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The “witch” of classical literature is a fascinating figure: sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible, but always compelling.1 In this article, I shall show that an analysis of the classical literary representations of witches reveals interesting simi- larities and important differences between the Greek and Roman sources, and I shall suggest some possible interpretations of these correspondences and contrasts. For the purposes of this article, I am employing the commonly accepted usage of the term “witch” in contemporary English, that is, “a woman claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery.”2 This broad etic definition of the term allows me to consider under the category “witch” a variety of female magical practitioners from classical literature, although the ancient terms for these practitioners divide them into different emic categories.3 Thus, some of these women are distinguished by their methods, for example, those who used magical potions (pharmakis or pharmakeutria in Greek; venefica or trivenefica in Latin) or incantations (kēlēteira in Greek, cantatrix or praecantrix in Latin). Some are defined by other characteristics, such as their habit of lurking around graveyards (tumbas in Greek), or their ability to fly (volaticus in Latin). Others, particularly Roman witches, may be identified with animals (striga or strix in Latin, a term for a type of bird) or monsters (lamia in Latin, a mythological female monster who devoured children). Roman witches also may be iden- tified with pejorative terms, such as malefica, “evil-doer,” or lupula, “whore,” or they may be called by more euphemistic terms: saga, “wise-woman,” veteratrix, “well-practiced, seasoned,” or anus, “old woman.” Finally, some ancient sources classify witches by their association with certain types of magic (perimaktria: one who purifies with magic; telesphoros: one who initiates with magic), while others employ feminine versions of words designating practitioners of magic in general:
so the Greek term, goēteia, leads to the use of goēteutria for a witch (cf. goētēs for a male magician), while the Latin term magia leads to the use of maga for the female magical practitioner (cf. magus for the male practitioner).
These latter terms emphasize the association of the witch with the general concept “magic” in antiquity, itself a highly contested term.4 For the purposes of this discussion of the witch in classical literature, I define magic as the socially unsanctioned use of supernatural powers and tools to control nature and compel both humans and superhuman beings to do one’s will.5 This definition helps to distinguish the witch from the Olympian goddess or female monster, who has no need of magical tools to carry out her will, and also from the priestess, whose contacts with the supernatural are socially sanctioned. Greek literary portraits of witches include Homer’s Circe; the Medea of Pindar, Euripides, and Apollonius Rhodius; and Theocritus’s Simaetha.6 Roman examples include Virgil’s Simaetha (or Amaryllis, if that is indeed her name); Horace’s Canidia and Sagana; the Latin elegists’ old women who sell love charms, Ovid’s Medea and Circe; Petro- nius’s Oenothea; Seneca’s Medea; Lucan’s Erictho; and Apuleius’s Meroe, Pamphile, and Photis.7 Now, to be sure, some of these figures overlap the distinction that I made above among witches, goddesses, priestesses, and female monsters. Medea and Circe, for example, are both of divine lineage, and Circe is called a “dread goddess” (deinē theos) (e.g., Hom. Od. 10.136), while Medea is a priestess (arēteira) of Hekate (e.g., Ap. Rhod. Argon. 3.252). It may be that in the earliest stages of their mythic life these figures were not thought to be witches, that is, magical practitioners, for the concept of magic was not fully formed until the fifth century bce.8 As Richard Gordon suggests, however, these figures of myth are emblematic of “magic before magic.”9 They fit the characteristics of the later witch, and so, I would argue, still fall under the etic category that I have defined as “witch.” For example, they make use of tools that are later interpreted as magical; Circe has her potion and wand that she uses to turn Odysseus’s men to swine (Hom. Od. 10.233–42), and Medea has potions that she gives to Jason to protect him from the fire-breathing bulls (Pind. Pyth. 4.220–29). Certainly, in later literature, Circe and Medea become paradigms of the “arch-witch” and are cited in a variety of contexts; so, for example, Theocritus has his Simaetha ask Hekate to make her drugs as potent as those of Circe or Medea (Theocr. Id. 2.5–16).10 The female monster also can overlap the witch figure, as with the so-called “night- hag” type, like the Roman strix/striga, who can be seen either as wholly animal- istic (e.g., Ov. Fast. 6.131–69) or as more human in nature (e.g., Petron. Sat. 63).11 These anomalous instances, however, I would argue, do not vitiate the basic defi- nition of the witch as a woman who practices magic, and this definition allows us to recognize the variety of representations of such figures in classical literature.
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