Kindred Topics (introductory portals to related fields)

Suda: Chaldaean Sibyl (Trans. J. Benedict)

Suda: Sibyl (Trans. J. Benedict)

Abstract: "Delphic Oracles as Oral Performances: Authenticity and Historical Evidence"by Lisa Maurizio for Classical Antiquity 1997. Full text available to institutional subscribers.

Dodona: Religionsgeschichtliche und historische Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Entwicklung des Zeus-Heiligtums (Dodona : a religious and historical examination of the sanctuary of Zeus and its development through history). Hamburg dissertation by Martina Dieterle.

Review of Anne Jacquemin's Offrandes monumentales a Delphes. Reviewed by Dylan Bloy,Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2000.

Suda: "Daphidas of Telmessos" (Daphidas). Greek grammarian who mocked the oracle of Delphi and got his come-upance. The Suda is a medieval Greek encyclopedia assembled from earlier sources. Also see other references to the Pythia from the Suda.

PDF: "Due domande oracolari in greco" by G. Messeri Savorelli, R. Pintaudi, ZPE 1996.

Astronomy

PDF: "A Greek Papyrus Containing Babylonian Lunar Theory" by Alexander Jones, ZPE 1997.

PDF: "Notes on Astronomical Papyri" by Alexander Jones, ZPE 1998.

PDF: "Three Astronomical Tables from Tebtunis" by Alexander Jones, ZPE 1998.

Folklore

Review of Jacob Stern's edition of Palaephatus: On Unbelievable Tales by James Romm, BMCR '96.

Review of William Hansen's Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels (1996). Reviewed by Alex Nice, Scholia Reviews 1999.

Magic

Amazon Fritz Graf's Magic in the Ancient World . See publishers blurb.

Review of Graf's Ancient Magic by C. Robert Phillips, III, BMCR 98.

Review of Graf's Ancient Magic by Michael Lambert, Scholia ns 7 (1998).

Apuleius, "Apology." Comprehensive, indeed enormous site by James O'Donnell and others.

Web Archive: "Magic and Judaism" Web-project by students in "Magic and Astrology in Greco-Roman Religion." (Prof. Williams, Mt. Holyoke). Lengthy, with a web bilbiography.

Magie dans l'antiquite greco-romaine. Bibliography and some links.

Flectere Magic: Magic Bibliographies and Resources. Numerous resources by John-Gabriel Bodard.

"Magic and the Supernatural in the Ancient World" bibliography by Barbette Stanley Spaeth (Tulane).

Web Archive: "Magic in Early Christianity" Web-project by students in "Magic and Astrology in Greco-Roman Religion." (Prof. Williams, Mt. Holyoke). Lengthy, with a web bilbiography.

Web Archive: A good bibliography on ancient magic by Jeremiah Genest of Secretum secretorum (a role-playing game?).

PDF: J. Curbera, "The Greek Curse Tablets of Emporion" ZPE 117 (1997). In the same volume see L. D'Amore, "Breve nota ad una defixio greca da Locri Epizefiri" ZPE 117 (1997).

Review of Ankarloo and Clark, eds. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. Ancient Greece and Rome. Reviewed by Donald Lateiner, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2000.

"Curse Tablets: Revenge on Bath Thieves by Sympathetic Magic" About.com article by N. S. Gill.

Amazon. W.F. Ryan, The bathhouse at midnight : an historical survey of magic and divination in Russia. New, extremely thorough study much concerned with the Byzantine magical (and divinatory) tradition. I was particularly impressed to learn that the last printing of a Byzantine-Slavonic-Russian brontologion was on the wax-paper wrappers of a St. Petersburg candy factory.

Amazon. Arcana Mundi : Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Georg Luck (1985). Luck provides long translated extracts, together with an introduction. He covers "Magic," "Miracles," "Daemonology," "Divination," "Astrology", and "Alchemy." His section on divination is heavy with excerpts from Cicero's De Divinatione (On Divination), an easily-found source.

There are currently no academic reviews online.

Review of Georg Luck's Arcana Mundi by a self-professed believer in Greek paganism.

The Nautical Lapidary of Astrampsychus translated by Tim Spalding. This is a short excursus on the magical power of stones. Although not divinatory per se these sorts of texts rely on the same system of non-obvious correspondences between small-scale realia and the larger world. Such "lapidaries" are genetically connected to the more scientific studies of Theophrastus on one side and the more baroquely magical omnigatherums of the middle-ages on the other. On-site content

www.crystalreadings.co.uk has two things to recommend it. First, the author was gracious to link to my site. I thought I'd put a link-back here to thank her, and to illustrate something about the differences between modern and ancient lapidaries. Barton, in Ancient Astrology, has a good bit on how modern astrology differs from ancient astrology. Comparing Astrampsychus with Crystal Readings yields many of the same results. The ancient text stresses the physical benefits of stones; the modern is primarily interested in psychological properties. The ancient text is concerned with the apotropaic properties of stones--the evils they will avert; the modern is mostly about enhancing positive potential. Put another way, the ancient lapidary keeps you safe from danger, the modern offers spiritual health and enhanced consciousness. The exception proves the point: the ancient lapidary recommends stones that will save you from drowning on ocean voyages; the modern recommends ones that "protect against psychic attacks during astral travel." They share a certain permeability to different cultural elements (not very apparent in this short specimen), and an simple encyclopedic style.

Apuleius, Apology at Ad Fontes Academy. Latin text; no translation.

Translation of Apuleius, Apology at the Internet Classics Archive (MIT). Translation by H. E. Butler.

Traditions of Magic in Late Antiquity, web page of long-defunct (but great) exhibit at the University of Michigan. Curated by Gideon Bohak.

Hellenic Magical Ritual. An attempt to revive and explain ancient Greek paganism by the aforementioned Apollonius Sophistes/Bruce MacLennan. Truly strange. There's a lot of such stuff on the web, but this one's distinguished by its knowledge of the ancient texts.

Web Archive: "Ancient Jewish Magical Objects" Web-project by the professor in "Magic and Astrology in Greco-Roman Religion." (Prof. Williams, Mt. Holyoke). Lengthy, with a web bilbiography.

Magic bibliography by J. J Aubert for a course at the University of Neuchatel.

PDF: "Cologne Coptic Magical Texts: Some Notes and Corrections" by J. van der Vliet, ZPE 1998.

Sibylline Oracle

Review of David S. Potter, Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire. A Historical Commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle. Reviewed by John Vanderspoel, BMCR 1991.

Other

Web Archive: "The Renaissance of Occultism" by E.R. Dodds (1919) in Classics Ireland 1999. Thoughts on the resurgence of occultism in the early twentieth-century, by the classicist and future author of The Greeks and the Irational. Includes introduction by Robert B. Todd highlighting the piece within Dodds' thought and another short essay, "The Rediscovery of the Classics."

Ancient Medicine/Medicina Antiqua, an excellent collection of resources by Lee Pearcy. See also the Review by Richard Hamilton in BMERR 1998.

"Some Notes on the History of Isopsephia (Gematria)" by John Opsopaus (Bruce MacLennan), 1995. The author mixes scholarship and fantasy.

PDF: A. Jones, "On the Reconstructed Macedonian and Egyptian Lunar Calendars" ZPE 119 (1997).

Review of M. R. Wright's Cosmology in Antiquity (1995). Reviewed by Thomas M. Banchich, BMCR 95.12.27.

"Sibylline Oracles" (Catholic Encyclopedia).

Web Archive: The Witchcraft Bibliography Project, edited by Jeffrey Merrick et al.