Session 1: Some Things Never Change?

3rd Global Conference

Thursday 15th March – Saturday 17th March 2012
Prague, Czech Republic

Wicked Women and Magic: Accusations Among the Elite in the Roman Empire
Linda McGuire
Independent Researcher, France

During the early empire, a handful of elite women, including Lollia Paulina, Domitia Lepida and the daughter of Barea Soranus, were convicted and put to death for using magic or consulting a magic practitioner. These cases have resulted in several misunderstandings. First they are taken to illustrate a strong link between women and magic in Roman society which appears to be confirmed by the popular figure of the sorceress in Latin literature at this period. Yet historical texts generally link magic use and accusation more with men. Second these cases are taken literally to mean that elite women performed magic spells. Outside historical writings, the picture differs. Latin literature portrays, with a few exceptions, only lower class and disreputable women using magic. Naming conventions and the few references to occupations on Italian curse tablets link such activities to the opposite end of the social scale: slaves or freed slaves.

What if we were to take the position that magic was not necessarily a female activity and it was not practised by the elite? How then do we explain the many magic accusations among this class? Ancient and modern historians alike give the main reason that it was a convenient way to get rid of a rival during the power struggles of the early principate. A secondary reason often given is financial gain. Is it this simple? This paper will re-examine several of the more detailed cases to try and answer two questions. What else was gained when one elite woman accused another of magic use? And why might magic have been chosen in view of other types of accusations that were more common? This approach hints that magic accusation might have functioned differently from accusations such as adultery or treason and perhaps even complemented them.

Pornocracy: Sex, Lies, and Politics in 10th Century Rome
Robert Butler
Elmhurst College, USA

Medieval Rome was a city where anything could happen. In the tenth century, one family – the Theophylacts – rose to prominence in the cut-throat politics of the day. Marozia of Tusculum (890-936) was the highlight of this episode. Mistress of one pope, mother of another and grandmother of a third, Marozia established a dynasty which dominated the papacy throughout the ‘saeculum obscurum’ (‘dark age’) of the tenth century.

This paper will examine the lives of Marozia’s family, their impact on the religion and politics of the day, and how their story has been treated by historians since. It will use the occasion to investigate how evil at the highest levels was experienced, examined and recorded.

Change Your Princess, Change Thyself
Alexandra Cheira
Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Magic and metamorphosis always go hand in hand in wonder tales: Cinderella’s rags are changed into a marvellous ball gown complete with magic glass slippers courtesy of Fairy Godmother, the Beast attains his horrendous form due to a magic spell, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty plunge into a deep sleep intended to kill them through black magic… The examples are endless.

In this paper, I argue that in Marie Cathérine d’Aulnoy’s wonder tales, however, it would be more accurate to say that magic and metamorphosis go paw in hand: she favours the mythological theme of animal metamorphosis in which a worthy lover, having been turned into a white cat or a great green worm (to name but two of her most famous eponymous tales) through the magic powers of an evil fairy, will only become human again after long years of patient suffering. I will analyse these two wonder tales so as to show how, in order to be happy, animal lovers must suffer first until they meet the one, who falls in love with them still in their animal form because they are either beautiful, learned and pleasant (the white cat) or very attractive as to their mind and wit (the green worm): only after they have proved themselves worthy of each other will the spell be broken and human form restored to the victims of evil spells.

A very learned aristocratic woman in 17th century France, herself the victim of an unhappy arranged marriage, Madame d’Aulnoy was highly critical of forced marriages, so much so that her tales seriously commented on love, courtship and marriage in the characteristic witty style of the précieuses: by combining social criticism of an oppressive present with a utopian dimension, she reclaimed both the right of being treated as intellectuals by her male counterparts and more independence for aristocratic women. D’Aulnoy’s buoyant tales tell their author’s search for magic in her own life, marked by scandal and rebellion against the marriage mores of her time from a very early age on: she is Fairy Godmother to her heroines, granting them happiness after sore trials and tribulations, and to herself, by refusing to be a passive object submitted to another’s will and reclaiming instead the agency of changing her life. I argue that for d’Aulnoy, magic is indeed the creative power to change both her and her heroines’ life by overcoming great odds, as well as the Circean power of metamorphosis bestowed on some of her unfortunate lovers as a metaphor for social criticism; it is both a coping mechanism and a powerful tool of change.

Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)