Venenum, or venenum? Tacitus, Magic, and Don Quixote’s Windmills: Some Remarks on the Methodology of the Study of Ancient Magic
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Taking Seriously, Not Taking Sides: Challenges and Perspectives in the Study of Religions |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Keywords | ancient magic; curse tablets; definitions of magic; emic perspective; etic perspective |
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| Description | The difficulties that complicate the search for a universally acceptable definition of “magic” have led some scholars to attempt to delineate magic using emic data. The main objective of this chapter is to discuss the practical applicability of emic data to further define magic. The chosen test case, a passage from Tacitus (Annales II, 69), is seen as a serious obstacle to these attempts. The emic approach, which seeks to understand magic in terms of the culture under study, has only a limited contribution to make to the formulation of a general category of magic, as Tacitus uses a single word, venenum, for two different activities (a magical attack and a poisoning). The translation of this expression, and thus the interpretation of the whole incident, becomes impossible unless we have a pre-existing etic category of magic at our disposal, even if it remains unexpressed. |
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