Examination of the ancient testimony from the mid-republic through the first three centuries of the empire reveals many variants of magic and the occult, including sorcery, witchcraft, incantations for healing, binding spells, necromancy (attempted communication with the dead), the wearing of amulets as protection against evil and disease, the interpretation of dreams, and astrology. These practices were at and beyond the fringe of traditional state and family religion, and so were perceived as a threat to the established order.

Our word “magic” derives from magus, a loanword from Persian originally meaning a fire priest, that came into Latin via the Greek magos. Apuleius, the late-second-century CE author of Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, who himself was accused of magic (mageia), defines a magus as “someone who, through the community of speech with the immortal gods, possesses an incredible power of spells (cantamina) for everything that he wishes to do” (Apuleius, Apology 26.6).