Ancient Greek Love Magic

239 Pages·2001·0.92 MB·English

by  Christopher A. Faraone

Ancient Greek Love Magic
(cid:2)

(cid:3) (cid:3)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) Ancient Greek (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) Love Magic (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:2) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) Christopher A. Faraone (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) Harvard University Press (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) Cambridge, Massachusetts (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) London, England (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4) (cid:4)
(cid:4)(cid:4) (cid:4)(cid:4)
(cid:2) (cid:2)
Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Second printing, 2001
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2001
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Faraone, Christopher A.
Ancient Greek love magic / Christopher A. Faraone.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-674-03320-5 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-00696-8 (pbk.)
1. Magic, Greek. 2. Love—Miscellanea—History. I. Title.
BF1591.F37 1999
133.4(cid:2)42(cid:2)0938—dc21 99-10676
For Susan
sê gfir Ãn seautá tfi f©rmaka Æxeiv
(Plutarch Moralia 141c)

Contents
Preface ix
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The Ubiquity of Love Magic 5
1.2 Definitions and a New Taxonomy 15
1.3 The Advantages of a Synchronic and Comparative Approach 30
2 Spells for Inducing Uncontrollable Passion (Eros) 41
%
2.1 If ErÃs Is a Disease, Then Erotic Magic Is a Curse 43
2.2 Jason’s Iunx and the Greek Tradition of Agoge Spells 55
% %
2.3 Apples for Atalanta and Pomegranates for Persephone 69
2.4 The Transitory Violence of Greek Weddings and
Erotic Magic 78
3 Spells for Inducing Affection (Philia) 96
3.1 Aphrodite’s Kestos Himas and Other Amuletic Love Charms 97
3.2 Deianeira’s Mistake: The Confusion of Love Potions
and Poisons 110
3.3 Narcotics and Knotted Cords: The Subversive Cast
of Philia Magic 119
4 Some Final Thoughts on History, Gender, and Desire 132
4.1 From Aphrodite to the Restless Dead: A Brief History
of the AgÃgÁ Spell 133
4.2 Courtesans, Freedmen, and the Social Construction
of Gender 146
4.3 Aelian’s Tortoises and the Representation of the
Desiring Subject 160
Contents
(cid:2)
viii
Glossary 175
Abbreviations 179
Bibliography 183
Subject Index 205
Index of Foreign Words 213
Index of Passages from Ancient Authors 217
Index of Magical Texts 221
Preface
Despite the well-documented separation and polarization of male and
female spheres of action in ancient Greece, scholars traditionally treat love
charms as one undifferentiated mass of data and assume that individuals of
either gender could without discrimination use any type of charm they
wished on any victim they so chose. I offer here a survey of ancient Greek
love magic and a new bipolar taxonomy based mainly on the genders of the
agents and their victims: those rituals used mainly by men to instill erotic
passion (erôs) in women and those used primarily by women to maintain
or increase affection (philia) in men. This taxonomy is not procrustean,
however, and in the final chapter I discuss several important deviations
from it, suggesting that most of the apparent anomalies in the gender of
the person using a spell are not in fact anomalies at all, but rather give us
some new and interesting insights into how ancient Greek ideas about
gender were socially constructed. In the case of philia-producing magic, for
instance, I show how freedmen and other socially subordinate males are
constructed as female, according to widespread patriarchal notions of fe-
male inferiority. Conversely I argue that courtesans and prostitutes employ
aggressive erotic magic—usually the purview of males—because, as
autonomous operators free to indulge in their passions, these women are
constructed as male in Greek culture. Finally, I discuss of how the Greeks
constructed the victims of these spells as desiring subjects. My conclusions
here may surprise some readers, as they did, indeed, surprise me, for they
call into question the widespread orthodoxy of what we might call the
“misogynist” model of Greek culture, which generally attributes men’s mis-
treatment and control of women to their fears that women are “naturally”
lascivious and are therefore a constant threat to male schemes for the
orderly transference of property by means of betrothal and marriage. I
argue to the contrary that the evidence assembled here suggests the exist-
ence of another, competing set of cultural assumptions, which I call the
“misandrist” model, according to which men are the “naturally” lascivious