Theocritus sheds light on other forms of magic-worker in his portrayal of a
courtesan deserted by her lover attempting to bring him back by means of magic,
to which we referred above. The setting of the poem is likely to be the island of Kos in
the southeastern Aegean. In the course of performing her magical rituals, the woman
recalls how, after seeing her lover for the first time, she had approached old women
who performed incantations, to seek their help in bringing him to her (Idyll2.90–1).
Later she threatens to kill the errant lover, if the spells with which she is currently
trying to ensnare him have no effect; she will employ the spells/drugs (pharmaka)
she has obtained from a foreigner, a Syrian, and which she keeps in a chest
(2.159–62). The poem, accordingly, presents us with a courtesan adept at performing
a binding spell, old women to whom courtesans turn for their expertise in incanta-
tions and a Syrian, knowledgeable about spells and drugs that kill. It conjures up a
demi-mondein which prostitutes are themselves expert in magical rituals, in which
there are old women skilled in incantations with whom prostitutes consort and in
which are to be found persons from the eastern reaches of the now greatly extended
Greek world who enjoy a certain cachet for their knowledge of magic.
Law and Magic
In Plato’sMeno, Socrates’ interlocutor, Meno, says in exasperation at being reduced
to a state of helpless inarticulacy that Socrates has worked his sorcery, magic, and
incantations on him; it is as well, he says, that Socrates never ventures outside Athens,
since, if he were to do so and were a stranger in another city, he would be subject to
summary arrest as a sorcerer orgoe ̄s(79e7–80b7). The implication of the assertion is
at the very least that in some Greek cities foreigners found practicing sorcery were
unwelcome and that measures would be taken against them. Whether it was true is
another matter. Plato may have been extrapolating from what he knew about his own
city to what went on in other cities. We do know that measures were taken against
sorcerers, or rather sorceresses, in Athens. The sorceress, a woman from the island of
Lemnos, from whom the man who promised cures for epilepsy is supposed to have
inherited his drugs and incantations is said to have been executed by the Athenians
with all her issue ([Demosthenes] 25.79). So far as is known, there were no laws in
Athens against sorcery as such. Prosecutions seem to have been brought against
Athenians suspected of sorcery under the law affecting impiety orasebeia. What
happened elsewhere is not known.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READINGThe most comprehensive account of magic in the Greek and Roman worlds in English is Graf
1997, which is a translation from the French of Graf 1994. Graf 1996 is a revised version in
German of Graf 1994. R. Gordon 1999 is a sophisticated overview of the same subject. Luck
1985 contains a useful collection of sources in translation accompanied by explanatory essays.
As a source book it has to some extent been superseded by Ogden 2002. Specifically on love
magic in the Greek-speaking world there is Faraone 1999, an essay with a very special point of
Magic in Classical and Hellenistic Greece 369