Putting the Persian Back in "Magic": Problems with Ignoring Ancient Ethnographic Discourses

Abstract

This paper calls for careful consideration of the ethnographic connotations of ancient phenomena often designated “magic” as performed by “magicians” (especially μγος, μαγεα, μαγικς) and for the retirement of English terms related to “magic” in the study of antiquity altogether. Deployment of such terms obscures precisely the ostensibly foreign and specifically “Persian” aura which attended references to Magians and Magian skill (better terms) as well as the commonly adopted ancient theory that Magian practices had disseminated throughout the ancient Mediterranean world (to Egyptians, Babylonians, and Syrians/Judeans) from the Persians themselves. I demonstrate this with reference to Greek ethnographic writing on Persian Magians and through a case study of Philo of Alexandria, Pliny the Elder, Apuleius of Madaura, Celsus and Origen, and pseudo-Clement.