Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society

242 Pages·2001·27.796 MB·English

by  Sulochana Asirvatham (editor), Corinne Pache (editor), John Watrous (editor)

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.
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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