Few collections can boast such a number of authorities as the copious Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic. The volume sets out to offer a wholesale assessment of magic in the ancient world, from second-millennium Mesopotamia to the Byzantine period, according to three thematic sections into which the contributions are arranged.
The volume is structured in four main parts. Part 1 is a general introduction, where F. explains the volume's aims and his methodology, and offers a brief synopsis of the three ensuing sections, each provided with a specific introduction by the editor. F.’s goal is to present a new, standardised basis for future research on magic, whereby ‘magic’ is intended as a flexible cross-cultural label, which lends itself well to a comparative and anthropologically-oriented understanding of evidence that is so diverse in nature and content. Throughout the introduction there seems to be some irritability towards historical and philological assessments of ancient magic. However, F. does not ultimately wish to reject them (for how can scholars working on the Greek μάγος or Latin magus avoid attempting a reconstruction of the original sense of these terms and their cognates?), but to offer a new cross-disciplinary framework for exploring magic that may go beyond the long-lasting debate between those who follow the ‘etic’ or the ‘emic’ approach to magic (i.e. focusing on external, modern schemes and perceptions or on that of the language or culture analysed, respectively). Here it might have been helpful, especially for undergraduates and non-specialists, to insert a paragraph summarising the debate on the emic and etic approaches to magic or even only to provide a short explanation of these terms, originally coined by K.L. Pike (Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behaviour [2nd ed. 1967], pp. 37–72), as various contributors do in their chapters. The relative brevity of this main introduction – compared to the almost 800 pages of the volume – does not leave room for testing slight methodological divergencies in the contributions, often due to the very specific nature of sources, which does not always lend itself to comparative approaches, as A. de Jong acknowledges with regard to his essay (p. 81).
Part 2 considers magic in terms of ‘cultural constructions of ambiguous, unsanctioned, or illegitimate ritual’ (p. 27) and comprises eight discussions of the phenomena that fall under the above-mentioned caption. These contributions are devoted to specific historical contexts, namely Mesopotamia (D. Schwemer); ancient Iran (A. de Jong); ancient Egypt (J. Dieleman); ancient and Hellenistic Greece (F. Graf); ancient Judaism (Y. Harari); Republican and Imperial Rome (M. Bailliot); early Christianity (J.E. Sanzo); and Egypt under the Roman and Byzantine dominations (J. van der Vliet). These papers offer solid and accessible examinations, which may also work as an introductory guide to the perceptions and practices of ‘magic’ – at times, inevitably, broadly intended – across the span of several centuries. In Bailliot's analysis of magic in the Roman world much attention is paid to Roman law against magic, as attested in the Twelve Tables, the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis, first promulgated by Sulla in 81 bc, and the Pauli sententiae. Yet it would have been relevant to mention how such laws could have been at play in the trial of Apuleius, as it is likely attested in his Apologia, or might have influenced fictional legal proceedings involving practitioners of magic such as that described in Pseudo-Quintilian's Major Declamation 10 (Sepulcrum incantatum).
Part 3 looks into the materials of magic and their importance to get a sense of the ritual and socio-cultural value that this evidence reflects. This part includes eight accessible and detailed essays, often accompanied by high-quality illustrations, focusing on Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri (J. Dieleman); Christian spells and ritual manuals from Egypt written in Greek and Coptic (J. van der Vliet); binding spells handed down to us in curse tablets and magical papyri (E. Eidinow); Jewish manuals and material evidence such as amulets and bowls (G. Bohak); the so-called magical gems (V. Dasen and Á.M. Nagy); iconographic materials and their use in magical rituals (A.T. Wilburn); amulets from the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world (R.D. Kotansky); and the ritual function of buildings (A.T. Wilburn). The chapters in this section also give an overview of the origin of modern source-collections such as the PGM, PDM and the Defixionum Tabellae, which will be particularly useful to non-specialists approaching these texts for the first time, and reference is also given to the TheDeMa (i.e. Thesaurus Defixionum Magdeburgensis), an outstanding online database of all curse tablets published to date.
Finally, Part 4 contains seven studies, mostly authored by F., which seek to set out new thematic pathways to ancient magic, alongside two essays respectively devoted to the relationship between magical and mystery rituals (N. Janowitz) and that between magic and theurgy (S.I. Johnston). In the first contribution F. looks at the illocutionary force of magical utterances, drawing on the philosophical linguistic theories expressed by J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (2nd ed. 1975). F.’s following paper focuses on the act of writing magic in ancient Mediterranean cultures and offers an assessment of the unintelligible nomina sacra and charaktêres. Next F. looks at the material force of magical objects. His last contribution applies to magic the dichotomous anthropological model of the ‘Great’ and ‘Little/Local Tradition’, formulated by R. Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture (1956). The final essay of the book, by E. Eidinow, reflects on the social tensions that magic might have elicited in the Graeco-Roman world. This is followed by three helpful indexes of passages, modern authors and a thematic index.
Some overlap between the chapters is inevitable at times, although these consistently tend to cross-refer to each other. One may have expected such an ample volume to devote some room to the investigation of the literary perceptions of magic in Greek and Latin literature and their impact on the ancient collective imagination, but such a section does not seem to have been envisaged in the book's structure. The editor and the contributors should, however, be commended for producing a thought-provoking volume that attempts to re-orient the study of ancient magic. In the reviewer's opinion, the new interpretative lines presented, especially in Part 4, do not supersede historical and philological attempts to describe magic, but can provide valuable ideas, which will hopefully be developed further, bringing about new, fascinating insights into ancient magic.
W.’s Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome is a collection of six thematic chapters covering diverse aspects of Graeco-Roman magic. These essays are preceded by a first introductory chapter, in which W. guides readers through the volume's content with commendable clarity. At the outset W. wishes to free his book from the shackles of a rigid (and emic) definition of magic, proposing to focus on the aspects that may highlight the pragmatic and ‘goal-focused nature of ancient magic’ (pp. 1–3). These methodological remarks are followed by a summary of the chapters and by an overview of the Greek Magical Papyri: W. discusses the origin of this modern collection and attempts a content-based description of this evidence, on which W. abundantly draws in the rest of the book.
Chapter 2 focuses on the PGM and curse tablets, arguing for the intended physical violence that underlies erotic magic performed by women. Chapter 3 starts with a general overview of curse tablets, then moves on to a closer discussion of curse tablets discovered in recent times. A brief appendix considers whether and in what manner curse tablets were originally believed to function. The employment of herbs in magic for different purposes is covered in Chapter 4, while Chapter 5, authored by Patricia Watson, concentrates predominantly on passages from Pliny the Elder's Natural History and the PGM describing the use of animals or parts thereof in magical rituals. This is followed by an appendix surveying the use of protective amulets. Chapter 6 examines the fictional female practitioners of magic in Greek and Latin literature, including Circe, Medea, Theocritus’ Simaetha, Horace's Canidia and Sagana, Petronius’ Oenothea, Apuleius’ Meroe (in Met. 1.7.7–10.6, but surprisingly not the central figure of Pamphile, whose magical powers are described in Met. 2 and 3) and the Egyptian old woman in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, 6.14–15. W. compares the erotic spells of the PGM and Theocritus’ Second Idyll (pp. 172–5). Disappointingly, however, he ignores the monograph by M. Reif, De arte magorum (2016), which offers a lucid and detailed analysis of the practices described in literary sources – from Theocritus to Lucan – in the light of the evidence from the PGM, pointing to a circulation of these rituals already in the Hellenistic period. Chapter 7 explores the idea of human sacrifices in ancient magic: here ‘magic’ truly becomes an all-encompassing label, following an approach proposed by D. Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate (2006), which enables W. to browse through morbid reports of contemporary satanic rituals and a variety of late antique evidence, dealing with the accusation of sacrificing children ascribed to early Christians or with the posthumous calumnies about the emperor Julian and his supposed divination with a human liver. The last part of this section (pp. 216–19) deals with Latin fictional and non-fictional sources on prohibited magical performances of human sacrifice in the Roman world. The bibliography and a general index follow this last chapter.
There is an area where one might have wished for some discussion: a chapter on the legislation and legal proceedings against magic – only mentioned on p. 216 – might have enriched W.’s attempt to cast light on the reality of magic, especially in the Imperial period. There are some dubious etymologies, such as the association between the name of Medea and the Latin medeor (p. 104) or the claim that the term strix – indicating the ‘screech-owl’ and then the ‘metamorphic witch’ – derives from strideo (p. 147). The latter case seems to follow the ancient connection between these two terms (Ov. Fast. 6.139–40; Isid. Orig. 12.7.42, cf. R. Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies [1991], p. 587, s.v. strix), but ancient reconstructions cannot be relied on as authoritative sources for modern etymologies, and in this case the Latin strix can likely be traced back to the Greek στρίξ (cf. Ernout–Meillet [42001], p. 656, s.v. II. striga; Walde–Hofmann [1954], vol. 2, p. 606, s.v. strix). Overall, W. shows a commendable command of the sources and independence of mind. Provided that one accepts a wider definition of magic, there is a great deal to learn from this book, which will be particularly useful to expert readers who are already familiar with the topic.
