Plinius der Jüngere

Egelhaaf-Gaiser, Ulrike

doi:10.1007/978-3-476-05728-0_15896-1

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“…46 Aside from wandering Babylonian priests, visitors from Caria, Halicarnassus, and Syro-Palestine would have also been recurrent figures not only on the island itself but also in the larger Hellenistic world. 47 In particular, one of the many groups of ritual experts from Babylon traversing the Hellenistic world were the Chaldean astrologers and mathematicians, destined to be linked later with all kinds of witchcraft and be identified as magicians tout court. Chaldeans, it would appear, had spread their wings across the Hellenistic world, and not just through the empire of Alexander's successors: in the second century BCE Cato the Elder in Rome was well aware of astrologers and mathematici and warns naïve farmers against consulting Chaldean prophets, 48 whereas in 139 BCE the praetor Cornelius Scipio Hispanus banished all Chaldean astrologers from Rome and Italy-one of the many edicts which would 42 E.g., ibid.…”

Section: "My Magic Wheel Bring That Man Back To Me…" Hellenistic Magi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The narrative pace is then momentarily Euripides' play, who ultimately achieves some sympathy from the chorus for the misfortunes that had befallen her, Seneca's Medea is from the outset larger than life and left all alone: not only is the chorus in alignment with the royal house of Corinth and Jason, who in Seneca's rendition of the story is cast as the 'good' and sensible husband apparently having Medea's best interest at heart, 152 but there is also no Aegeus to offer her any possible escape after her murderous plan is set in motion. Instead, Seneca chose to emphasise Medea's ruinous erotic desire and her dreadful divine nature that is capable of surrendering the nature environment in chaos (effera ignota horrida / tremebunda caelo pariter ac terris mala / mens intus agitat, [45][46][47]. 153 The middle part of the play is dedicated to an elaborate and exaggerated magical rite during which Medea bewitches the robe she will soon send to Jason's new wife with her magical venena.…”

Section: William Congreve the Mourning Bridementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Herodotus reported that the magi, in their effort to get the storm to cease, sang incantations to the wind with the help of sorcerers (γόησι) and offered sacrifices to the dead (ἔντομα), Thetis, and the Nereids (7.191). 47 The verb ἐντέμνειν implies 'to cut in pieces', whereas the neuter plural noun especially signifies the 'victims offered to the dead'. 48 It is again ambiguous whether Herodotus really implied that a human sacrifice was conducted by the magi in Thessaly; however, the only other instance in which he used the same word is when describing Menelaus' impious sacrifice of two Egyptian children to control the weather (δύο παιδία ἀνδρῶν ἐπιχωρίων ἔντομά σφεα ἐποίησε, 2.119).…”

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“…e.g., PARKER (2004) 153. 47 I retain the manuscript writing γόησι and do not adopt Madvig's emendation to βοῇσι. 48 LSJ s.v.…”

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“…In English, the verb 'to curse' can mean both 'to consign to the powers of darkness' and 'to rail at or abuse', and even 'to utter profanities and obscenities'; he argues that there is a similar tendency in Latin as well to use the same terminology for both curses and abuse. 88 The earliest mentioning of a Greek amulet is Pindar Pythian 3: while presenting Asclepius' medical methodology (consisting of incantations (ἐπαοιδαί), drugs (φάρμακα), and surgical cuts (τομαί)), Pindar subdivided φάρμακα into ones that are drunk and ones attached to amulets (47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53). and incantations.…”

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Embracing the Occult: Magic, Witchcraft, and Witches in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

Stamatopoulos¹

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magic' can cover a very broad semantic field, and it is true that magic can mean whatever a person wants it to mean: from a clever trick such as David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty apparently vanish before the eyes of spectators for entertainment purposes to the more extreme, regarded by some even as satanic rituals (like the ones occurring in Greece in the early 1990s), which intended to influence the course of events or to manipulate the natural world, usually by using arcane, occult, sometimes apocryphal knowledge.However, as F. GRAF has suggested, "magic is a bit like a black hole; to many people, it seems invisible. Contemporary social anthropologists doubt whether magic exists at all". 1 It has now been more than a century during which social and cultural anthropologists, classicists, psychologists, philosophers, and historians of religion have been dealing with the concept of magic. For a long time, it appears, scholars of antiquity neglected this particular phenomenon. The extreme difficulties imposed by the magical texts, as well as the medieval belief that magic was accomplished through the intervention of demons (a belief resting primarily upon the Church Fathers and theologians who were largely outside the mainstream practice of magic 2 ) are but a few explanations which could account for the profound lack of interest in this subject area. Magic, however, had always been 'out there', probably ever since the Palaeolithic Ages: if, as C. PHARR suggests, "the evidence has been correctly interpreted, most of the art of the Palaeolithic man was based on magical ideas and devoted to magical purposes". 3 The great deal of work produced over the past decades serves as proof of the enthusiasm that the topic of magic has excited in scholars of not just classical philology. But despite this apparent interest in the study of magic, the road has not always been smooth.Concerns have been raised and objections have been voiced, with a number of scholars not only keen to deny the very existence of 'magic', but also intent on ridding scholarship of this term. 4 It is worth noticing that in the United States, especially during the late 1990s, the study of magic has been seen by some as a fancy albeit racy trend. A withering attack issued in September 1998 by The Phyllis Schlafly Report entitled "What College tuition and Fees are 1 GRAF (1997) 2.2 Augustine addresses the concept of magic in his second book of On the Christian Doctrine and declares it to be nothing more than a destructive association between men and demons, which amounts to an infidel and cunning friendship (2.36); this type of establishment is based on a language that is common to both humans and demons and its 'signs' are chosen by the demons in order to deceive and catch the humans (2.37). On Augustine and magic, cf. GRAF (2002a) and (2002b) 96-7. For the role of demons in Late Antique and Medieval magic, cf. FLINT (1999). 3 PHARR (1932) 269. 4 Cf. HOFFMAN (2002) 179.3 paying For!" claimed that "one reason college tuition is so high is ...

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Section: "My Magic Wheel Bring That Man Back To Me…" Hellenistic Magi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: William Congreve the Mourning Bridementioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

“…e.g., PARKER (2004) 153. 47 I retain the manuscript writing γόησι and do not adopt Madvig's emendation to βοῇσι. 48 LSJ s.v.…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%