Magic in the Ancient Greek World (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Magic in the Ancient Greek World Stephen Morris Derek Collins . Magic in the Ancient Greek World. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Pp. xiv + 207. A welcome addition to the Blackwell Ancient Religion series, Collins's study of ancient Greek magical practices both elucidates the practices while examining the mental constructs that support them and suggests avenues for further study. It is a well-written and incisive investigation that opens a world to both specialists and nonspecialists alike. Collins points out that "magic fascinates because we don't understand how others can believe it" (p. 166). He goes a long way in explaining how those beliefs operated. The study is divided into five chapters that focus on a review of attitudes toward magic, providing a framework for Greek magic in particular, the use of figurines in erotic magic and curses, the use of verses from Homer as powerfully evocative incantations, and the legal attitudes toward magic and how those survive into Roman and medieval Western practices. In his examination of figurines used in magic, Collins admits that they often "in no way resemble the human beings who serve as their targets. . . . [the] clay or waxen images at times are lumpy and unshapely, at best rude examples of the persons they are supposed to represent" (p. 18). It is the name of the figurine that identifies the figure with the victim, much as in later practice it is the name inscribed on the (Greek) icons that identify the image with the particular saint. When he turns to questions of health and healing magic (in the context of binding curses), Collins argues that ancient authorities on these matters misunderstood their own subject and that modern interpretations have been too willing to accept ancient authors at their own word. Collins situates the ancient text "On the Sacred Disease" in terms of other ancient discussions of health and illness and concludes that epilepsy, the "sacred disease," is a broader category than one particular ailment; health is equated with "not epileptic," and epilepsy is therefore whatever is "not healthy" (p. 82). He then shows that the curse tablets that enumerate which victim's various body parts are to be afflicted become longer and more specific over time. These extended lists of targeted organs and limbs are indicative of a variety of approaches to the self and may also reflect certain practices related to juridical [End Page 224] torture as well as the conceptual disintegration of the person as an integrated whole instead of simply the sum of his or her parts (pp. 83 ff). When discussing the deposition of erotic figurines (meant to arouse sexual attraction and desire) in the sea, Collins provides interpretations that associate sweat, and hence water, with procreation (p. 118), but it seems that the sea as birthplace of Aphrodite might also be a reasonable explanation for the practice. Regarding the use of Homer's verses (rather than poetry in general) as incantations, this is rooted, Collins argues, in the Neoplatonic opinion that "Homeric poetry preeminently embodied the divinity which also inspired its expression" and that Homer's poetry "still contained divine power" and "retained a sympathy between the cosmic and material world order" (p. 131) as an early form of the later magical principle, "as above, so below." In discussing legal attitudes toward magic, Collins reveals that professionals whose spells go awry or cause illness and death are punished more severely than are amateurs, perhaps because of the reasonable expectation that "professionals should know better" (p. 140). It is also in his examination of legal attitudes toward magic that Collins turns to "one of the most important capital sentences issued with respect to the legislative history of magic," that of burning alive (pp. 161–64). This is perhaps the best known and most long-lived of the punishments for magical practitioners. But its origins are obscure and while Collins suggests possible sources for this practice, its ultimate source is lost in the mists of time. Correctly pointing out that magic is not a static set of immutable practices (p. 169), Collins suggests several avenues for further study and examination of Greek practices. These include the Roman preference to name internal organs...