Apuleius' Magical Fish (Note II)

Further reading has turned up another possible reason for Apuleius' accusers to add piscatorial proddings to their evidence that he is a malificar.

Yvon Thebert explains in his chapter "Private Life and Domestic Architecture in Roman Africa" (A History of Private Life From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, Paul Veyne ed. Arthur Goldhammer Trans. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard, 1987. p. 366) that the frequent depiction of marine life in the mosaics and frescoes of Roman Africa served an apotropaic function by invoking the fertility of the sea against misfortune and the evil eye. Perhaps Apuleius' accusers thought that he was using rare and expensive fish in ritual magic to thwart their efforts against him. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ancient Witches II: Helen of Troy

In our last post, we examined the close link between medicine and magic evinced by Homer’s healers in the Iliad . This week, we turn to another Homeric adept in the art of pharmaka , one step closer to the ideal European “witch” Judge Hathorne had in mind at Salem: Helen of Troy. By 1692, Helen of Troy’s name had already entered the pop-canon of European witch-lore with Christopher Marlowe’s play Faust .* Marlowe specifically plays on the idea of Helen’s irresistible sexuality as a temptation of the Devil. While Homer knew nothing of the Devil, he does portray Helen’s beauty as supernaturally baleful. The Trojans are so enraptured by her that they refuse to release her, against the advice of the elders, even though it spells doom for their city. These elders see Helen clearly:   Small blame that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long suffer woes; she is dreadfully like immortal goddesses to look on. But even so, though she is like them, let her go ho
Read more

The Shield of Aeneas Part II

In the previous post on the Shield of Aeneas, we saw how Virgil moves from the generic scenes of Achilles’ and Herakles’ shields to specific moments in the Roman past in order to express his hope that Caesar Augustus will lead the world into an era of universal peace. Today’s post focuses on the circumstances surrounding the gift of Aeneas’ shield and what they reveal about Virgil’s attitude toward his Greek sources. At first glance, the Aeneid appears strongly anti-Greek. The defeated Trojans, not the Greeks, are the heroes of the epic. Odysseus in particular comes off as a weasel, and we are told that Aeneas’ opponent, Turnus, is a new Achilles. Given how closely the structure of the Aeneid follows that of the Odyssey and then the Iliad , it can give the impression that Virgil is trying to undo Homer by some process of literary alchemy. We should take careful note, then, that at the moment when Aeneas receives his shield and prepares to bear Rome’s future on his shoulders, h
Read more

Ancient Witches XI: The Witches of Acts

The Julio-Claudian dynasty reigned in the Hellenistic style as “Sons of God” and “Saviors,” bringing order to the chaos of the Mediterranean world. As a part of that order, the Julio-Claudians suppressed destabilizing forces such as magic and divination. During the reign of Tiberius, and particularly under his successors, Gaius Caligula and Claudius, a sect within Second Temple Judaism began challenging the official line. Leaders of The Way, such as Simon/Peter and Saul/Paul, defiantly claimed that the true “Son of God” and “Savior” was an obscure backwater preacher by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who had been executed for political agitation. As one proof of their claim, Peter and Paul didn’t outlaw witchcraft; they declared war on it. Accounts of powerful confrontations between Peter and Paul and ancient practitioners of magic abound in the earliest organized account of The Way, Acts . It is significant that Acts does not show Peter and Paul forbidding magic so much as annih
Read more