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.