The Greek words for magic and magician, a?e?a and ????, are admittedly of Persian origin, and in all probability did not find their way into Greece before the Persian War, that is, before about 480 b.c. It was therefore an obvious inference, which was drawn in 1863 by O. Hirschfeld (de incantationibus et devinctionibus amatoriis apud Graecos Romanosque), that as the name magic was not known in Greece before the Persian Wars, neither was the thing. The inference is indeed obvious, but it is not necessarily correct: magic is practised by tribes who have not developed any general term for magic. It is therefore conceivable, at least, that the Greeks and Italians also before 480 b.c. practised magical rites, even though they then had no word for magic in general. The question is one of facts and not merely of words. What do we know of the facts before 480 b.c.? Unfortunately, according to M. Mauss, in his article on magic in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des AntiquitÉs Grecques et Romaines, ‘we are in almost complete ignorance of the primitive and original forms of magic in Italy and Greece.’ In view, then, of our almost complete ignorance, it may perhaps be allowable to start from a hypothesis—the hypothesis that the primitive and original forms of magic amongst the Greeks and Romans were much the same as they are amongst the undeveloped peoples who possess them at the present day, and, like the Greeks and Romans of the earliest times, have no general term for magic.

Amongst the tribes of Central Australia, the person who employs magic to cause sickness or death to his enemy does not omit to use what the natives call ‘singing’. This ‘singing’ is conducted ‘in a low voice’ (Frazer, Golden Bough², i. 13); and the sort of thing the magician ‘in muttered tones hisses out’ is ‘May your heart be rent asunder’, or, ‘May your head and throat be split open’ (Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, 534 ff.; Northern Tribes, 456 ff.).

In the Torres Straits the sorcerer points a spear in the direction of his victim and ‘sings’ similarly, ‘Into body, go, go. Into hands, go, go. Into head, go, go’ (Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, vi. 228, 229). The ‘singing’ assists, Mr. Haddon says (ib., p. 231), ‘in furthering the injury he wishes to inflict.’ Now, was ‘singing’, of this magical nature, a sort of rhythmical muttering in a low voice, known to the Greeks and Romans? In the first place, we have the Latin words incantare, incantator, incantamentum, all implying a singing which is magical in its intention and effects—incantation or enchantment. Next, we have carmen, which means not only song in general but ‘singing’ in the magical sense, in Tibullus (i. 8. 17), Ovid (Met. vii. 167, 203, 253; xiv. 57, 20, 34, 44, 366, 387; Fasti iv. 551, 552), Horace (Ep. v. 72; xvii. 4, 5, 28; Sat. i. 8. 19, 20), Virgil (Ecl. viii. 69; Aen. iv. 487), Juvenal (Sat. vi. 133), Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxviii. 10, 18), Tacitus (Annals, iv. 22), and in other passages for which I may refer to Adam Abt (Die Apologie des Apuleius, 22) and L. Fahz (De Poetarum Romanorum DoctrinaMagica, 138, 139). In Greek we have the same magical singing expressed by the words ?p?de??, ?p?d??, ?p?d??; in Euripides (Bacchae 234, Hippolytus 478, 1038, Phoenissae 1260), Sosiphanes (Fr. 1), Aristophanes (Amphiaraus, Fr. 29), Anaxandrides (Fr. 33. 31), Antiphanes (Fr. 17. 15), Xenophon (Mem. iii. 11. 16, 17), Lucian and Heliodorus, and other passages to be found in Abt (ib., p. 43).

It may, however, be objected that all these quotations are of course later than 480 b.c.; and therefore prove nothing as to ‘the primitive and original forms of magic in Italy and Greece’. Indeed, in the Bacchae, for instance, and in Plato, Rep. ii. 364 a, the magic referred to may reasonably be regarded as exotic and not native to Greece. But fortunately we find the word ?pa??d?, in the magical sense, in Homer (Od. xix. 457), which takes this group of words in this sense far back beyond 480 b.c. The Homeric use of the word in this sense, however, will not avail against any one who chooses to maintain—though it is impossible to prove, and difficult to believe—that the Greeks originally knew no magic, and borrowed it in Homeric or pre-Homeric times from some neighbouring people. And though the fact that the Twelve Tables ordained punishment for the man ‘qui malum carmen incantassit’ in all reasonable probability indicates that ‘singing’ in the evil sense was a practice already at the time rooted in Italy and not newly imported from abroad; still in this case, as in the case of the Homeric ?pa??d?, the objection may be made—though it cannot be supported by anything approaching proof or even probability—that the Italians, as well as the Romans, alone amongst early peoples were incapable of developing the belief for themselves. As against this objection we can only fall back on the evidence of comparative philology. And that evidence is particularly interesting, because, as interpreted by O. Schrader (Reallexikon der Indogermanischen Altertumskunde, ii. 974), it shows that amongst the Indo-European peoples much the most common expression for doing magic is ‘singing’. The presumption that ‘singing’ of the magical kind goes back to Indo-European times is as strong as any that linguistic evidence can produce. For the Slavonian, Lithuanian, and Teutonic words I will refer to Schrader’s Reallexikon, ii. 975. Of the Greek and Latin words I may mention as?a??? and as?a??a, which are connected with ???, ‘speak’; ???? and ???te?? with ????, ‘howling’; fascinum and fascinare with fari.

If, then, we may with some plausibility illustrate the carmen, the incantatio, and the ?pa??d? of the Greeks and the Romans, with the ‘singing’ of the Torres Straits and Central Australia, the question arises, What exactly is it that the magician ‘sings’? In the Torres Straits it apparently is the spear which is ‘sung’, for the words used are, ‘Into body, go, go’; and Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say that in Central Australia also it is the stick or the bone which is ‘sung’. But when we examine the words of the ‘singing’ or charm, as given by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, we find that they do not refer to the stick or the bone which is used in the magical rite, but to the person against whom the rite is directed: ‘May your heart be rent asunder, may your head and throat be split open.’ The inference, therefore, seems to be that it is the victim that the ‘singing’ or spell is originally directed against; and only later that the stick or bone itself comes to be bewitched, just as money, which is valuable for what it will purchase, comes to be regarded by the miser as an end in itself.

If this is so, it opens up another possibility of interest which I must be content merely to suggest for consideration and investigation. It is that the earliest form of ‘singing’ or spell may be connected with cursing. Some forms of cursing or imprecation invoke the assistance of the gods, but not all; and it may be that those are the earliest which operate directly and without reference to gods. Caliban invokes no gods when he cries:

or

And, generally speaking, we may say that what makes cursing terrible and appalling to the ears on which it falls is not any reference to the gods that it may contain—for such references maybe absent—but the fear or horror the man inspires. If he inspires none, his curses go unregarded. If they do terrify, it is because they are felt to have some power. Precisely the same difference, and for precisely the same reason, obtains in the case of witchcraft and magic. Some who practise it are feared, others are not; and the reason is that some are believed to have the power to do the mischief, and others not. But if witchcraft and cursing are both terrible because of the fear they inspire and the power they imply, and if so far they resemble each other, or even possibly have a common psychological origin, they soon begin to follow different lines of evolution. The essence of cursing is that it is open and loud; and, except when taken up into religion, is not ceremonialized or formalized; whereas the essence of magic is that it is secret in what it does, and its ‘singing’ is a repeated or rhythmical muttering in a low voice. The mere words, ‘May your heart be rent asunder,’ may be a curse or a spell; and, in either case, if they are feared, power is attributed to the person who utters them. Psychologically, it is probable that belief in the power is due to the fear that is felt. But when the belief has been established that a certain person possesses the power, then the belief in the power in its turn engenders fear.

The belief is that the magician or witch has the power to do things. In Macbeth the first witch says:

In the Romance languages there is a series of words for magic and witchcraft, going back to the Latin facio, all expressing this idea of ‘I’ll do, and I’ll do’, and implying that the witch has the power to do—the Middle Latin factura, Italian fattura, Old French faiture, &c. And in the Indo-European languages there are several sets of words for magic and witchcraft, all expressing this same idea, and indicating that it goes back to the earliest Indo-European times. One set running through Sanskrit, Lithuanian, and Old Slavonic implies, as the Sanskrit k?ty shows, that magic is ‘action’ or ‘doing’. The Old Norse gÖrningar, ‘sorceries or witchcraft,’ literally means ‘doing’; and in Old Slavonic the word for magic (po-tvorÜ) is derived from a verb meaning ‘to do’. As illustrating the belief that the witch has power, I may refer to Canidia’s words in the Epodes (xvii. 77):

or to Medea’s in Ovid (Met. vii. 206):

and (Rem. Am. 253):

Still more clearly does Plato in the Laws (933 a) testify to the belief in the power of the witch or magician: those who dare to do injury by ?p?da??, or ‘singing’, are encouraged to do so by the belief that they have the power to do so—?? d??a?ta? t? t????t??—and their victims are thoroughly convinced that they are injured because those who practise on them have the power to bewitch them, ?? pa?t?? ????? ?p? t??t?? d??a???? ???te?e?? ??pt??ta?.

To sum up then, thus far, a magician is a person feared, and having power, which power he exercises in secret, muttering in a low voice, ‘May your heart be rent asunder,’ or ‘your head be split open’, and so on. And this muttering is the carmen, the incantatio, the ?pa??d?, the as?a??a and the ???te?a of the Greeks and Romans; the ‘singing’ of the Australian black fellows. That this magical ‘singing’ continued, down to late classical and post-classical times, to be a whispering or a murmuring in a low voice, is easily shown. A lex Cornelia condemned those ‘qui susurris magicis homines occiderunt’ (Just. Inst. iv. 18. 5). In Ovid we have ‘carmen magico demurmurat ore’ (Met. xiv. 57), and ‘placavit precibusque et murmure longo’ (ib. vii. 251); in Tibullus (i. 2. 47) ‘iam tenet infernas magico stridore catervas’ (where stridor = murmur, as in Sil. Ital. viii. 562); in Apuleius (Metamorph. i. 3), ‘magico susurramine amnes ... reverti,’ and (de Magia, c. 47) ‘et carminibus murmurata’; and in Aristaenetus (Ep. ii. 18), ?p?f?e???e??? ?p????se?? ?a? ????????? ?pat???? ???te??t?? ?????? f????de??, and in the Greek magical papyri p?pp?s??, ste?a??? and s?????? have the same meaning and use (Wessely, Pap. CXXI, 833-5).

I have next to note that in Australia and the Torres Straits the magician not only mutters words but points in the direction of his victim with a stick, bone, or spear. This gesture seems to be as essential to the desired effect as the ‘singing’ itself. The fact seems to be that the pointing of the stick is a piece of gesture-language conveying the same idea as the words that are sung; in both the power of the magician goes forth and strikes the victim, rending his heart or splitting his head. The question then arises whether we have in Graeco-Italian magic anything that corresponds to this ‘pointing’, as it is termed in Australia, and to the stick thus pointed at the person to be bewitched or enchanted. I can only suggest that the ??d??, or virga, with which, in the Odyssey (x. 238, 319, &c.), Circe works witchcraft, or Hermes, both in the Iliad (xxiv. 343) and the Odyssey (v. 47), entrances men, or Athene transforms Ulysses (xvi. 172), may possibly be a literary version or survival of the primitive pointing-stick become a magic wand. A wand is a common part of a magician‘s outfit.

The blow or thrust which the magician executes with his pointing-stick or staff is supposed to inflict the injury on his victim; and nothing more may be required or done. But usually the magician is not content merely to point his stick in the direction of his victim. To make sure that the blow reaches the head or the heart, he makes a rough image of his victim out of clay or wax or wood, and stabs that in the appropriate place. In doing so, the savage confuses—and even civilized man does not yet always satisfactorily discriminate between—the categories of likeness and identity. The blow which the magician intends to inflict, and the thrust which he actually deals with his pointing-stick, are like and are meant to be identical, and are believed to be so, and, if he has power, they prove to be identical. The image, also, is, to the mind of the believer, not merely like, but in some manner identical with, the victim who suffers and is consumed, like as and to the same degree as the image, and at the very same moment. The Ojibway Indian believes ‘that wherever the needle pierces or the arrow strikes the image, his foe will the same instant be seized with a sharp pain in the corresponding part of his body’ (Frazer, G. B.² i. 10). I need not quote instances from Australia or Africa to corroborate this, but, as indicating that the practice goes back to Indo-European times, I may refer to the Rigveda (iii. 523) and the Atharva-Veda (i. 7. 2); and for a Latin parallel to the Indian image pierced by a needle I need only refer to Ovid (Heroides vi. 91, 92):

For the Greek use of waxen images I may refer to Plato, who in the Laws (933 b) speaks of the alarm felt by men ?? p?te ??a ?d??? p?? ?????a ??ata pep?as??a, and for other instances to O. Kehr, Quaest. Mag. Spec. 12 f. In Theocritus the wax which is spoken of, ?a???, is not indeed described as an image, but it doubtless was; and the mention of it may serve as an excuse for remarking that, though the details into which magic is worked out by different peoples vary considerably, and though the applications which different peoples make of it are far from uniform, still amongst all peoples there are two matters with which magic always, without exception, deals—Love and Death. Thus far it is with the latter that I have dealt. I now, for the moment, turn to the former, and I propose to indicate briefly that the magical methods of procuring Love are precisely the same as those for procuring Death. The power which is used for the one end is equally potent for the other.

For Death-magic, as we have seen, it is essential that the person working magic should believe that he has the power, and that others also should believe him to have it; and all that is necessary is that the magician should put forth the power that he possesses; and this he does by means of words and gesture-language. So too in Love-magic, in the Torres Straits, the essential thing is that the young man should anoint himself on the temples with a paste made from certain plants, and ‘think as intently as possible about the girl’ (Expedition to Torres Straits, vi. 221), saying to himself, ‘You come! you come! you come!’ for, Mr. Haddon tells us, ‘the power of words and the projection of the will were greatly believed in by the natives’ (220); and when a young man performed the foregoing operations, at a dance or any meeting at which women would be present, ‘the girl could not resist, but was bound to go with him’ (221). In Rome there was the same belief in the power of words: Virgil, in Eclogue viii, imitates Theocritus, but deviates in details, and one such deviation shows the Roman’s belief in the power of words, of the carmen. Whereas Theocritus says:

Virgil says:

So, too, the power of the spell is attested by Propertius (iv. 4. 51):

and Ovid (Her. vi. 83):

and Seneca (Herc. Oet. 464):

and Lucan (vi. 452):

and Tibullus (i. 8. 23):

In the next place, as Death-magic was considered to gain in efficiency if the magician did not merely ‘point’ with his stick in the direction of his foe, but made an image and wounded it; so Love-magic used a waxen image, and by melting it consumed with love the person imaged:

And in Horace the waxen image is thrown into the flames and consumed:

Where sickness, and deaths following on sickness, are ascribed to the action of some malevolent person possessing and exercising mysterious power, that is to say, are explained as being due to magic, the assumption evidently made is that death from sickness is an occurrence which would not take place in the ordinary course of nature, and which therefore must be due to some person who has the power and the art to disturb the ordinary course of nature. This conception of magic is of course not confined to the lower stages of culture; we find it in the definition of the magician given by Quintilian, ‘cuius ars est ire contra naturam’ (Declamationes x. sub fin.). The cure for sickness naturally presents itself as consisting in counteracting the power of the person who produced it. Some one must be procured who possesses power equally great, or greater; and he employs his power in the same way as the person who produced the sickness, but to the opposite end. The author of the sickness ‘sings’ his victim, that is, rhythmically mutters in a low voice, ‘May your heart be rent asunder,’ &c., and, as Mr. Haddon tells us of the Torres Straits natives, ‘thinks as intently as possible’ (221), or ‘projects his will’. Now, amongst the Indo-European peoples, the person who cured the sickness proceeded in exactly the same way; he too had a carmen, an ?p?d?, with which to ‘sing’ his patient. According to the Atharva-Veda (iv. 12) he sang:

And the well-known Merseburg charm employs much the same formulae: ‘Let bone to bone and blood to blood and limb to limb be joined.’ Probably Cato’s charm, or carmen auxiliare—good for luxatis membris—was of this kind (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxviii. 21). In the Avesta, healing by singing has a special word for its designation—m??rÒ-baÊŠaza. In the Odyssey (xix. 457) the ?pa??d? by which the flow of blood from Odysseus’s wound was stayed was a ‘singing’ of the same kind. Amongst the Romans, Pliny says (Hist. Nat. xxviii. 29) ‘carmina quaedam exstant contra grandines contraque morborum genera’. And the Greek word f??a??? bears double evidence to the same effect; its etymological connexion with Lithuanian words meaning ‘to sing’, in this sense, shows that it was originally an ?pa??d?, a charm or a counter-charm; and it is used throughout Greek literature to connote both bane and antidote:

The Latin mederi, medicus, medicina, like the corresponding term (vi-maday) in the Avesta, go back to a root meaning wisdom—the wisdom of the ‘wise’ woman. The name ‘Medea’ belongs to the same stock and means ‘wise’ woman; and the wisdom presumably consisted originally in the knowledge of the charms (or ‘carmina contra morborum genera’) and simples, just as the ?at??? or ??t?? may have got his name from ??? and the fact that he dealt in drugs which might, according as they were used, be either the bane or the antidote. That in Greece the ?at??? originally effected his cures by means of spells, soothing spells, is indicated by Pindar (Pyth. iii. 55), who is doubtless reproducing the popular belief when he says that Chiron loosed and rescued his patients from divers pangs,

In all ages ‘suggestion’ has operated for good in medical treatment; but it operates only so far as the patient believes that his healer has power and exercises that power to do him good. The medicine-man in early times exercises that power either by gestures which indicate that power is going from him, or by the words with which he banishes or overcomes the sickness. And in either case he effects his faith-healing in exactly the same way as the evil-minded possessor of magical power causes sickness and death by word and gesture, by ‘singing’ and ‘pointing’.

To the mind of the believer in magic the image of a man is not merely like him but is in a mysterious way identical with him, so that blows dealt on the image are felt by the man, and the man and his image are as closely related to one another as is the exterior of a curve to the interior; and so, to the mind of the believer in magic, the relation of a man’s name to the man himself is equally intimate and close. Hence, by way of precaution, the name of a man is often kept a profound secret. The same secrecy too may be observed about the name of a god, or of a city. It would not be surprising, therefore, if the name of a man were put by the magician to the same use as his image, for the name is, if anything, even more intimately identified with the man than any likeness of him can be; and, as a matter of fact, the secrecy, which is often observed about the name of a man or a god, is observed because control of the name is assumed and believed to involve control over the person. If, therefore, the image of a man can be used for malevolent purposes by a magician, so too may his name. The savage’s objection to being photographed, as is well known, is due to the feeling that with his likeness he himself passes into the power of the possessor. I need hardly point out that pictorial signs and writing and runes are regarded, at first, by those who do not understand them, as mysterious and magical, as s?ata ?????. The written name of a person is as intimately bound up with the person’s identity as his likeness or a waxen image of him. The name may therefore be used by the magician for the same purposes and in the same way as the image. If the magician can, as the aborigines of Victoria do, ‘draw on the ground a rude likeness of the victim’ (Frazer, G. B.² i. 12), if ‘in Eastern Java an enemy may be killed by means of a likeness of him drawn on a piece of paper which is then incensed or buried in the ground’ (ib., 11), it is obvious that his name, which is identical with him, may be treated in the same way and with the same result. It may be written down and stabbed or incensed or buried in the ground, and the desired result will be produced. Now, just as the Ojibway Indian pierces the image of his enemy with a needle, so the Greek or the Roman wrote down the name of his enemy, drove a nail into it, and then buried it in the ground. This proceeding was called ?at?des?? or defixio. ‘Nailed him’ was doubtless the comforting reflection which accompanied the final blow of the hammer. That it was the name which was nailed, just as the image was pierced by the needle, is not a matter of inference: one of the tablets of this kind, which have come down to us (C. I. A., Appendix continens defixionum tabellas 57), expressly says (line 20) ???a ?atad?. And, to leave no room for doubting that to nail the name of the enemy was to nail the enemy himself, just as piercing his image with a needle was to pierce the enemy himself, the inscription says ???a ?atad? ?a? a?t??, ‘I nail his name, that is himself.’ The identity of name and person is thus expressly proclaimed; and it is precisely parallel to the identity of the person and his image, or likeness, which we find to be assumed wherever magic is found to exist.

Perhaps I should remark in passing that other things besides a person’s name or image may be ‘nailed’ or ‘defixed’. His footprints may be, and are, thus treated both by savages and by European peasants. In the same way, we learn from Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxviii. 63), the epilepsy which had attacked a man might be ‘nailed down’ and the patient cured by driving an iron nail into the spot touched by the head of the patient when he fell (‘clavum ferreum defigere in quo locum primum caput fixerit corruens morbo comitiali absolutorium eius mali dicitur’). And there can be little doubt that this kind of ‘defixion’ goes back to very early Italian times, for, from of old when a pestilence raged, a consul might drive a nail into the wall of the Celia Iovis, and so the pestilence was stayed. Perhaps the clavus trabalis which was an attribute of dira Necessitas (Horace, Odes i. 35. 17, iii. 24. 5) belongs to the same range of ideas (cf. Kuhnert’s article on Defixio in Pauly’s Real-EncyclopÄdie).

Here too I should perhaps say that, as the defixionum tabellae have nails driven through them, there can be little doubt that the verb ?atad?? and the substantives ?at?des?? and ?at?des?? must be used in the sense of hammering a nail in, or fastening with a nail (as Pindar uses the simple verb d??, in d??se? ?????, Pyth. iv. 71), and are not used in this connexion to mean simply ‘tying up’. So too in D. T. A., 96, 97 ?d?sa t?? ???tta? is shown by the convertible expression ???t?s?? a?t?? t?? ???tta? to mean ‘pierce’ or ‘nail’, and not ‘tie up’.

As then the Ojibway Indian, or the Australian black fellow, or the native of the Torres Straits, does his magic without calling in any god to his assistance, so too the Greek could ‘nail’ his man without applying to the gods; and we have ample inscriptional evidence that he did so. Nearly one-third of the Attic tablets contain merely proper names with a nail driven into them; and about one-third more contain the statement ?atad? or ?atad?d??, without any reference to gods of any sort or kind. The Latin tablets of the same kind, which like the Attic tablets are of lead and have nails driven through them, also frequently contain merely proper names and nothing more. Of this kind evidently were those mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. ii. 69), ‘carmina et devotiones et nomen Germanici plumbeis tabulis insculptum.’ It is true that the tablets which have been discovered have mostly been found in tombs. But if we were to seek to found on this fact an argument that the tablets—where they mention no gods—were addressed to the dead, we should have first to show that such tablets were never deposited elsewhere than in tombs. As a matter of fact, a magical papyrus (CXXI, vs. 458) gives instructions as to where a tablet of this kind should be deposited, viz. ? p?ta?? ? ??? ? ???assa? ????? ? ????? ? e?? f??a?. We see therefore a plain reason why most of the tablets that have been preserved have been found in tombs: many, possibly most, were thrown into rivers, or the sea, or disused wells (e?? f??a? ?????t?st??, Pap. Anast. 351), as in Scotland the clay figure of your enemy is, or was, placed in a burn (Albany Review, iii. 17, p. 532), and therefore have not been preserved to us.

They have been rarely discovered by us, for the simple reason that the person who hid them away was particularly anxious that they should not be discovered. It was important that the person ‘defixed’ should not know by whom or in what way he had been ‘defixed’, for, if he knew, he might undo the spell and retaliate on its worker. The tablet was concealed—often enough in tombs, for graves are avoided—for the same reason that the authors of these tablets often take care not to put their own names to them, viz. in order that the spell might not be frustrated. But though we cannot attach any great importance to the fact that most of our tablets have been found in tombs, still it is true that many of the Attic tablets, and perhaps most of the Latin tablets, contain a direct and explicit appeal to the gods. Hence it is possible to maintain, and indeed it is usually maintained, as by Wuensch, in the Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum, that in all cases these tablets are addressed to the gods; and that, where no gods are mentioned, we must yet suppose that the gods, or some gods, were prayed to fulfil the evil wishes of the person who wrote the name of his victim and pierced it with the nail. The alternative which I venture to suggest is that originally the defixio or ?at?des?? was purely magical; that, later, an appeal to the gods was added to the original spell; and, last of all, the magical element was overpowered by the religious, or the religious by the magical. In order to decide between these two alternative explanations, what we have to do is to inquire who it is that is supposed by the writer of a tablet of this kind to nail or ‘defix’ or pierce the person who is to suffer. Is it the writer of the tablet, or is it a god? If it is the writer, the proceeding is magical in its nature; if a god, it is religious in its nature. From this point of view we may go so far as to concede that the absence of any mention of the gods on the tablet does not of itself suffice to prove that no thought of them was present in the mind of the writer of the tablet. The decisive question is, Who does the nailing or defixing? Has the writer the power to do it, or must he get a god to do it? The question is perfectly simple, and the answer is perfectly plain; in many or most of the Attic tablets it is the writer who has the power, and he exercises it. He says, t??t??? ?pa?ta? ?atad? (43), t??t??? ??? ?atad?d?? ?pa?ta? (55); and he exercises his power with no more reference to the gods, and no more thought of them, than the Australian magician when he ‘points’ his stick, or the German peasant girl when she ‘sticht um Mitternacht in eine unter BeschwÖrungen angezÜndete Kerze einige Nadeln und spricht: “ich stech das Licht, ich stech das Licht, ich stech das Herz, das ich liebe”’ (SchÖnwerth, Aus der Oberpfalz: Sitten und Sagen, i, p. 127).

On the other hand are the tablets in which the writer does not profess to ‘defix’ his adversary, and does not claim to be able to ‘defix’ him, but prays to a god to do it, and uses an imperative, ???t?s?? a?t?? t?? ???ssa? (97), ???? ?a? ?at?d?s?? (xxiii).

In such tablets the modus operandi is no longer magical, it is wholly religious; the power to punish lies wholly with the gods, and they are called upon to exercise it. And we are able to trace the process by which the one kind of tablet passed into the other, or by which the one kind came to supersede the other. The first step in the process is illustrated by tablets in which the writer begins by announcing in the traditional magical style, ‘I nail or bind my enemies,’ but goes on—in order to make assurance doubly sure—to add an appeal to a god or gods. Thus in 81 he says ?atad?? t??? ??? ??????? p??? t?? ????. One of these inscriptions (87) can be dated back to the fourth century b.c. When Hermes is thus adjured he is nearly always decorated with the epithet ??t????, as in 87 t??t??? p??ta? ?atad? p??? t?? ??t???? ????. The epithet is not an idle one, as is shown by the fact that the corresponding verb, ?at???, is used in these tablets in the imperative in the same sense as ?at?d?s??. Thus in 88 the prayer to Hermes runs, ??? ??t??e, ??te?e f???a? ???tta? t?? ?a?????. Hermes, however, is not the only deity to whom the epithet is applied, and this imperative addressed. In 101 GÊ is termed G? ??t????, and in 98 the prayer is f??? G?, ??te?e ????pt??e??. It so happens that in the tablets that have come down to us Hermes and GÊ are the only two deities of whom the epithet ??t???? and the verb ?at??? are used; and Boeckh was probably right in saying (C. I. G. 539) that the earth and Hermes were originally (and, we may add, without any reference to magic at all) called ??t????, because they kept down the dead and prevented them from returning. Then, when the magical practice of nailing down or binding your living foe developed, by an easy transition of ideas the deities, whose business it had originally been to hold down the dead alone, were invoked to hold down and restrain the living also: ‘vocis vis ad ?atad?s?? rationem translata videtur, ut iam ??t???? ?e?? essent ii, qui defixos a magis homines detinerent.’ Thus Earth and Hermes were called in to reinforce the magician’s ?at?des??. This is indeed expressly stated on a leaden tablet discovered in Alexandria (Wuensch, p. xv): p?t??a G? ?????? se ?at? s?? ???at?? p???sa? t?? p????? ta?t?? ?a? t???sa? ?? t?? ?at?des?? t??t?? ?a? p???sa? a?t?? ??e???. That the gods are called in to give effect to a magical rite which has been performed is shown by inscriptions 96 and 97, where the tablet begins by saying that the magical rite has been performed, ??? ??a?? ?a? ?d?sa t?? ???tta? ?a? t?? ????? ?t?., and then goes on to pray to the god, ???t?s?? a?t?? t?? ???tta? ?t?. Here the prayer to the gods is in effect a postscript to the magical rite. So, too, in Ovid (Fasti ii. 575) a ceremony of this kind, which is performed as part of the worship of the Dea Muta, ends up with the declaration that we—viz. the old woman who has performed the rite—we, ‘hostiles linguas inimicaque vinximus ora’; she has used an iron nail and driven it through the head of a maena. But the tendency which manifests itself in the evolution of the Attic tablets is for the postscript to grow in importance and size, until the magic dwindles and almost disappears. For instance, 98 does indeed begin by saying formally ????pt??e?? ?atad?, but the whole of the rest of the inscription is a genuine prayer, f??? G? ??te?e, f??? G? ???e? ??. While recognizing however, that this is the tendency in the genuine Attic tablets, it is desirable to notice that in the Roman empire generally the magical element swells until it entirely drives out the religious. All kinds of deity, from religions of every sort, are indeed invoked in these later inscriptions, both Greek and Latin. But they are invoked only to receive commands from the magician and to do his will: in the Hadrumetan tablet of the third century a.d. the deity adjured is just told to go off and fetch Urbanus, ?pe??e p??? t?? ???a??? ?a? ???? a?t?? (Wuensch, p. xvii), and the lady who thus addresses him has the power to order him about because she knows—and bids him hearken to—an ???at?? ??te??? ?a? f?e??? ?a? e?????. And he is to lose no time about it: the inscription ends, ?d? ?d? ta?? ta??.

Thus the history of these defixionum tabellae shows how a ceremony, in its origin purely magical, may in the course of its evolution run out in either of two directions: it may either end in what is in effect a prayer, or it may develop into that form of magic in which the magician undertakes boldly to constrain the gods. In the earliest, and purely magical, form of ‘defixion’, the witch or wizard drives a nail or a needle through the written name of the victim, just as he would through a waxen image of the victim. From Ovid (Amores iii. 7. 29) we learn that the witch wrote the victim’s name on wax and then pierced it: ‘sagave poenicea defixit nomina cera.’ In the Parisian Papyrus 316 it is t? ???a t?? ??????? which is thus treated; and in a Latin ‘defixion’ the expression is ‘neca illa nomina’ (Fahz, de poetarum Romanorum doctrina magica, p. 127, n. 4). Then, as the worker of magic drove nails through the head of the waxen image, and is instructed, in the Parisian Papyrus (Rhein. Mus. xlix. 45 ff.), to say, as he does so, pe???? s?? t?? ????fa???, so in the Attic tablets he says (54) t?? ???tta? ?atad? ?e??a a?t?? ?atad?, and drives a nail or nails through the leaden tablet bearing the words. Again, as in course of time the piercing or melting of the waxen image comes to be regarded not as effective in itself but as merely symbolical of the effect which is to be produced, and the words come to be ‘haec ut cera liquescit, sic nostro Daphnis amore’, so in the ‘defixionum tabellae’ (e. g. C. I. L. viii, suppl. n. 12511), after the gods have been adjured, and the order given ?at?d?s?? a?t?? t? s???? ?t?., then, to make it quite clear, it is explained that the legs and hands and head of the victim are to be ‘defixed’ or nailed down in the same way as the feet and hands and head of this fowl: ?? ??t?? ? ????t?? ?atad?deta? t??? p?s? ?a? ta?? ?e?s? ?a? t? ?efa??, ??t?? ?atad?sate t? s???? ?a? t?? ?e??a? ?a? t?? ?efa??? ?a? t?? ?a?d?a? ???t?????? t?? ???????. This tablet, which was found in Carthage, is late, and the adjuration is made in the name of the god of heaven that sits upon the Cherubim, t?? ?a?????? ?p? t?? ?e????. What is noticeable in this tablet and some others of similar date and style is that they contain no allegation that the person on whose behalf the magic is worked and constraint is put upon the gods has been wronged. On the other hand, in the earlier and Attic tablets, especially those which tend in effect to become prayers, the ground of appeal to the gods is some wrong that has been done. Thus 98 ends with the words, f??? G? ???e? ??’ ?d????e??? ??? ?p? ????pt????? ?a? ?e??f??t?? ?atad? a?t???. Or it may be some injury that is feared: e? t? ???e?e ?p?? F?????? ??a ??????? f????es?a?, then t?? ???ssa? ?a? t?? ????? a?t?? ???t?s?? (97). In Cyprus if what an adversary might say is feared, then the powers invoked are adjured to muzzle him: f??s??s?? t?? ??t?d???? ???, and the exorcism is termed a f??t???? ?ata??at??, or a pa?a????? f??t????. It is, of course, probable, we may even venture to say certain, that in these tablets the appeal to the justice of the gods is essentially religious in its character. And in that case the combination, in these tablets, of magic with religion shows that in the minds of some worshippers of the gods there was no irreconcilable opposition between magic and religion. On the contrary, the feeling evidently was that the gods might properly be invoked to favour and bless a magical rite, just as they might be prayed to assist any other steps of a more ordinary nature that might be taken. Magic is but one way or means of effecting your end; and it is a means which is just as efficacious for a good end as it is for an evil purpose. The magician is a person who has power, which he may use for evil, or may use for good. He may use his power to cause sickness or to bring misfortune. But he may use it to avert sickness and to muzzle the mouth of the evil-doer. He may use it to make rain, and, while doing so, may pray to the gods for the same purpose. Such a man may have, as he is certainly often believed to have, extraordinary personal power; and there is no obvious reason why he should not pray to the gods to exercise that power in accordance with their will. But he can only pray to the gods if there are gods to whom he can pray. On the other hand, even where there are such gods, he may prefer—and if his purpose be such as the gods condemn, he must prefer—to disregard the gods or, if needs be, to put constraint upon them. That is to say, the extraordinary personal power which he possesses, or is believed to possess, is not in itself either necessarily religious or necessarily irreligious. It may become, or come to be regarded as, either the one or the other. If it is regarded, or rather so far as it is regarded, as irreligious it is condemned: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ is exactly paralleled by the Athenian law quoted by Demosthenes, fa?a??a ?a? fa?a??da, ?a? a?t??? ?a? t? ????? ?pa? ?p??te??a? (c. Aristogit. i. 793). If we start from this point of view nothing seems more reasonable than to assert a fundamental opposition between magic and religion. On the other hand, if we consider the beneficent use which is made of magic and the fact that, as in the defixion tablets already quoted, magic and religion may and do work harmoniously together, the relation between them does not seem to be fundamentally one of opposition. The fact would seem to be that this extraordinary personal power, as it is in itself neither good nor bad, but becomes the one or the other according as it is used for good ends or for bad, so it is in itself neither magical nor religious but comes to be regarded as religious if used in the service of the gods, and as magic if used otherwise. But it is not until gods are believed in that this power can be used in their service or regarded as their gift: only when belief in the gods has arisen can the person possessing power be regarded as having derived his power from them, or believe himself so to have derived it. It may well be that his power confirms his belief and strengthens it; it may perhaps even be that his power is the first thing to awaken him to belief in gods and to the possibility of communing with them in his heart. But the belief that there are superior beings, with whom it is possible to commune in one’s heart, is not the same thing as the extraordinary personal power which some men exert over others. Such belief and such power may indeed go together, but they do not by any means always go together; and accordingly the power cannot be regarded as the cause of the belief.

Again, it is not until men come to believe that there are gods, who have the interests of their worshippers at heart, that the man who possesses this power and uses it for evil purposes can be condemned by the opinion of the community as one who works against the community, and therefore against the god who protects the community. In other words, we may say that this extraordinary personal power does not come to be regarded as magic—indeed, that magic does not come into existence—until religion has come into existence. When exercised by ‘a man of God’, it is religious; when exerted by any one else it is magical. The magician may use, and more often than not, does use his power in a way injurious to other members of the community, and therefore offensive to the god under whose protection they are. From this point of view, therefore, we may justifiably speak of a fundamental opposition between magic and religion. On the other hand, though the magician ordinarily uses his power to injure people, he is not restricted to this use of it. His power may be used to recall an errant lover, as it is by the lady in the Hadrumetan tablet already quoted, or for the recovery of lost or stolen property. One of the ‘defixion’ tablets is directed to the recovery of t? ??t??? t? pe????, t? ??ae? ? de??a ?a? ??? ?p?d?d?t? ?a? ???e?ta? ?a? ???ta? (I. G. S. I. 644), another seeks to recover t? ?p’ ??? ?ata??f?e?ta ??t?a ?a? ??d?a (Bechtel, 3537) or t?? spat???? ?? ?p??esa ?? t??? ??p??? t??e ??d???e?? (Bechtel, 3541). The magician, that is to say, may use his power for innocent and even laudable purposes. Hence it is that magic is not wholly condemned by any community in which it flourishes; and hence it is that we find magic reinforced by religion not only in the defixionum tabellae, as has already been pointed out, but in numerous rites of uncultured peoples, and from time to time, as survivals, in the religious ceremonies of civilized nations. If we dwell upon this set of facts exclusively, we shall be in danger of inferring, not a fundamental opposition but a fundamental identity between magic and religion. Yet, as we have seen, the opposition is quite as marked as the similarity; and this seems to indicate that the extraordinary personal power which some men possess, or are believed to possess, is fundamentally the same, whether it is, or whether it is not, exercised in the service of the gods of the community; but the spirit in which it is used, when employed in the one way, is fundamentally opposed to that in which it is used in the other. Such power may in the course of evolution come to be regarded, or come to manifest itself, either as religious or as magical. But in itself, and at the start, inasmuch as it may become either hereafter, it is at the beginning neither. It is the power—whether of ‘suggestion’ or of actual control—which some exceptional men exercise over others.