Performing Theocritus's Pharmakeutria: Revealing Hellenistic Witchcraft

Abstract:Theocritus's Idyll 2(c. 280–60 B.C.E.) is the finest surviving example of what the Greeks called mime, a short spoken play for one to four actors that was probably performed without props. This article addresses the performativity of Idyll 2 through a scholarly exegesis based on a research project that set out to investigate how this monologue could be successfully performed on the modern stage and how it might first have been performed in Alexandria over two millennia ago. The authors of this article, the dramaturge and research assistant, respectively, concentrate on what such an intensive process could reveal about the ancient Greek magic contained in the text and the representation of the sorceress Simaitha.