The Magic of Apuleius: preparing to listen to the "Metamorphoses"
This week, the Classics and Ancient History Society at The University of Queensland jumped onto the reading of Apuleius' Metamorphoses (or the Golden Ass) bandwagon started by the Festival Europeen Latin Grec, using the ever-present miracle of Zoom.
In addition to reading a section each from books two and three, I gave a small presentation which I had entitled "The Magic of Apuleius: What of this can be seen elsewhere?" I had intended to present about how Apuleius' description of witchcraft could be seen in material culture, but as often happens when I started writing the paper, it went a little askew. Perhaps I should have named the presentation "What do Thessalian witches have in common with ancient medicine?" It does, however, include a very superficial introduction to the history of Thessalian witches. I decided to post the text of that presentation slightly edited here. I have some further reading at the bottom.
I found the experience of listening to this ancient novel read quite interesting, and I intend to make a follow-up post providing the link to the recorded reading and outlining some thoughts I had during the reading.
The Magic of Apuleius
When reviewing the magic of Apuleius, we need to consider the history of not just of witchcraft, but also of where the narrative of the Metamorphoses began – Thessaly in central Greece.
By the time Apuleius wrote Thessaly had a long and storied tradition of witchcraft. Yet the earliest extant reference to Thessalian witches is from Aristophanes’ Clouds (lines 749-56), dating to 423 BCE:
Strepsiades: Suppose I bought a Thessalian pharmakida and had her pull down the moon at night, and then locked it up in a round case, like a mirror and then stood guard over it.
Socrates: And how would that help you?
Strep: How? If the moon never again rose anywhere, I'd never pay my interest.
Soc: And why not?
Strep: Because money is loaned out by the month!
Strepsiades refers to his witch as a pharmakida – a term which could equally be translated as a “medicine woman” as pharmakon can mean a drug, poison, or a magical spell. The next reference to Thessalian magic is from Plato’s Gorgias (513a), which was likely written around 387-5 BCE:
Consider this, if it is advantageous to you and me, my distinguished friend, so that we don't suffer what the women who draw down the moon, the Thessalian women, do.And again we have a tragic fragment from Sosiphanes' Meleager (Fragment 6N2) dating to around 300 BCE:
With magical incantations every Thessalian maiden is a fraudulent bringer down of the moon from the aether.
Now all of these descriptions and many later Greek works reference drawing down the moon more than any other magical act when referring to Thessalian witchcraft. And yet, our earliest source calls these women pharmakida, which implies Greece's first witch par excellance, Medea. While Medea was described as from Colchus, an area near the Black Sea, when she came to Greece, she first set foot in the Thessalian town of Iolcus.
Medea was associated with drugs. Sophocles’ play entitled the Root-Cutters is not extant, but we presume this is a tragic telling of how Medea restored either her husband Jason’s father to youth or just an old ram (there are two versions of this story), as shown in this black figureware hydra, using magical herbs, and when the daughters of Pelias asked her to do the same for their father, she butchers him into the pot and leaves him dead. Don't judge her too harshly, Pelias kind of had it coming.
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| Attic Black Figure Hydria, featuring Medea, Pelias and his daughters. (C) British Museum, 371799001. Dating to 510-500 BCE |
And she, looking back as she did so, caught the white, foamy juice from the cut in bronze vessels … And the hidden boxes conceal the cuttings of the roots, which she, uttering loud ritual cries, naked, was severing with bronze sickles.
The scholiast also for Aristophanes’ Clouds (for line 749) added this gem to the description of Thessalian witches:
They say that when Media was fleeing <in her air-borne dragon chariot> she threw out a chest of herbs there which took root and grew.
It is worth noting that Theophrastus’ History of Plants recognised that the region of Thessaly contained several very helpful herbs. In addition to this, the centaur Chiron, who was a renowned healer as well as a father figure to Medea's husband, Jason, lived on the Thessalian mountain of Pelion.
Roman literature seems to have developed a very different view towards Thessalian witches. The earliest Latin reference to them from Plautus’ 201 BCE comedy Amphitryon (lines 1043-4) states:
I'll take revenge on that Thessalian ueneficum today, who's made my household lose their minds completely.
Here we have an example of a Thessalian, in this case a man, was described using the Latin word for the Greek pharmakida - veneficum. Like pharmakida was derived from pharmakos, veneficum was derived from the Latin venenum which can mean a poison, drug, or spell. Later Latin uses of "Thessalian" are often used as a synonym for magic, and this might be an early example. You see this in Horace (Ep. 3.3.308-9; Carm. 1.27.21-22) and others.
The idea of Thessaly as a land of magic was very prominent. Pliny the Elder (Natural History 30.2.6-7), writing before 79 CE, included a discourse on his own confusion regarding this development:
And in later times nobody has explained how ever it reached Telmesus, a city given up to superstition, or when it passed over to the Thessalian matrons, whose surname was long proverbial in our part of the world, although magic was a craft repugnant to the Thessalian people, who were content, at any rate in the Trojan period, with the medicines of Chiron, and with the War God as the only wielder of the thunderbolt. I am indeed surprised that the people over whom Achilles once ruled had a reputation for magic so lasting that actually Menander, a man with an unrivalled gift for sound literary taste, gave the name "Thessala" to his comedy, which deals fully with the tricks of the women for calling down the moon.
Apuleius' Lucian (Metamorphoses 2. 1), however, adopts this idea completely:
With my anxiety and my excessive passion to learn the rare and marvellous, considering that I was staying in the middle of Thessaly, the native land of those spells of the magic art of which are unanimously praised throughout the entire world...
We know that Apuleius spent time in Greece, but we do not know if he ever actually visited Thessaly during the time he studied at Athens “drinking from the cups of the Muses” as he described himself, and yet he writes as if he were enormously knowledgeable of Thessalian witchcraft. Within the first three books of his novel, he highlights these elements, most of which come from his description of the witch Pamphile’s workroom.
- Human blood, digits, ears
- Mutilated skulls taken from wild animals
- Unintelligibly lettered metal plaques
- Remains of ill-omened birds
- Hair of victims
- Spices
- Herbs
- Crucifixion nails with flesh
- Preserved gore from murder victims
- Pulsing entrails
- Spring water
- Cow's milk
- Mountain honey
- Mead
- Live coals
- Several kinds of incense
- Box containing smaller containers
- Lamp
- Anise
- Laurel leaves
- Roses
These first elements were described as coming either directly from a corpse before burial, or the result of tomb raiding. Roman era cemeteries had structural tombs and little hidden alleys in which people might hide. Even today, I would not feel comfortable walking through a Roman- period cemetery at night. There are numerous structures which obstruct lines of sight in many directions, and narrow dead-end alleyways. I do not imagine there would have been much difference between various cemeteries of this period.
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| An enclosed alleyway with mosaic feature beside a tomb at Isola Sacra (the cemetery of Portus outside Rome) Photograph taken by author in 2003.
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Mutilated skulls might have been included for shock value, much like the fingers and other parts of the human body. This does make me think of some medical remedies where it was recommended to eat an animal which had eaten human remains, such as vultures (Pliny, Natural History, 30.27.92, Medicina Plinii 3.21.9).
Unintelligible metal plaques could refer to the use of any curse tablet which used magical words or symbols, but it might also refer to a popular spell form known as Ephesia Grammata. These started out as a spell formation or epode which made sense when used in some Greek metal amulets as early as the 5th century BCE. This 4th century BCE example from the Getty has been the subject of a great deal of study.
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| Lead lamella fragments from Selinunte, Sicily. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa. Collection, 81.AI.140.2. Dating to the 4th century BCE. |
aski, kataski, lix, tetrax, Damnameneus, aision. And aski means "darkness", kataski means "light", lix means "earth", tetrax the year, Damnameneus is the sun, and aision is truthful. Therefore these things are holy and sacred.
These words were thought to have been engraved on elements of the statue of Artemis at Ephesus, hence their name, but also used in a variety of spells, including one supposedly used by an Ephesian cheat at the Olympic Games who wore the words as an amulet (see McCown p. 131 in Further Reading below). What I personally find interesting about possibly identifying these plates as featuring Ephesian Grammata is that the epodes which originally featured these words related to maintaining good health.
The next on the list, remains of ill-omened birds is also curious. A number of birds were considered bad luck, but often how their omens were read depended on how they behaved. For example, chickens could provide both good and ill omens, yet a recently discovered curse pot from a building near the Athenian agora contained the dismembered head and legs of a chicken. Even owls, such as that Lucius wanted to become, could be considered “ill-omened.” Another ill-omened bird was the raven. The stoic philosopher, Epictetus who lived from c. 50-135 CE is known to have described one particular bad omen: “When a raven croaks inauspiciously...” So a raven could definitely be meant here. Strangely, a raven claw was found in a late antique baby’s grave in Italy, and has been interpreted as likely having been used as an amulet to try preserve the baby from malaria which was ravaging that community. Again, there seems to be an overlap between these magical accoutrements and medicine.
I think there might be something to this overlap. When we look at the earliest references to Thessalian witches, their names have a potential medical overlay through the use of pharmakida. Pliny the Elder (Natural History 30.2.7) might be thinking about this when he described Thessalian magic a little more:
Getting back to Apuleius’ description, every subsequent magical item I have come across in an ancient medical context.I would be inclined to believe that Orpheus was the first to introduce magic to the neighbouring Thessalians, and that such a superstition on his part derived from medicine, had not all the whole of Thrace, his home, been completely ignorant of the magical craft.
Hair was used in various forms, including burnt, in the preparation of medicines. Spices and herbs were obviously used too. The nail from a crucifixion was recommended used as an amulet to prevent malaria (Pliny, Natural History, 18.12.46; Medicina Plinii, 3.15.1). Human blood was used to treat epilepsy not just in antiquity, but up to the time of the French Revolution where some aristocratic blood recycling took place (Pliny, Natural History, 28.2.4 and 28.10.43; Celsus 3.23.7; Medicina Plinii 3.21.5).
Apuleius does not specify what kind of “pulsing entrails” were used, but given that some medical treatments could include the application of freshly torn apart mouse to try draw out foreign objects like splinters (Pliny, Natural History, 30.42.122; Medicina Plinii, 3.3.1), or chickens similarly treated to address snake bites (Pliny, Natural History, 20.25.78; Celsus 5.27.3D; Dioscorides, Materia Medica, 2.49.1; Medicina Plinii, 3.37.9 are just examples) these would not have been out of place at a doctor’s office in antiquity. In addition to this, lungs were also used in medical applications.
Live coals were used in the preparation of various medicines, and boxes and containers were commonly used by doctors for exactly the same reason a witch would: to hold ingredients. Please note that the rounded, segmented box still had remnants inside it when the University’s antiquities museum acquired that piece. Lamps of course were ubiquitous items.
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| Doctor's box and containers from the R.D. Milns Antiquities Museum at The University of Queensland, 15.001. Dated between 1-200 CE. |
I have spent literally years looking at the various ways that all the rest of these items were used in medicine in the Graeco-Roman world. I could literally bore you all to tears recounting how I have looked at various combinations of these used to treat almost every medical condition imaginable (my work on the Medicina Plinii is to blame for this). Mead was not only a casual drink, but a very common medicinal ingredient. Laurel leaves were not just used for medicine and flavouring, but also medical magic, whereby sometimes magical words would be written upon them to assist with problems including insomnia.
What I am getting at here is that the vast majority of the items Apuleius described could not be used alone to accuse someone of witchcraft. He was likely very aware of this fact given that he himself was accused of bewitching his rich wife (see his Apologia, in which he turned his court defense into a literary work). His refutation of the charges was mostly “I have a completely legitimate reason to have that stuff.” But Apuleius was describing magic not necessarily as how it was performed, although we do have some evidence to indicate that it was, he was mostly describing a Roman idea of magic.
I leave you with this idea, though, tonight: how much of this imagining of Thessalian witchcraft was influenced by that original idea of the pharmakida – the medicine woman.
Further Reading
I am sorry that only McCown and Constatini's papers are open access.
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