Studies in Magic from Latin Literature (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: snake-bite did so, not because they depended upon the power of the vegetable as an amulet, but because serpents were supposed especially to dislike and to shun the odor of the parsnip. Yet such an explanation would scarcely suffice in the case of the man who, instead of carrying the parsnip in his clothes, ate it;1M for he was equally protected. Upon the whole I think that such measures of protection are to be regarded as amulets. (5) Materials of Amulets. ? The foregoing passages make it clear that the Romans practiced prophylactic magic by means of amulets made of mineral, vegetable, and animal materials. By arranging these amulets in groups according to the material of which each is composed we shall be able to determine not only the relative importance of the three principal sources of amulets, but also the general nature of medical amulets themselves. (a) Minerals. ? We are told that rings of gold, silver, copper, or iron are equally efficacious as amulets in preventing lippi- tudo,1 a disease from which one might also be protected by wearing about one's neck an inscribed golden lamella.136 Precious stones and similar materials were used, especially for warding off the various diseases of infants. We find malachite,13 coral,137 and amber138 thus employed. The last named substance was also used to prevent lippitudo.m There were certain small stones, also, which seem to have derived their power as amulets, in part at least, from the sources from which they ia Gargilius Martialis, Med. 33 Negant feriri a serpentibua qui pasti- nacam secum ferant vel ante gustarint. Cf. Pliny, N. H. 20, 31; 69; 133; 223; 232: 22, 52; 60: 25,163; Ps.-Apuleius, De Med. Herb. 4, 7. 1M Marcellus Empiricus, 8, 49 (supra, 85). ltt Marcellus Empiricus, 8, 59 (supra, 86). 1M Pliny, N. H...