Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, A Collection of Ancient Texts (review)

The cover of this second English-language edition carries a deracinated quotation from me: “a hugely important achievement” ( Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook[New York, 2002], 4). The publisher is perhaps a little naughty to disguise the fact that this judgment was applied to the first edition (1985), but I will not withhold it from the second.

Between these two English-language editions Luck’s classic work has mutated through an admirable series of incarnations: it has appeared in, inter alia, German (Stuttgart, 1990), Italian twice, the second time in a two- volume edition incorporating the Greek and Latin originals (Milan, 1994; Rome, 1997 and 1999), and Spanish (Madrid, 1995). Incremental revisions and additions made in part for these editions have now come home to the new English-language version.

The body of Luck’s first English edition collected and introduced 122 translated texts distributed across chapters themed, “Magic,” “Miracles,” “Daemonology,” “Divination,” “Astrology,” and “Alchemy.” Its 410 pages have become 560 in the new edition. The original set of translations and introductions thereto has been revised and finessed throughout, and the overall number of texts has been expanded to 131, with some minor passages from the former edition retracted (nos. 19, 23, 89, and 111 in that edition). The new texts are: under “Magic,” (2) Hippocrates On the Sacred Disease1–4, (4) Aesop Fable56 Perry, (21) PGMIV.1495–1546, (26) PGMIV. 2943–66; under “Daemonology,” (56) Phlegon of Tralles Mirabilia1, (75) Suppl. Mag.13, (76) Kotansky amulet no. 13; under “Divination,” (94) Plutarch On the Oracles of the Pythia6; under “Astrology,” (103) Dio Cassius 49.43.5 and 52.36.1–2, (114) Firmicus Maternus Mathesis2.29.10–12, (116) Ptolemy Tetrabiblus1.2.20, (120) Manetho Apotelesmatica4.271–85; and under “Alchemy,” (131) Theophrastus Concerning Odors8.14–16, 21–23.

All these additions are valuable and welcome. While I can understand Luck’s desire to present us with a tidy new edition, it is a pity, from a pedagogical point of view, that he chose not to preserve the numeration of the first edition and identify the additional passages in supplementary fashion (e.g., 102a). I recall the chaos of trying to teach from Lefkowitz and Fant’s sourcebook Women’s Life in Greece and Rome(London, 1982, 1992) when one half of the class had the book in its first edition and the other half the differently numbered second edition (and since then a third edition, 2005). Luck has brought his general bibliography up to date well, and there has been a certain amount of refreshing of bibliographical references in endnotes, although the process of refreshment has perhaps not been applied evenly across the board. The layout of the new Arcana Mundiis much to be commended. In the first edition it could be strangely difficult, at first glance, to distinguish between the translated texts and Luck’s own introductions to them. The second edition now sensibly differentiates these by font.

There have been other major additions at front and rear. Bowing to pressure, perhaps, from the ever-burgeoning magic-definition industry, Luck now prefaces his chapters with a twenty-nine-page introductory essay, “Exploring Ancient Magic.” This has roots in the Spanish edition and appeared in an earlier English version in Luck’s Ancient Pathways and Hidden Pursuits(Michigan, 2000), 203–22. Luck’s essay stands out among its industrial competitors for its lucidity. The end of the book is enhanced by two engaging new pieces. The first is a twenty-two-page “epilogue” on the survival of pagan magic; the second is a fourteen-page “appendix” on “psychoactive substances in religion and magic.” Also new is a glossary of terms relating to ancient magic.

Despite the changes, the original character of Luck...