Articles

Ancient Spellcasting

Ancient Spellcasting

Johnson, Marguerite

Iris Online

Abstract

Magic was widely practised in the ancient world; archaeology and written texts provide considerable evidence for it. And what is fascinating about examining the many and varied rituals that constitute magic in Greece and Rome is the startling dichotomy between the real practitioners and the literary stereotypes of the same: so much documentation and archaeological evidence on actual magic indicate that it was essentially practised by men, yet the literary depictions almost always show women as the witches, the hags, the magical experts. From Homer

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