Suetonius’ Life of Caligula

Ancient historians are, as a whole, problematic. Their methods of recording history differ completely from the approach of modern historians, favouring shock value and the advancement of their desired narrative over accuracy and attempts to write an impartial account. One historian who is a perfect example of this is Suetonius. In his Life of Caligula he is so obviously following a story line instead the facts, and even more problematic is how he switches the story half way through the account. In book ten he is described as a well liked and self controlled boy to being a monster who delights in cruelty. This shift is so huge that he even states that he will no longer be discussing Caligula the emperor, but instead Caligula the monster. While the idea of a person changing their personality over time is not a ridiculous notion, the way that it is written by Suetonius suggests that this new part of the narrative was just added in when the general populace’s opinions changed. Until books eleven and twelve Caligula is seen positively, these two sections are slid in and their negative accounts are ultimately ignored until book twenty two when the tone of the text shifts so dramatically. The dramatic alteration in perspective also occurs with Tiberius, who at first is seen as a monster but later not quite as terrible. The only imperial family member who is consistently written one way is Germanicus, and his early death can be thanked for this.

The most dramatic contradictions Suetonius writes are all on topics that are meant to shock the reader or colour his view sharply on Caligula. His statement that Piso was condemned to death by the senate is false, as he killed himself before the trial was over. He was said to be so loved by the army that the mere sight of him would calm them, later Suetonius denies any kind of favour from them. Certain restrictions were placed on sex workers under his reign, yet he is said to have committed incest with one of his sisters and prostituted the others. Firstly Suetonius claims that Caligula is a generous emperor but later says that he left the people to starve. He condemns informers then rewards them. First he is handsome, then he is not. Contradiction after contradiction pile up creating not just an inaccurate account but one with a disjointed stance on the subject matter, that being Caligula.

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Magic & the Law: Apuleius’ Apology

In my paper I am researching legal cases containing accusations of magic in the Roman Imperial period. One of the sources I am looking at is Apuleius’ Apology. When looking at this source I am focusing on the question: how is it that this situation could come about and what does that imply about magic and the law during the Imperial period?

As we discussed in class, Apuleius finds himself put on trial with accusations of magic. He is accused of using love magic to seduce his wife Pudentilla into marrying him. Her father-in-law and rest of her family had wanted to keep her fortune within their family and thus are upset by the turnout of events and have taken him to court with these accusations. We don’t actually know the outcome of the trial, but his speech is so convincing, by highlighting the absurdity of the charges, that most scholars agree that he must have been acquitted.

This source is important because it is the only surviving example of a speech from a magic trial in the ancient world. Thus it is valuable in providing us with an example of both accusations of magic and the way in which someone could possibly go about defending themselves against these charges. It contains important aspects of social history and the way in which magic was viewed and could be used as accusations in a legal trial.

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Nestor’s Cup: Curse or Joke?

It has been suggested that the mass amount of curse tablets found throughout the Greek and Roman worlds stem from a far earlier oral tradition of magic (Eidinow 141; Faraone 82-83). Literary evidence, such as Aeschylus’ Eumenides and the Greek Magical Papyri, point to this oral tradition. Our earliest curse tablets for binding spells appear in Selinous, Sicily in either the late sixth or early fifth century BCE. However, earlier than this we have a few extant examples of written magic in the form of what are called ‘conditional curses’ (Eidinow 141).

‘Conditional curses’ “are intended to discourage those who are planning to do a crime” (Eidinow 140) often by stating that something (bad) will happen to the reader if they do something that the curser does not want them to do (e.g. “if you do X, then X”).

Possibly the earliest example of these conditional curses, as well as of Greek writing in general, is the so-called ‘Nestor’s Cup’ (Faraone 77). In 1954 during excavations of the late eighth century BCE necropolis in the Euboean colony of Pithekoussai, fragments of an unassuming proto-Corinthian cup with a three-line inscription were found in the grave of a cremated youth (Faraone  77).

This short verse is usually reconstructed as:

Νέστορός : ε[ίμ]ι : εὔποτ[ον] : ποτέριον :
hός δ’ άν τοδε πίεσι : ποτερί[ο] : αυτίκα κενον
μερος hαιρέσει : καλλιστε[φά]νου Ἀφροδίτες.

I am the cup of Nestor, good for drinking / Whoever drinks from this cup, desire for beautifully / crowned Aphrodite will seize him instantly (Faraone 78)

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The Problems with Theocritus

The topic that I decided to write about for my term paper was daemons and daemonology. Although my thesis is only in its infancy, I have explored a number of sources that portray how demons are perceived across Greco-Roman antiquity. A problematic but also useful source I have come across is the fifteenth Idyll by Theocritus.

Idyll 15 accounts a mime scene in Alexandria describing Theocritus’s companions in a Festival of Adonis. In this scene, Gorgo pays a visit to Praxinoa with her two-year old child and asks her to attend the Festival of Adonis with her in the palace of Ptolemy II. Hesitant at first, Praxinoa gives in to an insisting Gorgo and they set out to the Festival. After some sundry encounters in the crowded streets, they arrive at the palace and the scene ends with a dirge that describes the setting of the festival.

A significant problem with this primary text is that little is known about the life of Theocritus apart from what can be implied in his writings. He was likely born during the 3rd century BC on the island of Sicily. Interestingly, we know this because he called the cyclops Polyphemus as his countryman. He also may have lived in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II or Syracuse or Cos where he flourished and wrote many of his poems. Additionally, since so little is known about him, we are unsure if we Theocritus even wrote all of the Idylls’. This poses a problem because the very author is disputed, along with the background and setting that may be important to my paper topic.

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Horace Epode 5: Making a love potion, fact and fiction.

One of the main problems with studying love potions from the ancient world is that clearly we lack a physical love potion to study. Further complicating matters is the fact that we also don’t have a serious written account describing how to make a love potion. Instead, we have stories of the disastrous effects of love potions on their targets, or hyperbolic tails of their creation by evil witches. This post will discuss one of the later, an exaggerated story from Horace’s fifth Epode describing the creation of a love potion by four witches.

 

If we are to read the poem as an actual account of how one might go about making a love potion, it is a horrific process indeed, with the dried liver and marrow of a young boy from a wealthy family being the main ingredient. The boy’s body parts would have to be imbued with a sense of longing or fierce hunger by burying him naked up to his neck in the earth, and placing an enticing meal just out of his reach, with the food being changed a few times per day. We would also conclude that an extravagant ceremony would go along with the preparation of the main ingredients, including burning a variety of magical objects, purifying the house with water and an elaborate but surprisingly colloquial prayer to Night and Diana.

 

Of course, it is a mistake to read this poem as accurately recounting how to go about creating a love potion. Although some elements of the magic involved could have been a part of this process, the literary genre casts doubt on forming solid conclusions from the poem.

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Tacitus’ Annals and the death of Germanicus – Uses and abuses of magical plot devices

The account of Germanicus’ death offers a number of valuable insights into the nature of Tacitus’ approach to writing history. It is a key example of how he chooses to draw attention to the political climate in Rome during the time of the early Principate (or at least his interpretation of it), the manner in which he constructs his characters as movers and shakers within his greater narrative, and, most importantly (to me), he identifies the manner in which certain players chose to press their advantage. His (admittedly brief) account of the use of magic and poison in the political realm as tools to dispose of rivals (Tac. Ann.2.69) is of particular interest. Yet, as with everything written by Tacitus, this account may very likely be part of a larger agenda, intended to elucidate his own insinuations of what the greater picture might have been.

 

Consequently, the use of magic in the death of Germanicus as well as the accusations of such deeds directed against Piso and his associates might be nothing more than mere plot devices. The moral history of Tacitus harks back to Republican values amidst the predominance of Imperial rule, creating a complex construction of the qualities Tacitus associated with Rome’s political systems of Republic and Empire. Christopher Pelling proposes that Tacitus presents Germanicus as an embodiment of the tension that existed in the early Principate – he is a man who does not “fit naturally into the seething jealousies” that emerge under the one-man rule of the emperor, and who remains “distinctively connected to the past” (Pelling, 2012, p. 299). As Germanicus falls victim to the political machinations of his enemies, who did not hesitate to use magic and poison, and subject him to “the worst of deaths” (Tac. Ann. 2.71), Tacitus emphasizes the ruthlessness that had emerged under the new political system. This interpretation of Tacitus’ work as a characterization of the people and the times makes it difficult to assess the extent to which magic was considered to be a real political threat.

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The Annals of Tacitus and the Depiction of the Roman Witch

To begin, my area of research focuses on the image of the Roman witch, and women and magic in the early imperial period. By drawing on early European witch-trials, I hope to be able to establish what cultural and social phenomena were taking place in Rome during the 1st centuries BCE and CE that gave rise to the affiliation of women and dark magic.

In my research, my most difficult – yet also my most intriguing – source has been the Annals of Tacitus. Written as a historical narrative, the Annals’ time-period ranges from 14 – 68 CE, the reign of Tiberius to the reign of Nero. While it has provided modern historians with a crucial understanding of Roman history during the early imperial period, it has also offered a unique lens into a growing theme of affiliating women with dark magic. In the Annals, Tacitus’ main focus is on the political narrative that is taking place. Yet, in as much as this provides, Tacitus also indirectly gives a historical account of the charges of artes magicae laid out against women.

Among such women are Munatia Plancina and Aemilia Lepida. In the former, Plancina is supposedly charged alongside her husband, Piso for the poisoning of Germanicus. While the majority of the focus is on Piso, Tacitus does claim certain charges on Plancina involving dark magic. She is accused of assisting in “black arts” and performing “blasphemous rites and sacrifices” in the death of Germanicus (3.13). She is also affiliated with Martina, a well-known eastern ‘poisoner’. And later on, Tacitus explains that the only witness to prove Plancina’s involvement in Germanicus’ poison – Martina – is herself killed by poison, with the implicit suggestion that it was Plancina who committed this (3.7).

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What was a Demon?

Consider, if you will, a word. It could be any word, big or small, well used or rarely heard. However, it must be a word to which you apply significant meaning. In my case, the word I chose was “demon”. When I began to research the subject of demons with reference to the Ancient Greek world I discovered a rather irksome situation. Many of the texts which I looked into to see what they had to say on the subjects of demons were problematic, in that too often the translated version shied away from the term “demon”, likely to avoid the association that word has due to the Judeo-Christian context with which a large majority of people read.  However, despite this irritating hindrance, eventually, I came to a source which was clear, one which, by dint of being functionally a discussion “περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος” (About the Accuracy of Names), was forced to state things without such obfuscatory language as Hesiod’s “they are called pure spirits dwelling on the earth”. This source that actually sets things out plainly, in a slight departure from his usual style, is Plato’s “Cratylus”.

In “Cratylus” the subject of demons comes up only for one exchange, when Socrates and the men questioning him are discussing the order in which they should deal with topics going forwards in the text, and Hermogenes asks that it must make logical sense that, following Gods, they should discuss Demons. In his typical style, Socrates immediately launches into a discussion of demons, prompted, as he was, by a question. Socrates first makes reference to Hesiod’s mention of demons as the sprits of the golden race of men, and here the translator, Benjamin Jowett, does not shy away from translating the Greek “δαίμονες” as “demon”. As the translations of Hesiod which I have read previously have all translated that δαίμονες with any applicable word except “demon”, the reference to Hesiod made by Plato in “Cratylus” directed me to a Greek version of “Works and Days”, where, sure enough, the word which had been translated as “pure spirits” was revealed to be “δαίμονες”.

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Arrian and Alexander Worship

The most problematic, but also useful, ancient source I have come across so far in my studies is The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander. This work was written by Arrian of Nicomedia, a Greek who lived in the first and second centuries CE. He was a historian, public servant, philosopher and military commander. His family were wealthy Greeks, but his full name “Lucius Flavius Arrianus” implies he was a Roman citizen, and he was at one-point consul. The work is one of the few accounts we have of the campaigns of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and clearly relies heavily on works that are no longer extant today such as Xenophon’s account of the March of Cyrus. Everything we know of the author is from Bibliotheca, and references within his own works. The reliability of these sources and fragments in piecing together information about the author is problematic.

The Anabasis details the expeditions of Alexander the Great through Persia and the expansion of his empire. It is majorly a systematic military account, and does not speculate on the personal life of Alexander much. There is also little comment on the politics of the time or the socio-cultural context for the beginning of the Persian wars. The seven books are written in Attic Greek, in the second century CE. It accounts the life of Alexander III who died in 323 BCE, which means that this work was written hundreds of years after the Persian Wars. This gap in time is often cause for skepticism in ancient sources, because he is writing about a time he was not present for, and is basing his works on the biases of previous authors.

Some of the sources Arrian cites are: Ptolemy son of Lagos, Aristobulos (both men who presumably were with Alexander on the campaigns), Diodotus of Erythrae, Eumenes of Cardia, Nearchus of Crete, Megasthenes, Eratosthenes, Aristus and the letters of Alexander. These sources are no longer extant and we must rely on Arrian’s interpretation of them, leaving us in the dark. Arrian is our only extant full account of the expeditions of Alexander, thus we are reliant on his opinion, and the fragments of primary sources we get through him. This is problematic, as it would be comparable to using a modern author as our only reliable evidence of ancient times – we have no guarantee of the accuracy of the representation.

Arrian disapproved of the work of his predecessor, Callisthenes, as he believed that the author was biased in his representation of Alexander, and was more interested in propaganda for Alexander than accuracy. I find this an almost hypocritical assumption of Arrian, as he is also known for his beneficial portrayal of Alexander and he tends to gloss over any negative qualities of Alexander. After Alexander flies into a rage and kills his best friend, Arrian basically says that it is okay because Alexander felt bad about it, and was drunk. This is a weak excuse. He also spends the beginning of his work arguing that his portrayal will be the most unbiased and truthful (blatant self-promotion), and then glosses over many of the negative aspects of Alexander’s character, and is obvious in his worship-like admiration of Alexander.

The account is also quite analytical, and rarely discusses the personal motivations of Alexander, or the social and cultural contexts for what is happening. We are reliant on Arrian as a source, but we must read his work with a critical mind of his bias towards Alexander, the overconfidence in his own work, and the reliability of his information. This source is useful as he likely had access to resources that are no longer extant, and it is by far the most complete work on the campaigns of Alexander, but the fact that it is our only comprehensive source on Alexander’s campaigns leaves us limited in our understanding, and at the mercy of the information we are given.

In conclusion, we are forced to use Arrian as a source for one of the most important figures of the Hellenistic period as he is the most fleshed out and comprehensive source. His work is problematic due to the date he has written it, our inability to verify his sources, his obvious biases that may have caused selection of the truths he discusses, and the lack of discussion of the social contexts and motivations behind the Persian Wars.

Manilius’ Astronomica: a challenging primary source

There are few texts about astrology that survive intact from ancient Greece and Rome. Although there are fragments from early Greek writers, the oldest complete text is Astronomica, written in the early 1st century CE by a Roman, Marcus Manilius. Astronomica is a poem in five books totalling 4,258 lines. It purports to be an instructional text on the theory and practice of astrology, and it would be a very valuable record of astrological practice in the early Empire – if it were not for its fundamental defects.

What’s wrong with Astronomica, you wonder? Well, for one thing, Manilius wrote a lot about the constellations of the zodiac, but very little about the planets. In astrology, the positions of the planets in the sky at the time of the birth of the native (as astrologers call the person whose horoscope is being cast) are supremely important. Without making reference to the positions of the planets within the zodiac the only data you have are which sign was rising at the moment of the native’s birth (which is called the ascendant) and, perhaps, which sign the sun was in. Clearly this doesn’t allow for many variations on the native’s horoscope.

(Of course, the “horoscopes” printed in newspapers today are based solely on the sign the sun was in at the time of birth. Any astrologer, ancient or modern, who was worth his/her salt would scoff at such unsophisticated nonsense!)

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