About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

If you're deeply interested in how magic was used in ancient Greece, you should read Derek Collins' Magic in the Ancient Greek World. If you want to know more about curse tablets/binding magic, anti-magical legislation in the Greco-Roman world, or a bit about the anthropology of magic, you should read the relevant chapters.



Pros

• Lots of interesting details
• Some brilliant, clear chapters

• Great insights and connections

Cons

• Inconsistently organized
• Hard to follow/distinguish similar examples
• Probably great for experts, but not for the non-specialist Collins addressed

Description

• Ch. 1 covers anthropological theories of magic in non-Greek culture and introduces terms used to discuss magic.
• Ch. 2 describes types of Greek and Persian magical practitioners, epilepsy, divination, and more.
• Ch. 3 looks at binding magic, including curse tablets and figurines that are bound and pierced.
• Ch. 4 describes the evolving use of passages from Homer as incantations centuries later.
• Ch. 5 describes Greek and Roman laws against magic.
• Ch. 6 is a conclusion and gives Collins' thoughts on the value of ancient Greek magic.

Guide Review - Magic in the Ancient Greek World

After a short, informative background on the anthropological study of magic, with an introduction to the themes of magic, participant communication, sympathetic magic, agency, and causality, Derek Collins starts his exploration of 5th-4th Century Greek magic.

Too much to cover leads to jumping around, but upon finishing the chapter, the reader will have learned much about ancient views of epilepsy, types of medical practitioners, the close connection between philosophers, doctors, and magicians, and a bit about binding magic. The next few chapters stay better focused, although it would have helped to be told explicitly whether examples were supposed to be parallel or contrastive and what idea they were supporting. An occasional summary or reminder of "the model of interpretation for these verses that I have outlined (p. 118)" would have helped. (On which page was that model, again? Which of the many Homeric(?) verses are we currently discussing? I know: It's my own fault for failing distinguish between incantations.) Labeled, concluding sections at chapter ends help; unfortunately, chapters 3 and 5 are missing them.

This complaint may be petty. After all there is a wealth of information and I picked up many of the fascinating little bits of trivia I love to collect. I'll never think of Pre-Socratic philosophers collectively as Data from STNG again. Collins shows a close connection between tortured figurines (think voodoo doll) and pierced lead curse tablets found at Aquae Sulis, and between them and ancient attitudes towards physical disabilities. Collins even fulfills most of his statements of purpose:

"The key point to take away is that ancient Greek magic was an expressive and creative realm of human activity...."

However, I think he missed his twin goal of writing for specialists and non-specialists.


Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.