THE WITCH IN GREECE AND ROME
Although the Christian witch was the direct descendant of the Jewish,
there were yet other branches of her family tree not without their
influence upon her final development. Chief among them were the great
witch families of Greece and Rome, the one being in some sense a
development of the other and through it inheriting more than a trace of
Persian blood.
It is a natural feature of anthropomorphic religion that from a few
representatives of the more important phases of human existence the
gods and goddesses tend to increase, until there is hardly a department
of human activity without its presiding deity. As there are kings and
queens among men, so there will be sovereigns among the gods. The
divine king will have his officers, servants and warriors just as do
those earthly kings who worship him. The personal appearance of the god
differs from that of the man only in degree, his connection with his
worshippers is almost undignified in the closeness of his intimacy.
He suffers the same passions, commits the same crimes, occasionally
aspires to the same virtues; he is, in a word, man in all but name and
divine only in his humanity.
Among no people was this tendency more highly and minutely developed
than among the Greeks. Not only did their deities adapt themselves
to every phase of human life; the famous altar to "the Unknown God,"
attests the limitless potentialities of the Greek Pantheon. Were all
other records destroyed we could exactly reconstruct Grecian life and
feeling from the doings of the Grecian gods; we may expect to find
accordingly such a phase of belief as witchcraft accurately mirrored
in Grecian mythology. And, accordingly, the witch proves to have her
definite niche in the Greek Pantheon. Naturally also, she did not rank
among the greater goddesses. On the one hand she may be looked for as
the degenerate form of a goddess; on the other she corresponds nearly
enough to the heroic demigods in whose veins royal blood mingled with
divine ichor.
To the first category belongs the dire and dreadful form of Hecate.
Originally an ancient Thracian divinity, she by degrees assumed
the attributes of many, Atis, Cybele, Isis, and others. As the
personification of the moon, whose rays serve but to increase the
mystery of night, she was the patroness of all witches, and was invoked
on all their most baleful undertakings. Gradually she grew into the
spectral originator of all those horrors with which darkness affects
the imagination. Hecate it was who first cast spells and became
learned in enchantments; Hecate who at the approach of night loosed
demons and phantoms from the lower shades. Did you, hastening through
the twilight, meet with a formless monster, hoofed like an ass and
radiating a stench incomparably foul, you might recognise the handiwork
of Hecate--designed, perhaps, to punish you for having neglected to
offer on her altars your accustomed sacrifice of dogs, or honey, or
black lambs, or to set out her monthly offering of food--perhaps only
in wanton exercise of her mysterious power. Did the mournful baying of
your kennelled hounds lend point to the gloomy solitude of night, you
might know that Hecate was abroad upon the earth somewhere at hand,
with dead souls to form her retinue. Must you pass the cross-roads, or
visit the place of tombs, hasten, and especially beware the spot where
the blood of murdered persons has been spilt, for all such places are
Hecate's chosen haunts. In the gloom and darkness she did her grisly
work, now brewing philtres, now potions, with reptiles, human flesh or
blood of man or beast that had died dreadful deaths for her ingredients.
The rites of Hecate worship varied in different parts of Greece; she
plays a leading part in the Orphic poems, and when the old religion
began to be submerged beneath foreign elements, she yet held her own
and was even invoked by strangers. Her statues were erected before
the houses and at the cross-roads in Athens, and such Hecatea were
consulted as oracles. Her personal appearance was the reverse of
attractive. She had either three bodies or three heads, according to
time and circumstance, one being of a horse, the second of a dog, the
third of a lion. Although usual, this habit of body was not constant,
her magic arts allowing her to take whatever form she chose as freely
as could her fellow divinities. But however she appeared she was
invariably hideous. Nevertheless, there seem to have been those among
her votaries bold enough to desire personal interviews with her, and
for their benefit she provided a formula of her own composition and
of such power that she was constrained to obey the citation of those
availing themselves of it. It may be quoted for the benefit of those
readers who desire her closer acquaintance. Make a wooden statue of
the root of the wild rue, well-polished, and anoint it with the bodies
of little common lizards crushed into a paste with myrrh, storax, and
incense. Leave it in the open air during the waxing of the moon, and
then (presumably at full moon) speak as follows:-- "Come, infernal,
terrestrial and celestial Bombo, goddess of the highways and the
cross-ways, enemy of the light who walkest abroad at night, friend and
companion of the night, thou who delightest in the barking of dogs
and in the shedding of blood, who wanderest amongst the shades and
about the tombs, thou who desirest blood and who bringest terror unto
mortals--Gorgo, Mormo, moon of a thousand forms, cast a propitious eye
upon our sacrifices." Then take as many lizards as Hecate has forms and
fail not to make a grove of laurel boughs, the laurels having grown
wild. Then, having addressed fervent prayers to the image, you will see
her.
Hecate, who became the mother of Scylla, and, according to some
accounts also of Medea and of Circe, was arch-mistress of the knowledge
of herbs and simples, more especially of poisons. She is almost more
typical of the later developments of the witch than of those of her own
times. Hag-like and horrible, she worked only for evil, inspiring her
votaries with that terror which she herself personified. Goddess though
she be, she provides a poignant illustration of one characteristic
of the Greek Pantheon which it shares with no other. Its gods and
goddesses are always a little more human than their votaries, more
prone to human weaknesses if not to human virtues. Thus Hecate shows
herself more horrible and terror-breeding than any of those who did
their best to model themselves upon her. Just as Mars represented
the soldier, carried to his logical conclusion, so Hecate represents
the witch conception carried to its furthest limits--the concentrated
essence of witchcraft.
To the class of semi-divine witches belong those of Thessaly, as well
as Medea and Circe, the putative daughters of Hecate, from whom they
learned their magic arts. Circe was assisted by four attendant witches,
who gathered for her the herbs wherewith she might brew such potions
as turned the companions of Ulysses into swine. The influence of Medea
was, on the whole, more benign. She cured Hercules of madness, and
taught the Marubians the decidedly useful accomplishment of fascinating
and subduing venomous serpents. Not that her knowledge of ointments,
poisonous and otherwise, was in any way inferior to that of her sister.
Euripides represents her as invoked in terms almost identical with
those already quoted in connection with Hecate. The love-sick maiden,
Simaetha, in the second Idyll of Theocritus, appeals to Hecate to "make
this medicine of mine no less potent than the spells of Circe, or of
Medea, or of Perimede of the golden hair."
Equally skilled in poison were the witches of Thessaly, who could,
moreover, draw down the moon out of the sky by their magic songs and
philtres. If less awful than Hecate, their proceedings inspired equally
little confidence. They were addicted, for example, to such practices
as tearing off with their teeth flesh from the faces of the dead,
for the concoction of their spells. To prevent this early variant of
body snatching, dead bodies had to be watched by night. To circumvent
the watchers, the witches, as we learn from Apuleius, took the form
of dogs, mice, or flies, so that the guardians of the dead must look
neither to the right nor to the left, nor even wink while on duty.
Nor were such grisly exploits confined to Thessaly, for in Syria, as
Marcassus tells us, troops of witches haunted the battle-field during
the night, devouring the bodies of the slain. During the day they took
the shape of wolves or hyenas, thus providing a link with the more
common phases of lycanthropy. These same witches were definitely human
beings, as distinct from spirits, and it was comparatively easy for
anyone who so wished, and could obtain the necessary recipe, to follow
their example. Such magic salves were usually composed of narcotics,
among them being aconite, belladonna, opium, and hyoscyamus, boiled
down with the fat of a little child, murdered for the purpose, and
with the blood of a bat added. They needed careful and expert usage,
however, lest such a mischance might befall as occurred to "the Golden
Ass," who, seeking to become an owl, found himself to be no more than a
donkey.
While the Thessalian witches paid more attention to the toxicological
aspect of Hecate's teaching, the pythons exploited one no less
important--the prediction of events to come. Every prudent Greek
consulted the oracle at Delphi, before undertaking anything of
importance--the oracle displaying equal prudence in the non-committal
vagueness of her replies. Theseus, who, on the death of his father,
wished to introduce a new form of Government in Athens, sought advice
thereon, and received as his answer:--
Son of the Pitthean maid,
To your town the terms and fates
My father gives of many states.
Be not anxious or afraid,
The bladder will not fail to swim
On the waves that compass him.
To Philip of Macedon, again, the utterance of the Pythian priestess
ran:--
The Battle on Thermodon that shall be
Safe at a distance I desire to see.
Far like an eagle watching in the air,
Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there.
That even oracles were--and perhaps are--open to human influence may be
deduced from Demosthenes' irreverent suggestion that the prophetess had
been tampered with in Philip's favour.
The manner of delivering an oracle doubtless gave a ritualistic
example to the witches of later ages, and, as such, may be quoted.
After the offering of certain sacrifices, the priestess took her
seat on a tripod placed over a fissure in the ground at the centre
of the temple. From this came forth an intoxicating gas which, when
she breathed it, caused her to utter wild, whirling words. These were
interpreted by the attendant priest and by him handed to the applicant,
having been first written down in hexameters by an official poet.
Divination in Greece thus owed as much to the witch as to the goddess,
and it should be noted that, in the case of the Delphic oracle at any
rate, the priest acted as go-between, the Pythia being only an item of
the oracular machinery.
The Persian wars brought new influences to bear upon Greek religion in
general and witchcraft in particular. With Darius and Xerxes came the
magic practised by the followers of Zoroaster. Pliny has it that Xerxes
was accompanied by Osthanes, a writer on magic, and this statement,
whether or no correct in itself, expresses a general truth. Later,
after the Greek irruptions into Persia and Assyria, the Chaldeans
effected a peaceful occupation of Greece to such effect that "Chaldean"
came to be synonymous with doctor, magician, or sorcerer. Like those
of their descendants whose advertisements make the fortunes of our
newspaper proprietors to-day, they cured sufferers from incurable
diseases, provided, for a small fee, infallible recipes for making
money quickly, and acted as mediators between heaven and such offenders
as could not approach it through the regular channels with any hope of
success. Naturally, also, they did not neglect such a popular "line"
as prophecy, sometimes for distinguished clients, as, for example, the
father of Euripides, who is said to have consulted a Chaldean as to
his son's destiny. In a word, they took the place of quack-doctors,
palmists, "get-rich-quickly" colleges, and the various other
practitioners in allied branches of swindling, whose operations to-day
are generally hailed as remarkable instances of American "cuteness" and
originality.
That the Greek witch of the older school should be powerfully
influenced by such innovators was natural enough, the more so that in
Chaldea women took a foremost part in practising the more evil kinds
of magic. Accordingly, we may accept the date of the Persian Wars as
that in which commenced a change in the whole character of Grecian
witchcraft. The witch became less terrible in that she was less
spiritual, but more pernicious in that she dabbled more with material
evil. Hecate was a sufficiently awesome figure, but her terrors were
more or less impartial in their scope, and might affect one man as well
as another, did he happen to come into contact with them. The witch
of later times concentrated her malignancy upon a particular object,
and thus became the apt instrument of private vengeance and a force
definitely detrimental to social weal.
Yet another powerful influence upon Greek magic was exerted by Egypt.
Witchcraft and astrology after the Egyptian method were held in as high
respect as were those of the Chaldean convention, and Nectanebus, the
last native King of Egypt (about 350 B.C.), was acknowledged in Hellas
as the most redoubtable of the magicians. He was an adept in the use
of waxen images, and among those to whom he sent dreams was Philip of
Macedon.
Thus with the gradual rise of astrology in Greece and the decay of
the old religion a state of things arose very similar to what is
even now taking place--the nations of the East coming under the
influence of Grecian culture, and in return providing her with new
cults and crazes, one more fantastic than the other, but all seized
upon with equal avidity by the hungry Hellenic intellect, craving
always for some new thing. From comparatively simple beginnings Greek
witchcraft added always to its complexity until it included everything
popularly associated with the name, including a full understanding
of hallucinations, dreams, demoniacal possession, exorcism, and
divination, the use of wax images and useful poisons, mostly from
Eastern sources, and with them a very nice understanding of philtres.
A good example of a love charm is to be found in Theocritus, writing
in the first decades of the third century B.C. Among the charms of
which the heroine of his idyll avails herself to bring about the
return of her faithless lover are laurel-leaves, bright red wool, and
witch-knots--this last a distinctively Babylonian practice. The charm
has a recurrent refrain of "My magic wheel, bring back to me the man
I love." Barley grains must then be scattered in the fire while the
following spell is intoned:--
'Tis the bones of Delphis (or another) I am scattering.
Delphis troubled me, and I against Delphis am burning this laurel.
Even as it crackles loudly, when it has caught the flame, and suddenly
is burned up, and we see not even the dust thereof, lo! even thus may
the flesh of Delphis waste in the burning.
Even as I melt this wax, with the god to aid, so speedily may he by
love be molten.
Three times do I pour libations, and thrice my Lady Moon, I speak this
spell. Be it with a friend he lingers, be it with a leman that he
lies, may he as clean forget them as Theseus of old did utterly forget
the fair-tressed Ariadne.
Coltsfoot is an Arcadian weed that maddens on the hills the young
stallions and fleet-footed mares: Ah, even as these may I see Delphis.
This fringe from his cloak Delphis has lost, that now I shred and cast
into the flame....
Lo, I will crush an eft, and a venomous draught to-morrow I will bring
thee.
But now, Thestylis, take these magic herbs and secretly smear the
juice on the jambs of his gate-and spit and whisper, 'Tis the bones of
Delphis that I smear.
When first I saw Delphis I fell sick of love, and consulted every
wizard and every crone, &c., &c.
Here, then, we have a detailed account of practices identical
with those such as subsequently became the object of fierce
persecutions--the use of effigies, of magic herbs, the burning of some
substance while calling the name of the person to be influenced, the
using of a fragment of his personal belongings to his detriment, the
consulting with "crones" for the satisfaction of love-cravings. It was,
however, too closely related to religion for there to be any continuous
expression of unfavourable public opinion. At the same time, laws
existed against it, subsequently to find an echo in Roman legislation.
Theoris, "the Lemnian woman," as Demosthenes calls her, was publicly
tried in Athens and burned as a witch. Demoniacal possession and
exorcism were believed in at least as early as 330 B.C., in which year
Demosthenes refers to them in an oration. His feeling towards the
practice of exorcism may be deduced from his reproaching Æschinus as
being the son of a woman who gained her living as an exorcist. Plato,
in the Laws, decrees:--"If any by bindings-down or allurements or
incantations or any such-like poisonings whatever appear to be like one
doing an injury, if he be a diviner or interpreter of miracles, let him
be put to death."
But despite such minor inconveniences, the Greek witch had little to
fear in the way of persecutions, so that her mediæval successors might
well have looked back to the days of ancient Hellas as their Golden
Age, alike spiritually and materially.
If the Greeks, who recognised no predecessors in the possession of
their country, yet imported so much of their witchcraft from abroad,
it is little to be wondered at that the Romans, by their own account
foreign settlers in Italy, should have done so. Unlike those of Greece,
Roman legends provide a definite beginning for Rome itself. The city
was founded by a foreigner. What more likely than that he should bring
with him the customs, cults, and superstitions of his own country.
Granting that the pious Æneas ever existed, we may also suppose that
he was responsible for the Roman tendency in things magical. Of
Greek magic he would have learned enough--and to spare--in the long
ten years' warring on the plains of Ilium. From Dido also he might
well have learned something. Virgil himself was by popular report
familiar with all the laws of witchcraft, and Virgil tells us of
Dido's acquaintance, if not with witchcraft, at least with a witch of
unquestioned eminence. Half-priestess, half-enchantress, she could
cause rivers to run backwards, to say nothing of knowing the most
secret thoughts of men. Certainly if Æneas wished to introduce a
reliable system of witchcraft into his adopted country, he could have
gone to no better instructress.
As in Greece, so in Rome, the personal character of the witch was
identical in some respects with that of the goddess, so as to be
frequently indistinguishable. Egeria, the friend and counsellor of
Numa, was the first witch altogether worthy of the name. The Vestal
Virgins were also possessed of certain magical powers. An old French
authority disposes of them summarily as thorough-going servants of
Satan, his zeal outrunning his sense of chronological fitness. He adds
that when Tuscia was accused of having broken her vow of chastity,
Satan assisted her to prove her innocence by carrying water in a
sieve--an expedient which would have certainly caused her to be burnt
two thousand years later.
Like the pythoness of Greece, the Roman sibyl was priestess as well as
witch. The existence of the famous Sibylline books presupposes culture
above the ordinary; she was also a student of medicine, and, in later
times, more particularly of poisons. This latter art became in time a
fashionable craze, as we may gather from the many laws enacted against
poisoners, and Livy, in common with many other male writers, believes
that poisoning and superstition alike originated with women. He also,
descending to particulars, relates how Publicia and Licinia divorced
their husbands expeditiously by poison, two instances out of many
quoted by Latin writers.
In the comprehensive provisions of the Laws of the Twelve Tables
drawn up by the Duumvirs in the fifth century B.C., witchcraft is not
overlooked.
He shall be punished who enchants the corn;
Do not charm the corn of others;
Do not enchant,
are among some of its injunctions.
Roman morality being enforced upon social rather than religious
grounds, witchcraft was forbidden only in so far as it was considered
a pernicious influence within the State. Even in later times, when
various kinds of magic were prohibited, magical rites for curing
diseases and protecting the harvest from hail, snow, or tempest were
not only allowed, but even encouraged. The Lex Cornelia de Sicariis
et Veneficis provided against offering sacrifice in order to injure a
neighbour. The maleficent sorcerer could be burned alive, and those
who consulted him or her were liable to crucifixion. The possession
of magical books was made criminal, and the administration of
love-philtres was punishable by labour in the mines, or, in the case
of persons of rank, by a fine. This contrasts with the earlier laws,
which were interpreted in a far more liberal spirit and only enforced
in extreme cases.
Already in the early days of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, Greek
influence on Roman witchcraft was noticeable--it increased in
proportion as Greek thought extended its sway over the Roman mind. By
way of Greece also, as well as through independent channels, Oriental
magic found its way to Rome, where the wisdom of the Egyptians was held
in as high regard as in Greece itself. By the time of Marius, when
the Romans had come into direct relations with the East, Chaldeans,
sacrificers and interpreters of the Sibylline books positively swarmed
in the city, while the use of love-philtres and waxen images was become
among the commonplaces of every-day life.
How early Diana, whose close connection with the moon places her on a
par with Hecate, came to be regarded as queen of the witches may be
doubted; later Italian legends and customs are unanimous in according
her that questionable honour. That must at least be a late conception
which regards her as a constant visitor to the Witches' Sabbath, along
with her daughter Herodias! Many such legends are still current in
Tuscany, where, in common with other parts of Italy and Europe, Diana
was worshipped long after Christianity was nominally supreme. The
Italian "strege" are the direct descendants of the Latin "striges,"
who took their name from a bird of ill-omen that flies by night, the
screech-owl, and witchcraft is still known to its votaries as "la
vecchia religione," while actual belief in the old gods still survives
in one form or other in many parts of the Peninsula.
It may here be noted that Herodias' father is sometimes said to have
been no other than Lucifer. She also appears under the name of Aradia.
Diana sends her to sojourn for a time on earth:--
Thou must go to earth below
To be a teacher unto women and men
Who would fain study witchcraft.
And thou shalt be the first of witches,
And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning,
And thou shalt teach how to ruin the crops of a rich peasant.
How to be revenged upon a priest.
Double the harm and do it in the name of Diana,
Queen of Witches all.
And Aradia taught mortals:--
To bless or curse with power friends or foes,
To converse with spirits,
To find hidden treasure in ancient ruins,
To conjure the spirits of priests who died leaving treasure,
To understand the voice of the wind,
To change water into wine,
To divine with cards,
To show the secrets of the hand,
To cure diseases,
To make the ugly beautiful,
To tame wild beasts.
Little cakes of meal, salt, honey and water are still made in the shape
of Diana's horned moon, and are baked after an incantation to the
goddess.
There are, of course, earlier indications than these of Diana's
patronage of witchcraft. Thus Horace, in his Ode to Canidia, written in
the first century B.C., puts these words into the mouth of Canidia, the
witch:--
Oh, night and Dian who with true
And friendly eyes my purpose view,
And guardian silence keep whilst I
My secret orgies safely ply,
Assist me now, now on my foes
With all your wrath celestial close.
In the same ode Horace details many witch-customs, which serve to
mirror the witch superstitions of the time:--
Canidia with dishevelled hair,
And short crisp vipers coiling there
Beside a fire of Colchos stands
And her attendant hags commands.
For her fire she makes use of fig-trees torn from dead men's
sepulchres, cypress, eggs rubbed over with the envenomed gore of
"filthy toads," screech-owl's plumes, evil herbs, and fleshless bones
snatched by a witch from the jaws of starving dogs. The smell from such
cookery must have been deadly enough in itself to kill any number of
victims, even though it does not altogether explain why she bites her
long, sharp, unpared thumb-nail while brewing her deadly potion.
However universal in its appeal, love was by no means the only disease
for which witchcraft provided its remedy. According to Cato, for
example, dislocation of a joint could be cured by the utterance of the
following charm:--
Motas, danata, daries, dardaries, astataries.
To which Pliny adds that it must be used in conjunction with split
reeds, a prudent suggestion enough. From him also we may learn
particulars of other charms in common use. Love-philtres were composed
of wild parsnip or mandrake, while the external application of asses'
fat mixed with gander grease was a means of making certainty more sure.
Amateur gardeners with a taste for early rising may be interested to
know of a cure for the caterpillar pest:--A woman (presumably the
gardener's wife) is to walk at a particular season round the tree
affected before sunrise, ungirt and barefoot. And so on, a remedy being
provided for all the ills that flesh is heir to.
The Emperors held widely divergent views on the matter of witchcraft.
Augustus, realising its hold upon the popular imagination, collected
the verses of the sibyls from Samos, Troy, Africa, and elsewhere, and
ordered them to be submitted to the prefects of the city, there to be
judged and reported on by fifteen very learned men. During the latter
days of Pagan Rome there was a marked revival of witchcraft, Marcus
Aurelius and Julian setting the example by their patronage. The earlier
Christian Emperors revived the old laws against it, but diverted
them to attack the old religion. The secret magic condemned by the
Duumvirs was by them extended to cover the whole system of paganism.
Almost immediately after his conversion Constantine decreed that any
haruspex (diviner) entering a citizen's house with the intention of
celebrating his rites should be burned alive, while the property of his
employer should be confiscated and his accuser rewarded. The Emperor
showed that he was in earnest by ordering the execution of one of his
favourites for having caused bad weather and prevented his corn-traffic
with Constantinople. It was, nevertheless, declared some two years
later that the Emperor had no desire to prohibit such magical rites as
cured disease or prevented bad weather. In the reign of his successor,
Constantius, any person accused of witchcraft was liable to be put to
torture. Proven sorcerers were ordered to be thrown to wild beasts or
crucified, while, if they persisted in denying their offence, their
flesh was to be torn from their bones with iron hooks. This edict
also differentiated between Black and White Magic; magic charms being
permitted as remedies for drought, disease, storms, and the like.
Julian the Apostate, perhaps not unnaturally, regarded sorcery with a
more favourable eye, but later emperors showed themselves always more
inimical. Valentian added impious prayers and midnight sacrifices to
the list of things forbidden; under Theodosius every detail of pagan
worship was included under the heading of magic, and as such rigorously
forbidden. In the reign of Honorius, the Sibylline verses collected by
Augustus were suppressed. The Codex Justinianus devotes a whole title
to witchcraft.
The history of the Roman witch is thus prophetic of that of her
Christian successor. So long as she was subject to the civil power
alone she suffered little interference from the State, but as soon as
she aroused the jealous attention of the more orthodox interpreters of
the supernatural, her doom was sealed. We are apt to boast great things
of the increase of knowledge in our time, and to instance the decay of
superstition in evidence, but, were a sudden religious revival to take
place at all comparable to the birth-throes of early Christianity or
the Reformation, it is doubtful whether we should not find a belief
in the wicked prowess of the witch revive along with it, and possibly
our spiritual pastors and masters among the first to attack it with
temporal weapons. It is difficult to see how they could logically
refrain.