Magic, Curses and Healing

Magic and curses played a strong role in Greek popular culture. As I shall explain below, many Greeks believed themselves to live in an “extended world” where it was possible to have relations with both the living and the dead by magical means. Diseases could be caused by the gods or magical means and were susceptible to magical treatment. On one view this belief in magic was dispelled by the Presocratic philosophers, though, as we shall see, matters were not quite so straightforward. Here we shall clarify the nature and context of Greek and Roman magic and explore some of the issues involved in its study