Terminology
The principal defining factor of magic in the classical world is that it was held in low esteem and condemned by the speakers and writers. According to Robert Parker, "magic differs from religion as weeds differ from flowers"; magic was often seen as consisting of practices that range from silly superstition to the wicked and dangerous. However magic seems to have borrowed from religion, adopting religious ceremonies and divine names, and the two are sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish. Magic is often differentiated from religion in that it is manipulative rather than supplicatory of the deities; this is not a hard and fast rule, though, and with many ritual acts it is difficult to tell whether they are coercive or supplicatory. Also, some mainstream religious rites openly set out to constrain the gods. Other rough criteria sometimes used to distinguish magic from religion include: that it is aimed at selfish or immoral ends; and that it is conducted in secrecy, often for a paying client. Religious rites, on the other hand, are more often aimed at lofty goals such as salvation or rebirth, and are conducted in the open for the benefit of the community or a group of followers.
Alongside the more common manifestations of state religion, ancient peoples sought individual contact and assistance, along with influence, with the heavenly realms through other channels. Religious ritual had the intended purpose of giving a god their just due honor, or asking for divine intervention and favor, while magic is seen as practiced by those who seek only power, and often undertaken based on a false scientific basis. Ultimately, the practice of magic includes rites that do not play a part in worship, and are ultimately irreligious. Associations with this term tend to be an evolving process in ancient literature, but generally speaking ancient magic reflects aspects of broader religious traditions in the Mediterranean world, that is, a belief in magic reflects a belief in deities, divination, and words of power. The concept of magic however came to represent a more coherent and self-reflective tradition exemplified by magicians seeking to fuse varying non-traditional elements of Greco-Roman religious practice into something specifically called magic. This fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire, in the 3rd to 5th centuries CE. This article therefore covers the development of this tradition and an evolving definition associated with the term "magic" in the texts left to us by practitioners and authors of the ancient Greco-Roman world.
Via Latin magicus, the word "magic" derives from Greek magikos, with "magic" being the art and craft of the magos, the Greek word for followers of "Zoroaster" (i.e. either Zoroaster or Pseudo-Zoroaster). The relationship with "magic" derives from the Hellenistic identification of (Pseudo-)Zoroaster as the "inventor" of both astrology and magic. This was in turn influenced by (among other factors) the Greek penchant for seeking hidden meanings in words; the name "Zoroaster" was presumed to have something to do with the stars (-astr), while magos was perceived to have to do with goēs, the old Greek word for "magic" (in the modern sense). However, in the main, (Pseudo-)Zoroaster seems to have been almost exclusively identified with astrology, and magic then remained the domain of other (real or putative) "magians" such as the synthetic "Ostanes".
Because magos/magikos were influenced by the association with the old Greek word for "magic", Greek magos/magikos accordingly held the same meaning that "magic" and "magician" do today. Although a few Greek writers – e.g. Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch – did use magos in connection with their descriptions of (Zoroastrian) religious beliefs or practices, the majority seem to have understood it in the sense of "magician". Accordingly, the more skeptical writers then also identified the "magicians" – i.e. the magians – as charlatans or frauds. In Plato's Symposium (202e), the Athenian identified them as maleficent, allowing however a measure of efficacy as a function of the god Eros. Pliny paints them in a particularly bad light.
The History of Animals, a work attributed to Aristotle, seeks to establish that the planets and the fixed stars and daemons (nature spirits) influence life on earth, and advocates a concept of sympathies and antipathies applied to the forces of the animal world, under the influence of the stars. The attribution of much of this material may be spurious, since Books 7-10 of the History, in which these ideas mostly appear, are not considered genuine by most scholars (Book 10, for instance, is missing in the oldest extant manuscript). However, according to Lynn Thorndike, the material still probably reflects teachings of the Aristotelian school, which subscribed to a quasi–stellar theology and entertained natural sympathies and antipathies, that were, at least in principle, animistic beliefs. Thorndike comments: "Greek science at its best was not untainted by magic".
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