Editing Magic (supernatural) (section)

===Greco-Roman world===
{{Main|Magic in the Greco-Roman world}}
[[File:Hécate - Mallarmé.png|upright|thumb|[[Hecate]], the ancient Greek goddess of magic]]
During the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE, the Persian ''maguš'' was Graecicized and introduced into the ancient Greek language as ''μάγος'' and ''μαγεία''.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} In doing so it transformed meaning, gaining negative connotations, with the ''magos'' being regarded as a charlatan whose ritual practices were fraudulent, strange, unconventional, and dangerous.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} As noted by Davies, for the ancient Greeks—and subsequently for the ancient Romans—"magic was not distinct from religion but rather an unwelcome, improper expression of it—the religion of the other".{{sfn|Davies|2012|p=41}} The historian Richard Gordon suggested that for the ancient Greeks, being accused of practicing magic was "a form of insult".{{sfn|Gordon|1999|p=163}}

This change in meaning was influenced by the military conflicts that the Greek city-states were then engaged in against the Persian Empire.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} In this context, the term makes appearances in such surviving text as [[Sophocles]]' ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'', [[Hippocrates]]' ''De morbo sacro'', and [[Gorgias]]' ''[[Encomium of Helen]]''.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} In Sophocles' play, for example, the character [[Oedipus]] derogatorily refers to the seer [[Tiresius]] as a ''magos''—in this context meaning something akin to quack or charlatan—reflecting how this epithet was no longer reserved only for Persians.{{sfnm|1a1=Gordon|1y=1999|1pp=163–164|2a1=Bremmer|2y=2002|2pp=2–3|3a1=Bailey|3y=2018|3p=19}}

In the first century BCE, the Greek concept of the ''magos'' was adopted into [[Latin]] and used by a number of [[Ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] writers as ''magus'' and ''magia''.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} The earliest known Latin use of the term was in [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Eclogue]]'', written around 40 BCE, which makes reference to ''magicis&nbsp;... sacris'' (magic rites).{{sfn|Gordon|1999|p=165}} The Romans already had other terms for the negative use of supernatural powers, such as ''veneficus'' and ''saga''.{{sfn|Gordon|1999|p=165}} The Roman use of the term was similar to that of the Greeks, but placed greater emphasis on the judicial application of it.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=16}} Within the [[Roman Empire]], laws would be introduced criminalising things regarded as magic.{{sfn|Otto|Stausberg|2013|p=17}}

In ancient Roman society, magic was associated with societies to the east of the empire; the first century CE writer [[Pliny the Elder]] for instance claimed that magic had been created by the Iranian philosopher [[Zoroaster]], and that it had then been brought west into Greece by the magician [[Osthanes]], who accompanied the military campaigns of the Persian King [[Xerxes I|Xerxes]].{{sfn|Davies|2012|pp=32–33}}

Ancient Greek scholarship of the 20th century, almost certainly influenced by Christianising preconceptions of the meanings of [[magic and religion]], and the wish to establish Greek culture as the foundation of Western rationality, developed a theory of ancient Greek magic as primitive and insignificant, and thereby essentially separate from [[Homeric]], communal (''polis'') religion. Since the last decade of the century, however, recognising the ubiquity and respectability of acts such as ''katadesmoi'' ([[Curse tablet|binding spells]]), described as magic by modern and ancient observers alike, scholars have been compelled to abandon this viewpoint.{{sfn|Kindt|2012|pp=90–95}} The Greek word ''mageuo'' (practice magic) itself derives from the word ''[[Magi|Magos]]'', originally simply the Greek name for a [[Iran#Classical antiquity|Persian tribe]] known for practicing religion.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Copenhaver|first1=Brian P.|title=Magic in Western Culture: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment|date=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-1-107-07052-3|page=6}}</ref> Non-civic [[mystery cults]] have been similarly re-evaluated:{{sfn|Kindt|2012|pp=97–98}}

{{Blockquote|the choices which lay outside the range of cults did not just add additional options to the civic menu, but&nbsp;... sometimes incorporated critiques of the civic cults and Panhellenic myths or were genuine alternatives to them.|Simon Price, ''Religions of the Ancient Greeks'' (1999)<ref>{{cite book|last1=Price|first1=Simon|title=Religions of the Ancient Greeks|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, UK|isbn=978-0-521-38867-2|page=115|edition=Reprint}}</ref>}}

''[[Curse tablet|Katadesmoi]]'' ({{langx|la|defixiones}}), curses inscribed on wax or lead tablets and buried underground, were frequently executed by all strata of Greek society, sometimes to protect the entire ''polis''.{{sfn|Kindt|2012|pp=95–96}} Communal curses carried out in public declined after the Greek classical period, but private curses remained common throughout antiquity.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hinnells|first1=John|title=The Penguin Handbook of Ancient Religions|date=2009|publisher=Penguin|location=London|isbn=978-0-14-195666-4|page=313}}</ref> They were distinguished as magical by their individualistic, instrumental and sinister qualities.{{sfn|Kindt|2012|p=96}} These qualities, and their perceived deviation from inherently mutable cultural constructs of normality, most clearly delineate ancient magic from the religious rituals of which they form a part.{{sfn|Kindt|2012|pp=102–103}}

A large number of [[Greek Magical Papyri|magical papyri]], in [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Coptic language|Coptic]], and [[Demotic Egyptian|Demotic]], have been recovered and translated.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Betz|first1=Hans Dieter|title=The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells|date=1986|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=978-0-226-04444-6|pages=xii–xlv}}</ref> They contain early instances of:
* the use of [[magic word]]s said to have the power to command spirits;<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lewy|first1=Hans|title=Oracles and Theurgy: Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire|date=1978|publisher=Études Augustiniennes|location=Paris|isbn=978-2-85121-025-8|page=439}}</ref>
* the use of mysterious [[symbol]]s or [[Sigil (magic)|sigils]] which are thought to be useful when invoking or evoking spirits.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Betz|first1=Hans|title=The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation|date=1996|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago|isbn=978-0-226-04447-7|page=34|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K0hCj5u3HNQC&q=The+Greek+Magical+Papyri+in+Translation+betz}}</ref>

The practice of magic was banned in the late Roman world, and the ''[[Codex Theodosianus]]'' (438 AD) states:<ref>{{cite book|last1=Drijvers|first1=Jan Willem|last2=Hunt|first2=David|title=The Late Roman World and Its Historian: Interpreting Ammianus Marcellinus|date=1999|publisher=Routledge|location=London|isbn=978-0-415-20271-8|pages=208–|edition=1st|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ks_cMZBEVb4C&pg=PA208|access-date=22 August 2010}}</ref>

{{blockquote|If any wizard therefore or person imbued with magical contamination who is called by custom of the people a magician&nbsp;... should be apprehended in my retinue, or in that of the Caesar, he shall not escape punishment and torture by the protection of his rank.}}