Abstract This essay examines the earliest quotations of Pindar in order to shed light on the social and historical dynamics through which he first emerged as a classic author. Pindaric quotations from the classical period point to his stratified and multi-faceted reception: as a figure within popular memory, as an emblem of elite culture and as an intellectual ancestor. Indeed, a capacity to appeal to different audiences for different but interconnected reasons was integral to his canonisation. The earliest Pindaric quotations already bespeak his culturally privileged status, which was expressed and perpetuated in different ways over the centuries but which was established as a social fact from remarkably early on. A search for the deepest roots of the classicisation of Pindar, it is argued, has to go all the way back to his poetry.
{"title":"Classicising ‘Pindar’: Quotation, Canonisation and Early Reception","authors":"Henry L. Spelman","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay examines the earliest quotations of Pindar in order to shed light on the social and historical dynamics through which he first emerged as a classic author. Pindaric quotations from the classical period point to his stratified and multi-faceted reception: as a figure within popular memory, as an emblem of elite culture and as an intellectual ancestor. Indeed, a capacity to appeal to different audiences for different but interconnected reasons was integral to his canonisation. The earliest Pindaric quotations already bespeak his culturally privileged status, which was expressed and perpetuated in different ways over the centuries but which was established as a social fact from remarkably early on. A search for the deepest roots of the classicisation of Pindar, it is argued, has to go all the way back to his poetry.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"363 - 387"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44397685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper offers a reappraisal of the role of intertextuality in fifth-century BCE epinician poetry by means of a comparison with the role of intertextuality in all of early Greek hexameter poetry, ‘lyric epic’, and fifth-century BCE tragedy and comedy. By considering the ways in which performance culture as well as the production of written texts affects the prospects for intertextuality, it challenges a scholarly view that would straightforwardly correlate intertextuality in early Greek poetry with an increasing use and dissemination of written texts. Rather, ‘performance rivalry’ (a term understood to encompass both intra- and intergeneric competition between poetic works that were performed either on the same occasion or on closely related occasions) is identified as a plausible catalyst of intertextuality in all of the poetic genres considered, from the eighth or seventh century to the fifth century BCE. It is argued that fifth-century epinician poetry displays frequent, fine-grained, and allusive intertextuality with a range of early hexameter poetry: the Iliad, the poems of the Epic Cycle, and various ‘Hesiodic’ poems – poetry that in all probability featured in the sixth-fifth century BCE rhapsodic repertoire. It is also argued that, contrary to what is maintained in some recent Pindaric scholarship, there is no comparable case to be made for a frequent, significant, and allusive intrageneric intertextuality between epinician poems: in this respect, the case of epinician makes a very striking contrast with epic, tragedy, and comedy – poetic genres to which intrageneric intertextuality was absolutely fundamental. It is suggested that the presence or absence of intrageneric intertextuality in the genres in question is likely to be associated with the presence or absence of performance rivalry. A further factor identified as having the potential to inhibit intrageneric intertextuality in epinician is the undesirability of having one poem appear to be ‘bettered’ by another in a genre were all poems were commissioned to exalt individual patrons. This, again, is a situation that did not arise for epic, tragedy, or comedy, where a kind of competitive or ‘zero-sum’ intertextuality could be (and was) unproblematically embraced. Intertextuality in epinician thus appears to present a special case vis-à-vis the other major poetic genres of early Greece, whose workings can both be illuminated by consideration of the workings of intertextuality in epic, tragedy, and comedy, and can in turn illuminate something of the workings of intertextuality in those genres.
{"title":"Intertextuality in Early Greek Poetry: The Special Case of Epinician","authors":"Bruno Currie","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper offers a reappraisal of the role of intertextuality in fifth-century BCE epinician poetry by means of a comparison with the role of intertextuality in all of early Greek hexameter poetry, ‘lyric epic’, and fifth-century BCE tragedy and comedy. By considering the ways in which performance culture as well as the production of written texts affects the prospects for intertextuality, it challenges a scholarly view that would straightforwardly correlate intertextuality in early Greek poetry with an increasing use and dissemination of written texts. Rather, ‘performance rivalry’ (a term understood to encompass both intra- and intergeneric competition between poetic works that were performed either on the same occasion or on closely related occasions) is identified as a plausible catalyst of intertextuality in all of the poetic genres considered, from the eighth or seventh century to the fifth century BCE. It is argued that fifth-century epinician poetry displays frequent, fine-grained, and allusive intertextuality with a range of early hexameter poetry: the Iliad, the poems of the Epic Cycle, and various ‘Hesiodic’ poems – poetry that in all probability featured in the sixth-fifth century BCE rhapsodic repertoire. It is also argued that, contrary to what is maintained in some recent Pindaric scholarship, there is no comparable case to be made for a frequent, significant, and allusive intrageneric intertextuality between epinician poems: in this respect, the case of epinician makes a very striking contrast with epic, tragedy, and comedy – poetic genres to which intrageneric intertextuality was absolutely fundamental. It is suggested that the presence or absence of intrageneric intertextuality in the genres in question is likely to be associated with the presence or absence of performance rivalry. A further factor identified as having the potential to inhibit intrageneric intertextuality in epinician is the undesirability of having one poem appear to be ‘bettered’ by another in a genre were all poems were commissioned to exalt individual patrons. This, again, is a situation that did not arise for epic, tragedy, or comedy, where a kind of competitive or ‘zero-sum’ intertextuality could be (and was) unproblematically embraced. Intertextuality in epinician thus appears to present a special case vis-à-vis the other major poetic genres of early Greece, whose workings can both be illuminated by consideration of the workings of intertextuality in epic, tragedy, and comedy, and can in turn illuminate something of the workings of intertextuality in those genres.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"289 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43197677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of the polis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.
{"title":"A Triangle in the Law-court: Speakers-Opponents-Audiences and the Use of the Imperative","authors":"Andreas Af Serafim","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of the polis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"388 - 417"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46727096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Publication of two new gold epistomia unearthed during systematic excavations of a cemetery at the site Mnemata (Graves) in Alphá, near Eleutherna. They belong to category B, the so-called Mnemosyne- or Underworld-Topography-texts: the new epistomion B14 from grave 84 was found folded and is identical to that incised on B3–5, B7–8 and the concise B13, except for one minor misspelling; the other epistomion B15 from grave 56 betrays more similarities with the Cretan epistomia B12 and B6 in the recognition dialogue, and is only the second text from Crete which places the spring in the Underworld topography to the left, as B12.
{"title":"New Epistomia from Eleutherna","authors":"E. Tegou, Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Publication of two new gold epistomia unearthed during systematic excavations of a cemetery at the site Mnemata (Graves) in Alphá, near Eleutherna. They belong to category B, the so-called Mnemosyne- or Underworld-Topography-texts: the new epistomion B14 from grave 84 was found folded and is identical to that incised on B3–5, B7–8 and the concise B13, except for one minor misspelling; the other epistomion B15 from grave 56 betrays more similarities with the Cretan epistomia B12 and B6 in the recognition dialogue, and is only the second text from Crete which places the spring in the Underworld topography to the left, as B12.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"418 - 436"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42810644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives from research on the placebo effect to aid and guide the subsequent articles in their examination of their respective sets of sources, as well as facilitate discussion and comparison across our different materials, and often also differing disciplines.
{"title":"Introduction: Using Placebo Research to Explore Belief and Healing in Late Antiquity","authors":"N. H. Korsvoll","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives from research on the placebo effect to aid and guide the subsequent articles in their examination of their respective sets of sources, as well as facilitate discussion and comparison across our different materials, and often also differing disciplines.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"1 - 20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42180873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Asclepius was one of the most popular healing deities in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Patients suffering from various diseases resorted to his sanctuaries, the so-called asclepieia, looking for cure. Many inscriptions preserve stories of supplicants who slept in the abaton of the temples and claimed that they had been healed or received remedies from the god. The historical study may take into consideration modern (neuro)cognitive research on the placebo effects in order to examine the possibilities of actual healing experiences at the asclepeiea. In this paper, I take into account the theoretical premises of the placebo drama theory suggested by Ted Kaptchuk in order to explore the specific factors, including the personality of Asclepius, his patients’ mindsets, the relationship between them, the nature of the supplicants’ impairments, the employed or prescribed treatments and the ritual settings of the cult, which could have mediated health recovery, and contributed to the phenomenal success of the Asclepian therapies via the activation of patients’ placebo responses.
{"title":"The Placebo Drama of the Asclepius Cult","authors":"O. Panagiotidou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Asclepius was one of the most popular healing deities in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Patients suffering from various diseases resorted to his sanctuaries, the so-called asclepieia, looking for cure. Many inscriptions preserve stories of supplicants who slept in the abaton of the temples and claimed that they had been healed or received remedies from the god. The historical study may take into consideration modern (neuro)cognitive research on the placebo effects in order to examine the possibilities of actual healing experiences at the asclepeiea. In this paper, I take into account the theoretical premises of the placebo drama theory suggested by Ted Kaptchuk in order to explore the specific factors, including the personality of Asclepius, his patients’ mindsets, the relationship between them, the nature of the supplicants’ impairments, the employed or prescribed treatments and the ritual settings of the cult, which could have mediated health recovery, and contributed to the phenomenal success of the Asclepian therapies via the activation of patients’ placebo responses.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"195 - 226"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48724335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The present paper focuses on healing rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, where medicine and religion were inextricably linked to each other and further connected to the art of magic. In Pharaonic Egypt, healing magic was especially attributed to the priests who served a fearsome goddess named Sekhmet; although Sekhmet was associated with war and retribution, she was also believed to be able to avert plague and cure disease. It then comes as no surprise that the majority of healing spells or other types of iatromagical papyri dating from the Roman period are written in Demotic, following a long tradition of ancient Egyptian curative magic. The extant healing rituals written in Greek also show substantial Egyptian influence in both methodological structure and motifs, thus confirming the widely accepted assumption that many features of Greco-Egyptian magic were actually inherited from their ancient antecedents. What is particularly interesting about these texts is that, in many cases, they contain magical rites combined with basic elements of real medical treatment. Obviously, magic was not simply expected to serve as a substitute for medical cure, but was rather seen as a complementary treatment in order to balance the effect of fear, on the one hand, and the flame of hope, on the other.
{"title":"Hope for Cure and the Placebo Effect: The Case of the Greco-Egyptian Iatromagical Formularies","authors":"P. Sarischouli","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present paper focuses on healing rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, where medicine and religion were inextricably linked to each other and further connected to the art of magic. In Pharaonic Egypt, healing magic was especially attributed to the priests who served a fearsome goddess named Sekhmet; although Sekhmet was associated with war and retribution, she was also believed to be able to avert plague and cure disease. It then comes as no surprise that the majority of healing spells or other types of iatromagical papyri dating from the Roman period are written in Demotic, following a long tradition of ancient Egyptian curative magic. The extant healing rituals written in Greek also show substantial Egyptian influence in both methodological structure and motifs, thus confirming the widely accepted assumption that many features of Greco-Egyptian magic were actually inherited from their ancient antecedents. What is particularly interesting about these texts is that, in many cases, they contain magical rites combined with basic elements of real medical treatment. Obviously, magic was not simply expected to serve as a substitute for medical cure, but was rather seen as a complementary treatment in order to balance the effect of fear, on the one hand, and the flame of hope, on the other.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"254 - 284"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48458755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article analyses possible placebo effects that Late Antique religious healing might have had. It focuses on healings believed to have been sent in dreams to worshippers, both in pagan and Early Christian tradition. It also investigates how possible placebo effects might have served to propagate and spread the particular cults (be it the cult of Asklepios, or the Early Christian cults of martyrs). The paper seeks to integrate modern placebo research with the ancient accounts of healings, answering the following question: is it possible that the placebo effect (above all relief of pain) was activated in ancient times by the same factors as seen in experiments today (e. g. effect of the healer’s persona, ritualized behaviour, and above all belief in the cure)? The scope of the paper is at the end broadened to touch upon the question to what degree ancient religious healing offered a socially well-established method of handling illnesses psychologically and fill the need to act, even if a cure as such was not a probable result.
{"title":"Placebo factors at healing sanctuaries in pagan and early Christian times","authors":"Hedvig von Ehrenheim","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article analyses possible placebo effects that Late Antique religious healing might have had. It focuses on healings believed to have been sent in dreams to worshippers, both in pagan and Early Christian tradition. It also investigates how possible placebo effects might have served to propagate and spread the particular cults (be it the cult of Asklepios, or the Early Christian cults of martyrs). The paper seeks to integrate modern placebo research with the ancient accounts of healings, answering the following question: is it possible that the placebo effect (above all relief of pain) was activated in ancient times by the same factors as seen in experiments today (e. g. effect of the healer’s persona, ritualized behaviour, and above all belief in the cure)? The scope of the paper is at the end broadened to touch upon the question to what degree ancient religious healing offered a socially well-established method of handling illnesses psychologically and fill the need to act, even if a cure as such was not a probable result.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"95 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44414574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Within the ‘market of healing’ of Christian Egypt (here broadly considered as the fourth through twelfth centuries CE), ‘magical’ practitioners represent an elusive yet recurrent category. This article explores the evidence for magical healing from three perspectives – first, literary texts which situate ‘magicians’ in competition with medical and ecclesiastical healing; second, the papyrological evidence of Coptic-language magical texts, which provide evidence for concepts of disease, wellness, and their mediation; and finally confronting the question of how these healing traditions might be understood within the methodologically materialistic framework of academic history, using the concepts of placebo and healing as a performance.
{"title":"Healing Traditions in Coptic Magical Texts","authors":"Korshi Dosoo","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Within the ‘market of healing’ of Christian Egypt (here broadly considered as the fourth through twelfth centuries CE), ‘magical’ practitioners represent an elusive yet recurrent category. This article explores the evidence for magical healing from three perspectives – first, literary texts which situate ‘magicians’ in competition with medical and ecclesiastical healing; second, the papyrological evidence of Coptic-language magical texts, which provide evidence for concepts of disease, wellness, and their mediation; and finally confronting the question of how these healing traditions might be understood within the methodologically materialistic framework of academic history, using the concepts of placebo and healing as a performance.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"44 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45151983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Many of the numerous magical recipes and spells from the Greco-Roman world aim to heal or protect the practitioner. The text, however, show great diversity and heterogeneity and many of them seem to be an elaborate amalgam of different religious influences, analogies, and interactions. This variety can, among other things, play into certain aspects of the placebo effect. Here, I present a systematic categorization of Greco-Roman amulets according to physical support, format, chronology, and purpose, which together with a study of their terminology may point towards different placebo effects. Then, I examine their social context and describe the resources and the modus operandi of the magical healing, which will have further strengthened the effect of these amulets. Their reliance on cultural resources and tropes points especially towards conditioning and learned responses.
{"title":"Placebo is Magic or Magic is Placebo? The Greco-Roman Iatromagical Texts","authors":"Eleni Chronopoulou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many of the numerous magical recipes and spells from the Greco-Roman world aim to heal or protect the practitioner. The text, however, show great diversity and heterogeneity and many of them seem to be an elaborate amalgam of different religious influences, analogies, and interactions. This variety can, among other things, play into certain aspects of the placebo effect. Here, I present a systematic categorization of Greco-Roman amulets according to physical support, format, chronology, and purpose, which together with a study of their terminology may point towards different placebo effects. Then, I examine their social context and describe the resources and the modus operandi of the magical healing, which will have further strengthened the effect of these amulets. Their reliance on cultural resources and tropes points especially towards conditioning and learned responses.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":"13 1","pages":"21 - 43"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47993682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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