Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World PDF
Preview Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World
Daughters of Hecate Daughters of Hecate Women and Magic in the Ancient World z edited by KIMBERLY B. STRATTON with DAYNA S. KALLERES 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2014 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, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daughters of Hecate : women and magic in the ancient world / edited by Kimberly B. Stratton with Dayna S. Kalleres. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–19–534271–0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–534270–3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — 1. Magic—History. 2. Women—History. 3. Witchcraft—History. I. Stratton, Kimberly B., editor. BF1621.D37 2014 133.4’3093—dc23 2014001799 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To all the children of Hecate born during the production of this volume Asher Levi and Jonah Read Copeland Alexander Reed Fleming Thea Brooklyn Kelleher Amelia and Jack Kirkegaard Isobel Claire Lewis Rosemarie Geertje and Annabel Catharina Luijendijk Nicholas and Alex Osadchuk Arthur Barlow Stratton Contents Preface—Kimberly B. Stratton and Dayna S. Kalleres ix Contributors xiii 1. Interrogating the Magic–Gender Connection —Kimberly B. Stratton 1 PART I: Fiction and Fantasy: Gendering Magic in Ancient Literature 2. From Goddess to Hag: The Greek and the Roman Witch in Classical Literature—Barbette Stanley Spaeth 41 3. “The Most Worthy of Women is a Mistress of Magic”: Women as Witches and Ritual Practitioners in 1 Enoch and Rabbinic Sources—Rebecca Lesses 71 4. Gendering Heavenly Secrets? Women, Angels, and the Problem of Misogyny and “Magic”—Annette Yoshiko Reed 108 5. Magic, Abjection, and Gender in Roman Literature —Kimberly B. Stratton 152 PART II: Gender and Magic Discourse in Practice 6. Magic Accusations against Women in Tacitus’s Annals —Elizabeth Ann Pollard 183 viii Contents 7. Drunken Hags with Amulets and Prostitutes with Erotic Spells: The Re-Feminization of Magic in Late Antique Christian Homilies —Dayna S. Kalleres 219 8. The Bishop, the Pope, and the Prophetess: Rival Ritual Experts in Third-Century Cappadocia—Ayşe Tuzlak 252 9. Living Images of the Divine: Female Theurgists in Late Antiquity —Nicola Denzey Lewis 274 10. Sorceresses and Sorcerers in Early Christian Tours of Hell —Kirsti Barrett Copeland 298 PART III: Gender, Magic, and the Material Record 11. The Social Context of Women’s Erotic Magic in Antiquity —David Frankfurter 319 12. Cheating Women: Curse Tablets and Roman Wives —Pauline Ripat 340 13. Saffron, Spices, and Sorceresses: Magic Bowls and the Bavli —Yaakov Elman 365 14. Victimology or: How to Deal with Untimely Death —Fritz Graf 386 15. A Gospel Amulet for Joannia (P.Oxy. VIII 1151) —AnneMarie Luijendijk 418 Bibliography 445 Citation Index 491 Subject Index 517 Preface Kimberly B. Stratton and Dayna S. Kalleres daughters of hecate presents a collection of chapters on the topic of women and magic in the Mediterranean world during the ancient and late an- tique periods. This volume gathers together pointed investigations by leading scholars from the fields of Classics, Judaic Studies, and early Christianity, which illuminate as well as interrogate the persistent associations of women with magic. Since Homer’s depiction of Circe’s pernicious brew in the Odyssey, which turned Odysseus’s sailors into swine (Od. 10.210–213), women have been typecast as ex- perts in dangerous supernatural arts. In Greco-Roman tradition the allegation that women engage in nefarious magic practices operated in a variety of contexts and appears in a broad range of texts from different genres, including tragedy, erotic verse, philosophical discussion, and invective. This image of female sor- cery passed into Christian discourse where, in moralizing homilies, it served to denigrate women, justifying their subjugation to male control. Eventually, it con- tributed potent ideological ammunition to the witch-hunts of the early Modern period. This book investigates the basis of this inveterate, gendered stereotype by combining critical theoretical methods with research into literary and mate- rial evidence from across the ancient Mediterranean: a diverse array of materi- als including Christian homily, Latin love elegy, and Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls. Daughters of Hecate is divided into three sections, each of which challenges presumed associations of women and magic by probing the foundation of, the processes underlying, and the motivations behind the stereotypes. The result is a thorough and more nuanced consideration of the problem than that accom- plished in previous studies. In light of this volume’s stated commitments, the first chapter, “Interrogating the Magic–Gender Connection,” surveys the history of scholarship on women and magic in order to situate the contributions of this volume in that theoretical conversation. The following sections engage the sub- ject of women and magic in antiquity from three angles: 1) Fiction and Fantasy:
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