river Tigris because that day was one of the unfortunate ones which they call “black
days,” for on it an army engaging with the Cimbrians was destroyed, “Lucullus
answered with the memorable words: ‘Verily, I will make this day a lucky one for
the Romans’ ” (Plut. Lucullus27.7).
Superstitio, magic and the practices described could be expensive. Philostratus tells
us a story about cities in the region of the Hellespont (Vita Apollonii6.16). In the
mid-first centuryad, after there had been earthquakes, magicians, Egyptians, and
Chaldeans promised they could calm the gods with sacrifices and prevent the cities
suffering more such earthquakes, but would not start with the necessary rites unless
the sum of 10 talents was deposited. The sage Apollonius, hero of Philostratus’ account,
saved the cities from paying such an enormous sum and drove out the impostors
and quacks. Then he himself divined the causes of the earthquakes, made the neces-
sary offerings, and received only small amounts of money from the cities.
Sacrifices and prayers for a good fortune and future were not the province of magi-
cians and sages only. They were the aim of usual and official sacrifices and prayers,
too. Obviously, the conviction that more could be done was widespread, although
a belief in the spirits of the dead or in demons was not necessary: the wearing of
amulets and lucky charms, the avoidance of unlucky days for important dates like
weddings, were part of the life of Romans (and Greeks, modern English people
or modern Germans, etc.). Senators like M. Servilius Nonianus and C. Licinius
Mucianus worried about losing their sight and therefore wore lucky charms to pre-
vent them from going blind (Plin. Nat.28.29). Lucky charms were apotropaic objects.
To have an apotropaic sign on the threshold was also quite common, and a dead
owl nailed to the door of a house was supposed to avert all evil (that it supposedly
had earlier caused). To know that a dead owl was needed and to have it at hand
might have needed a specialist, who was paid for his knowledge and his prayers and
spells. Soothsayers and dream interpreters like Artemidorus, who published a book
on dreams, were welcome to superstitious people and were able to make a good
living from their abilities and their knowledge.
But the cost of superstitiocould be not only money but also life. Several anecdotes
about Roman senators have to do with magic. In one of the stories, M. Scribonius
Libo Drusus, a relative of the emperor Tiberius, was accused inad 16 of aiming
for the throne. According to Tacitus (Ann.2.27–31) the senator Firmius Catus, an
intimate friend of Libo’s, had
prompted the young man, who was thoughtless and an easy prey to delusions, to resort
to astrologers’ promises (chaldaeorum promissa), magical rites (magorum sacra) and
interpreters of dreams (somniorum interpretes), dwelling ostentatiously on his great-
grandfather Pompeius, his aunt Scribonia, who had formerly been wife of Augustus, his
imperial cousins, his house crowded with ancestral busts, and urging him to extravagance
and debt, himself the companion of his profligacy and desperate embarrassments, thereby
to entangle him in all the more proofs of guilt.In the end Libo Drusus had to commit suicide. Although Tacitus does not men-
tion money at all, without doubt Libo Drusus had to pay for the different services- and perhaps Firmus had paid for them in advance. In that case, the astrologers
340 Marietta Horster