The Religious Experience of the Roman People / From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus

by W. Warde Fowler

LECTURE III

ON THE THRESHOLD OF RELIGION: MAGIC

Magic; distinction between magic and religion. Religious authorities seek to exclude magic, and did so at Rome. Few survivals of magic in the State religion. The aquaelicium. Vestals and runaway slaves. The magical whipping at the Lupercalia. The throwing of puppets from the pons sublicius. Magical processes surviving in religious ritual with their meaning lost. Private magic: excantatio in the XII. Tables; other spells or carmina. Amulets: the bulla; oscilla

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