The Authority of Greek Mythic Narratives in the Magical Papyri

Abstract

Abstract I begin by summarizing work that has been done concerning a persistent question in the study of ancient magic: how did practitioners balance empirical reality against their own imaginations? I go on to suggest that my recent work on Greek myths, which uses ideas developed in media studies and social psychology, can help. This work suggests that myths’ authority rested in large part on their effectiveness as lively, cognitively-engaging narrations, which in turn enabled audience members to build strong relationships with the myths’ characters, who were the gods and heroes worshipped in cult. For purposes of the present article, the most important point to emerge from my work is that each name of a mythic character instantly evokes for the audience a large, vivid history of that character and of his or her interactions with other characters. I then go on to examine what amounts to ‘Greek myth’ in many magical papyri of later antiquity-not stories per se, but the listing of characters’ names. Extending my earlier observations, I suggest that the vivid story-world that these names created for each person who spoke, read or heard the spells, gave those spells enormous authority by evoking larger narratives or complexes of narratives. To illustrate this, I examine PGM IV.1390 -1495, a spell that lists a large number of Underworld divinities. I offer variations of my approach by examining PGM IV.3209-54, a ‘Saucer Divination of Aphrodite,’ and PGM IV.2891-2942, a ‘Love Spell of Attraction.’