Embracing the Occult: Magic, Witchcraft, and Witches in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

by Konstantinos Stamatopoulos
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2015-11-05
Date of issue:2018-11-30
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath
Referee:Prof. Stephen Harrison
Referee:Prof. Dr. Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-7169

 

 

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Abstract

English

This dissertation discusses magic and the persons who practise witchcraft from an intertextual perspective and concentrates primarily on literary depictions of witches and magic. The two underlying questions which constantly run through the dissertation are to what extent is Apuleius indebted to a prior literary tradition in his depiction of witches and their witchcraft in the Metamorphoses, and how much of the magic and witchcraft in the novel can be best understood as ‘fictional’ magic (magic that functions on a literary level) and how much as ‘real’ (i.e. magic that was practised in antiquity and can be attested from the archaeological record and/or our knowledge of the rituals prescribed from the magical papyri). In doing so, the thesis does not aspire to present an extensive and exhaustive diachronic history of ancient magic and its implications for the societies under discussion as a cross-cultural or socio-political phenomenon; nor does it address the reasons why people believed in the efficiency of witchcraft and magic rituals since these questions obviously encroach on the field of psychology, nor the nowadays outdated and problematic question of magic’s relationship to religion and science. The main interest lies in the reasons why Apuleius depicted magic, witchcraft, and witches in the Metamorphoses the way he did, and whether this depiction of magic had any sufficient reality to it. The thesis shall demonstrate that much insight can be gained by adopting an intertextual approach and by comparing, on the one hand, the expression of magic and witchcraft and, on the other, the portrayal of witches to the Greco-Roman milieu in which they flourished. It shall be argued that Apuleius’ portrayal of women practising malevolent witchcraft and of magic itself betrays close affinities to the pattern of depicting women engaging in predatory magic in Imperial literature, and that magic and witchcraft in the Metamorphoses function both on a literary/fictive and a ‘real’ level.
Keywords: magic; witchcraft; Apuleius; Metamorphoses; Apologia; latin literature; theories on magic; roman novels; greek novels; Greek magical papyri; necromancy
 
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