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20 - Kronos and the Titans as Powerful Ancestors: A Case Study of the Greek Gods in Later Magical Spells

from PART III - DIACHRONIC ASPECTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2013

Christopher A. Faraone
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Ruth N. Bremmer
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
Andrew Erskine
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

There are some obvious and therefore less interesting ways in which the Greek gods show up in the magical texts of later antiquity. Sometimes the process involves shrinking a large-scale communal sanctuary down to the size of a personal shrine that can be placed in a house or even on top of a table. Thus Eitrem showed long ago how a series of divination spells in the Greek magical handbooks invoke Apollo by traditional cult names and require various implements and images associated with his oracular sites in Delphi, Klaros and Didyma. Indeed, one spell instructs us how to assemble a miniature temple for the god, replete with a small Delphic tripod and a laurel-bedecked cult statue. In addition to expropriating and miniaturizing Apollo's shrine, the hymns embedded in the recipe equate the god himself with Helios, the Jewish angels Gabriel and Michael, and the Egyptian sun god Re. Another unremarkable kind of survival is when chthonic deities like Hermes or Persephone continue to be invoked in cursing rituals that have clearly evolved from much earlier Greek defixiones, as in this archetype of a popular binding spell reconstructed from a recipe in PGM IV 335–406 and five lead curse-tablets, all of which were found in Egypt and date to the fourth century AD:

I deposit (παϱακατατίθεμαί) this binding charm (κατάδεσμος) with you, chthonic gods, Plouton uesemigadôn and Kore Persephone Ereschigal and Adonis also called barbaritha, and Hermes Katachthonios Thoth phôkensepseu arektathou misonktaik and mighty Anubis psêriphtha, who holds the keys of the gates to Hades, and chthonic demons, gods, men and women who suffered untimely death, youths and maidens.

Type
Chapter
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The Gods of Ancient Greece
Identities and Transformations
, pp. 388 - 405
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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