Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society PDF
Preview Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society
Between Magic and Religion Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches Series Editor: Gregory Nagy, Harvard University Assistant Editor: Timothy Power, Harvard University On the front cover: A calendar frieze representing the Athenian months, reused in the Byzantine Church of the Little Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed, obliterating Taurus of the Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches reflects this series’ emphasis on the blending of the diverse heritages—Near Eastern, Classical, and Christian—in the Greek tradition. Drawing by Laurie Kain Hart, based on a photograph. Recent titles in the series are: Nothing Is As It Seems: The Tragedy of the Implicit in Euripides’ Hippolytus by Hanna M. Roisman Lyric Quotation in Plato by Marian Demos Exile and the Poetics of Loss in Greek Tradition by Nancy Sultan The Classical Moment: Views from Seven Literatures edited by Gail Holst-Warhaft and David R. McCann Nine Essays on Homer edited by Miriam Carlisle and Olga Levaniouk Allegory and the Tragic Chorus in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus by Roger Travis Dionysism and Comedy by Xavier Riu Contextualizing Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue edited by Thomas M. Falkner, Nancy Felson, and David Konstan The Pity of Achilles: Oral Style and the Unity of the Iliad by Jinyo Kim Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society edited by Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache, and John Watrous lambic Ideas: Essays on a Poetic Tradition from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire edited by Alberto Cavarzere, Antonio Aloni, and Alessandro Barchiesi Between Magic and Religion Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society EDITED BY SULOCHANA R. ASIRVATHAM, CORINNE ONDINE PACHE, AND JOHN WATROUS ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham " Boulder « New York « Oxford ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com 12 Hid’s Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 911, England Copyright © 2001 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Between magic and religion : interdisciplinary studies in ancient Mediterranean religion and society / edited by Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache, and John Watrous. p. cm. — (Greek studies: Interdisciplinary approaches) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8476-9968-4 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8476-9969-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) |. Mediterranean Region—Religion. 2. Magic. I. Asirvatham, Sulochana R., 1970-. II. Pache, Corinne Ondine, 1963-. III. Watrous, John, 1964—. IV. Series. BL687 .B45 2001 200°.938—dc21 2001041692 Printed in the United States of America & The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Contents Foreword Preface Introduction PART I: ANCIENT RELIGION, SELF AND OTHER A. GREEKS AND OTHERS 1. Barbarian Bond: Thracian Bendis among the Athenians Corinne Ondine Pache 2. Magic, Religion, and Syncretism at the Oracle of Claros 13 Zsuzsanna Varhelyi B. ROMAN MAGIC AND RELIGION FROM TWO PERSPECTIVES 3. Saving Water: Early Floods in the Forum 35 Prudence J. Jones 4. Magic, Dreams, and Ritual in the Iroquois Conversion 47 Kate Blair-Dixon PART II: MAN, HERO OR GOD? 5. The Dynamics of Deification in Horace’s Odes 1-3 67 Spencer Cole 6. Olympias’ Snake and Callisthenes’ Stand: Religion and Politics in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander 93 Sulochana R. Asirvatham 7. The Cult of Achilles in Philostratus’ Heroikos: A Study in the Relation of Canon and Ritual 127 Ellen Bradshaw Aitken vi Contents PART III: RELIGIOUS ICONOGRAPHY IN LATE ANTIQUITY 8. Coins Used as Amulets in Late Antiquity 139 Mary Margaret (Molly) Fulghum 9, A Reconsideration of Early Byzantine Marriage Rings 149 Alicia Walker 10. The Femme-aux-Serpents at Moissac: Luxuria (Lust) or a Bad Mother? 165 Amanda Luyster Bibliography 193 Index 207 About the Contributors 21] Foreword Gregory Nagy, Series Editor Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the continuum of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium B.C.E. to the present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying various disciplines to problems that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single given discipline. Besides the crossing-over of the older disciplines, as in the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory. Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society, edited by Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Corinne Ondine Pache, and John Watrous, represents a radical rethinking of traditional distinctions involving the term “religion” in the ancient Greek world and beyond, through late antiquity and to the seventeenth century. The title indicates the fluidity of such concepts as “religion” and “magic,” highlighting the wide variety of meanings evoked by these shifting terms from ancient to modern times. The contributors to this volume put these meanings to the test, applying a wide range of methods in exploring the many varieties of available historical, archaeological, iconographical, and literary evidence. No reader will ever think of “magic” and “religion” the same way after thinking through the findings presented in this book. Both terms emerge in a new light, with broader applications and deeper meanings. vil Preface The Ford Foundation-sponsored workshop “Between Magic and Religion” began in the fall of 1996. The initiative came from graduate students, who wanted to create an interdisciplinary forum for debate on topics relevant to the field of ancient religions. Scholars, young and old, were invited to participate. Meetings were extracurricular, so as to encourage a collegial environment that allowed for unorthodox questions to be raised and reviewed, and for controversial explanatory models to be posited and scrutinized. Discussion ranged widely but not wildly. Parallels were drawn from sources as diverse as Sumerian and Babylonian texts, and present-day Greek and Irish songs and customs. Yet the focus never strayed far from archaic Greece and the Greco- Roman world, with equal weight given to archeology, art, history, literature, and papyri. This publication of papers given at the seminar’s first colloquium in November 1998 shows the energy, the enthusiasm, and the scholarly acumen of a new generation of scholars. We are both proud to have been there from the beginning: Sari, without whose sustaining ideals and victuals neither the group nor the publication could have come together; Meg, who enjoyed handing over ideas on ritual and religion across time and generations. Sarolta A. Takacs Margaret B. Alexiou
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