Abstract
While the Greek figures Circe and Medea emerged from myth and the oral tradition, Latin sorceresses were a product of literary creativity. The Greek witches appeared to be of divine descent, but no such claim is made of their Roman counterparts, like the frightening Erichto, or the lowlifes portrayed by Horace, such as Canidia, Sagana and others—these women all have features that will become constants in later representations of female witchcraft. Further, the Roman world produced sets of legislation, from the Twelve Tables to the Theodosian Code, which dealt with harmful magic and which would go on to influence the entire European tradition.
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Notes
- 1.
See C. E. Manning, Canidia in the Epodes of Horace, Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 23, 4 (1970), pp. 393–401.
- 2.
Pomponii Porhyrionis commentarii in Q. Horatium Flaccum, ed. Gulielmus Meyer (Leipzig, 1874), pp. 148–149, 151–155.
- 3.
«Non defuisse masculae libidinis»: Horace, Epodes, 5, 41, in Odes and Epodes, trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge, MA and London, 2004), pp. 282–283.
- 4.
Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia, Rome’s First Witch (London and New York, 2017), p. 4. About the gender stereotypes in classical literature, see Kimberly B. Stratton, Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, & Stereotype in the Ancient World (New York, 2007).
- 5.
«Scalpere terram unguibus et pullam divellere mordicus agnara coeperunt; cruor in fossam confusus, ut inde manis elicerent, animas responsa daturas, lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea: maior lanea, quae poenis compesceret inferiorem; cerea suppliciter stabat, servilibus ut quae iam peritura modis»: Horace, Satires, I, 8, 26–33, in Satires, Epistles, Ars Poetica, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (London and Cambridge, MA, 1942), pp. 98–99.
- 6.
«Ut haec trementi questus ore constitit, insignibus raptis puer, impube corpus, quale posset impia mollire Thracum pectora, Canidia, brevibus implicata viperis crinis et incomptum caput, iubet sepulcris caprificos erutas, iubet cupressos funebris et uncta turpis ova ranae sanguine plumamque nocturnae strigis herbasque, quas Iolcos atque Hiberia mittit venenorum ferax, et ossa ab ore rapta ieiunae canis flammis aduri Colchicis. At expedita Sagana per totam domum spargens Avernalis aquas horret capillis ut marinus asperis echinus aut currens aper. Abacta nulla Veia conscientia ligonibus duris humum exhauriebat ingemens laboribus, quo posset infossus puer longo die bis terque mutatae dapis inemori spectaculo, cum promineret ore, quantum exstant aqua suspensa mento corpora, exsecta uti medulla et aridum iecur amoris esset poculum, interminato cum semel fixae cibo intabuissent pupulae»: Horace, Epodes, 5, 10–40, pp. 282–283.
- 7.
William Fitzgerald, Power and Impotence in Horace’s Epodes, Ramus, 17 (1988), pp. 176–191.
- 8.
Rita Pierini, Medea e Canidia, Canidia e Medea: percorsi intertestuali tra Orazio giambico e Seneca tragico, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica, 11, 2 (2013), pp. 257–266.
- 9.
«Tenet ora profanae Foeda situ macies, caeloque ignota sereno Terribilis Stygio facies pallore gravatur Inpexis onerata comis: si nimbus et atrae Sidera subducunt nubes»: Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), VI, 519–520, trans. J. D. Duff (London and Cambridge, MA, 1962), pp. 342–343.
- 10.
Omne nefas superi prima iam voce precantis concedunt carmenque timent audire secundum: Ibidem, pp. 527–528.
- 11.
Volnere sic ventris, non qua natura vocabat, Extrahitur partus calidis ponendus in aris; et quotiens saevis opus est ac fortibus umbris. Ipsa facit manes, Hominum mors omnis in usu est: Ibidem, 557–560, pp. 344–345.
- 12.
On prophecy in Pharsalia, see John F. Makowski, Oracula Mortis in the Pharsalia, Classical Philology, 72, 3 (1977), pp. 193–202.
- 13.
«“Saga” inquit “Et divina, potens caelum deponere, terram suspendere, fontes durare, montes diluere, manes sublimare, deos infimare, aidera extinguere, Tartarum ipsum illuminare”»: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, in The Golden Ass, trans. E. J. Kenny (London, 2004), I, 8, p. 4. For a commentary on witchcraft in the Metamorphoses, see Stavros Frangoulidis, Witches, Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Berlin, 2008).
- 14.
«Amatorem suum, quod in aliam temerasset, unico verbo mutavit in feram castorem, quod ea bestia captivitatis metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium liberat, ut illi quoque simile [quod venerem habuit in aliam] proveniret. Cauponem quoque vicinum atque ob id aemulum deformavit in ranam, et nunc senex ille dolium innatans vini sui adventores pristinos in faece submissus officiosis roncis raucus appellat. Alium de foro, quod adversus eam locutus esset, in arietem deformavit, et nunc aries ille causas agit. Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat iam in sarcina praegnationis obsaepto utero et repigrato fetu perpetua praegnatione damnavit, et ut cuncti numerant, iam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur»: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, I, 8, p. 5.
- 15.
Maxwell Teitel Paule, Canidia, Rome’s First Witch, passim.
- 16.
Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA, 1997), pp. 175–204.
- 17.
Horace, Satires, I, 8.
- 18.
Lucan, The Civil War (Pharsalia), VI, 605–610.
- 19.
«Foedus insequens annus seu intemperie caeli seu humana fraude fuit, M. Claudio Marcello C. Valerio consulibus. – Flaccum Potitumque varie in annalibus cognomen consulis invenio; ceterum in eo parui refert quid veri sit –. Illud peruelim – nec omnes auctores sunt – proditum falso esse venenis absumptos quorum mors infamem annum pestilentia fecerit; sicut proditur tamen res, ne cui auctorum fidem abrogaverim, exponenda est. Cum primores civitatis similibus morbis eodemque ferme omnes eventu morerentur, ancilla quaedam ad Q. Fabium Maximum aedilem curulem indicaturam se causam publicae pestis professa est, si ab eo fides sibi data esset haud futurum noxae indicium. Fabius confestim rem ad consules, consules ad senatum referunt consensuque ordinis fides indici data. Tum patefactum muliebri fraude civitatem premi matronasque ea venena coquere et, si sequi extemplo velint, manifesto deprehendi posse. Secuti indicem et coquentes quasdam medicamenta et recondita alia invenerunt; quibus in forum delatis et ad viginti matronis, apud quas deprehensa erant, per viatorem accitis duae ex eis, Cornelia ac Sergia, patriciae utraque gentis, cum ea medicamenta salubria esse contenderent, ab confutante indice bibere iussae ut se falsum commentam arguerent, spatio ad conloquendum sumpto, cum submoto populo [in conspectu omnium] rem ad ceteras rettulissent, haud abnuentibus et illis bibere, epoto [in conspectu omnium] medicamento suamet ipsae fraude omnes interierunt. Comprehensae extemplo earum comites magnum numerum matronarum indicaverunt; ex quibus ad centum septuaginta damnatae; neque de veneficiis ante eam diem Romae quaesitum est. Prodigii ea res loco habita captisque magis mentibus quam consceleratis similis visa; itaque memoria ex annalibus repetita in secessionibus quondam plebis clauum ab dictatore fixum alienatas[que] discordia mentes hominum eo piaculo compotes sui fecisse, dictatorem clavi figendi causa creari placuit. Creatus Cn. Qvinctilius magistrum equitum L. Valerium dixit, qui fixo clauo magistratu se abdicaverunt»: Livy, History of Rome, 8, 18, trans. B. O. Foster (London and New York, 1926), vol. IV, pp. 70–73.
- 20.
David B. Kaufman, Poisons and Poisoning Among the Romans, Classical Philology, 27, 2 (1932), pp. 156–167.
- 21.
The literature can be more nuanced, as claimed by Gualtiero Calboli, L’eros nelle declamazioni latine (una pozione di contro-amore), Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, 28, 2 (2010), pp. 138–159.
- 22.
«Qui “venenum” dicit, adicere debet, utrum malum an bonum: nam et medicamenta venena sunt»: Dig. 50, 16, 236 (my translation).
- 23.
Plin, Nat. Hist., XXV, 8.
- 24.
Ibidem, XXV, 3.
- 25.
«Propheta sic propitiatus herbulam quampiam ob os corporis et aliam pectori eius imponit. Tunc orientem obversus incrementa solis augusti tacitus imprecatus venerabilis scaenae facie studia praesentium ad miraculum tantum certatim arrexit»: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, II, 28, p. 28.
- 26.
M. H. Crawford, Roman Statutes (London, 1996), vol. II, pp. 555–721.
- 27.
«In this paper I hope to provide a fresh examination of the evidence and to suggest some new interpretations of these laws. To this end I will avoid, as far as possible, the whole notion of ‘magic’, except where that terminology is introduced by the sources, and will instead limit my analysis to the more specific terms that were evidently used in the actual laws. After some brief remarks on the XII Tables in general, I will examine in detail the two laws usually associated with magic; I hope to demonstrate that their significance becomes much clearer if we do not in fact think of them as laws against magic»: James B. Rives, Magic in the XII Tables Revisited, The Classical Quarterly, 52, 1 (2002), pp. 270–290.
- 28.
Ibidem.
- 29.
Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, pp. 175–204.
- 30.
As for the XII Tables, the original text is lost, but we are able to recreate it, at least partially, on the basis of later commentaries.
- 31.
James B. Rives, Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime, Classical Antiquity, 22, 2 (2003), pp. 313–339, esp., p. 319.
- 32.
Elizabeth Ann Pollard, Magic Accusations Against Women in Tacitus’ Annals, in Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World, eds. Kimberly B. Stratton, Dayna S. Kalleres (Oxford, 2014), pp. 183–210.
- 33.
Ibidem.
- 34.
«Diversum est genus cum controversia consistis in nomine quod pendet ex scripto, nec versatur in iudiciis nisi propter verba quae litem faciunt: an qui se interficit homicida sit, an qui tyrannum in mortem compulit tyrannicida, an carmina magorum veneficium. Res enim manifesta est sciturque non idem esse occidere se quod alium, non idem occidere tyrannum quod compellere ad mortem, non idem carmina ac mortiferam potionem, quaeritur tamen an eodem nomine appellanda sint»: Quintilian, The Orator’s Education, VII, 3, trans. H. E. Butler (Cambridge, MA and London, 1922), vol. III, pp. 86–87.
- 35.
Ulpianus, Dig., 48, 4 s1; see Paul Frédéric Girard, Félix Senn, Textes de droit romain (Paris, 1967), vol. I, pp. 452–455.
- 36.
Mario Sbriccoli, Crimen lesae maiestatis. Il problema del reato politico alle soglie della. scienza penalistica moderna (Milano, 1974).
- 37.
Rives, Magic in Roman Law, p. 329; See also Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, pp. 175–204. On capital punishments in Rome, see Eva Cantarella, I supplizi capitali in Grecia e a Roma (Milano, 1991), pp. 213–222.
- 38.
Cicero, On Divination. De Divinatione, 1, 64, trans. David Wardle (Oxford, 2006), pp. 66–67.
- 39.
Before Cicero, with the same meaning, see Columella, De re rustica, 1, 8.
- 40.
«Ei homines cenas ubi coquont, cum condiunt, non condimentis condiunt, sed strigibus, vivis convivis intestina quae exedint»: Plautus, Pseudolus, 3, 2, 819–821, in The Little Carthaginian. Pseudolus. The Rope, trans. Paul Nixon (Cambridge, MA and London, 1980), pp. 232–233; the translation gives ‘screech-owl’ for striges.
- 41.
«Sunt avidae volucres, non quae Phineia mensis guttura fraudabant, sed genus inde trahunt: grande caput, stantes oculi, rostra apta rapinis, canities pennis, unguibus hamus inest. Nocte volant puerosque petunt nutricis egentes et vitiant cunis corpora rapta suis. carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent. Est illis strigibus nomen; sed nominis huius causa, quod horrendum stridere nocte solent. Sive igitur nascuntur aves, seu carmine fiunt neniaque in volucres Marsa figurat anus»: Ovid, Fasti, VI, 131–142, trans. James George Frazer (Cambridge, MA and London, 1931, repr. 1989), pp. 328–329. I have amended the translation, giving striges for ‘screech-owl’, and ‘women’ instead of ‘beldames’.
- 42.
«Atque ita ‘noctis aves, extis puerilibus’ inquit ‘parcite: pro parvo victima parva cadit. Cor pro corde, precor, pro fibris sumite fibras:hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus’»: Ibidem, 159–165, pp. 328–331. On this episode, see Christopher Michael McDonough, Carna, Proca and the Strix on the Kalends of June, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 127 (1997), pp. 315–344.
- 43.
«Mammas homo solus e maribus habet, cetera animalia mammarum notas tantum. sed ne feminae quidem in pectore nisi quae possunt partus suos attollere. ova gignentium nulli; nec lact nisi animal parienti. volucrum vespertilioni tantum: fabulosum enim arbitror de strigibus, ubera eas infantium labris inmulgere. esse in maledictis iam antiquis strigem convenit, sed quae sit avium, constare non arbitror»: Pliny, The Natural History, XI, 95, 232, trans. John Bostock, H. T. Riley (London, 1855), vol. III, pp. 82–83.
- 44.
Q. Serenus Sammonicus, Liber medicinalis, c. 58, in Poetae Latini minores, ed. Emilius Baehrens (Leipzeig, 1881), p. 155.
- 45.
Punica, XIII, vv. 598–600; on the yew tree, see Thomas W. Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (Princeton, NJ, 2015), pp. 133–137.
- 46.
«Cum adhuc capillatus essem, nam a puero vitam Chiam gessi, ipsimi nostri delicatus decessit, mehercules margaritum, <sacritus> et omnium numerum. Cum ergo illum mater misella plangeret et nos tum plures in tristimonio essemus, subito <stridere> strigae coeperunt; putares canem leporem persequi. Habebamus tunc hominem Cappadocem, longum, valde audaculum et qui valebat: poterat bovem iratum tollere. Hic audacter stricto gladio extra ostium procucurrit, involuta sinistra manu curiose, et mulierem tanquam hoc loco - salvum sit, quod tango! - mediam traiecit. Audimus gemitum, et - plane non mentiar - ipsas non vidimus. Baro autem noster introversus se proiecit in lectum, et corpus totum lividum habebat quasi flagellis caesus, quia scilicet illum tetigerat mala manus. Nos cluso ostio redimus iterum ad officium, sed dum mater amplexaret corpus filii sui, tangit et videt manuciolum de stramentis factum. Non cor habebat, non intestina, non quicquam: scilicet iam puerum strigae involaverant et supposuerant stramenticium vavatonem. Rogo vos, oportet credatis, sunt mulieres plussciae, sunt Nocturnae, et quod sursum est, deorsum faciunt. Ceterum baro ille longus post hoc factum nunquam coloris sui fuit, immo post paucos dies freneticus periit»: Petronius, Satyricon, 9, 63, in Petronius, Seneca. Apocolocyntosis, trans. W. H. D. Rouse, M. A. Litt (Cambridge, MA and London, 1925), pp. 116–119.
- 47.
«Quae striges comederunt nervos tuos?»: Ibidem, 134LO, pp. 298–299.
- 48.
Anthony Grafton, Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Cambridge, MA, 2001), pp. 208–226.
- 49.
Julia Haig Gaisser, The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass (Princeton, NJ, 2008).
- 50.
«Sagae mulieres» that «ora mortuorum passim demorsicant»: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, II, 20–21, pp. 81–82.
- 51.
Maurizio Bettini, Women and Weasels: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome (Chicago, 2013), pp. 185–186.
- 52.
I have already mentioned this ritual when writing about veneficium: see supra, Poisons or Medicines?
- 53.
«Iamque circa primam noctis vigiliam ad illud superius cubiculum suspenso et insono vestigio me perducit ipsa perque rimam ostiorum quampiam iubet arbitrari, quae sic gesta sunt. Iam primum omnibus laciniis se devestit Pamphile et arcula quadam reclusa pyxides plusculas inde depromit, de quis unius operculo remoto atque indidem egesta unguedine diuque palmulis suis adfricta ab imis unguibus sese totam adusque summos capillos perlinit multumque cum lucerna secreto conlocuta membra tremulo succussu quatit. Quis leniter fluctuantibus promicant molles plumulae, crescunt et fortes pinnulae, duratur nasus incurvus, coguntur ungues adunci. Fit bubo Pamphile. Sic edito stridore querulo iam sui periclitabunda paulatim terra resultat, mox in altum sublimata forinsecus totis alis evolat»: Apuleius, Metamorphoses, III, 21, p. 40.
- 54.
«Quid quod istas nocturnas aves, cum penetraverint larem quempiam, solliciter prehensas foribus videmus adfigi, ut, quod infaustis volatibus familiae minantur exitium, suis luant cruciatibus?»: Ibidem, III, 23, p. 41.
- 55.
Read an account of the debate in Laura Cherubini, Strix. La Strega nella cultura romana (Torino, 2010), pp. 7–16.
- 56.
Or syrnia, a word otherwise unknown: Festus’ text is patchy in many places; Festus, De verborum significtu cum Pauli epitome, ed. Wallace M. Lindsay (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1913), p. 414.
- 57.
Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis: A Translation with Commentary, trans. Francis Celoria (London and New York, 1992), pp. 77–78; the Greek text with Latin translation is Antoninus Liberalis, Transformationum congeries, ed. G. Xylander, reviewed by H. Verheyk (Leiden, 1774), pp. 136–143.
- 58.
«(…) audax cantatae leges imponere lunae et sua nocturno fallere terga lupo, posset ut intentos astu caecare maritos, cornicum immeritas eruit ungue genas; consuluitque striges nostro de sanguine, et in me hippomanes fetae semina legit equae»: Propertius, Elegies, IV, 5, in Propertius in Love: The Elegies, trans. David Slavit (London and Berkeley, 2002), pp. 215–216. A saga of Thessaly is in Elegy III, 24.
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Montesano, M. (2018). The Witch as a Woman: Tales of Magic in Rome. In: Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92078-8_3
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