcerer’
The Roman Witch
¯ sagae = diviners, wise women, fortune-tellers, soothsayers (saga = singular)
¯ Cicero, in De Divinatione i.31.65 claims that old women are called sagae because they claim to know many things
¯ as Burriss comments: “As he [Cicero] has been discussing the subject of divination, he has in mind especially the prophetic powers of witches.” (138)
¯ their prophetic powers are also designated by the following terms:
- plussciae = women who know more (plusscia = singular)
- divinae = female diviners (divina = singular)
- vates = female foretellers, seers, soothsayers, prophets (same form in the singular)
¯ a witch is rarely called maga – the female equivalent of magus
veneficae = brewers of potions (venefica = singular)
note again the focus on divination – the telling of the future
¯ because female magic practitioners – witches – appear so often in Latin literature – compared to male practitioners or wizards – there are lots of other, more fantastical, words for them
¯ eg: versipelles = women with the power to change themselves into animals, especially the wolf (versipellis = singular) – also used of men with the same ability (versipellis); as suckers of children’s blood they are called lamiae (lamia)
Some Summaries So Far …
• To the Greeks and Romans, as to peoples in other ages and cultures, there is a vivid and varied vocabulary to denote the witch and the wizard
• The terms are very fluid at times – and open to changes in meaning as times progress
• The terms can also be as general as our words witch and wizard – sorceress and sorcerer
• Sometimes the words reflect specialists, men in particular who were highly trained and, sometimes, highly valued and highly paid
• Sometimes the terms denotes popular magic – cheap magic – and activities that were shunned by society – particularly the upper echelons of it
• There is quite often a social fear of the magic practitioner and a social rejection of them – and, quite regularly magic practitioners are written about as marginal figures, figures on the fringes of society
• Historically, more men practiced magic than women, in terms of magic that was more ‘formal’ in nature for want of a better word – i.e. magic that involved the employment of highly paid specialists who worked for powerful public figures – politicians, emperors, and so on
• Finally there seems to be a blurring of boundaries between the philosopher and the magician in antiquity
• The philosopher’s search for mystic meaning – higher meaning – and the activities in which he often participates to access this meaning – often contributed to the philosopher being labeled a magician or sorcerer
• We can overcome some of these vagaries about terminology and what different sorts of practitioners engaged in by looking at the different types of occult practices that took place in antiquity – and look at the men who studies such arts as astrology, alchemy, cursing, etc
Some Legendary & Real-life Magicians:
Orpheus: a legendary figure of the Archaic age
Pythagoras: a historical figure - 6th-5th Centuries BC
Empedocles: a historical figure - 5th Century BC
Reading / Works Referred to in the Lecture:
Burriss, E. E. ‘The Terminology of Witchcraft.’ CP 31 (1936): 137-45.
Dodds, E. R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley, 1951. Cf Ch 5: ‘The Greek Shamans and the Origin of Puritanism.’
Graf, F. Magic in the Ancient World. Trans. F. Philip. Cambridge, Mass., 1997.
Luck, G. Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Baltimore, 1985.
RE: ancient practioners
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