The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times by Christopher A. Faraone (review)

This magisterial volume is the product of Christopher Faraone's sustained investigation, now spanning more than three decades, of "magical" objects and formulations from the Greek and Roman worlds. In that interval, Faraone's scope expanded from his initial interest in Greek curses and spells to a wider array of formulations and materials, particularly images and inscriptions on gems. Throughout, he has aimed to interpret object, image, and text primarily in relation to the literary and cultural contexts of the Greek and Roman worlds, while not ignoring Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Phoenician antecedents or parallels. In this book he offers a sustained argument for this reading of the evidence. The proliferation of "magical" images and texts on a variety of media during the Roman Empire was not, as he puts it, "a result of any alteration in the Zeitgeist or a tidal wave of 'oriental' influence" (1); rather, it was the result of changes in the way long-standing "magical" remedies were given shape, image, and text. The introduction of text, a reflection of the growing tendency to inscribe things in the Roman imperial period (the "epigraphic habit"), is especially significant. As Faraone argues repeatedly throughout the book, the addition of text to an object or an image in the Roman period confirms that comparable objects and images without text in prior periods had a similar purpose. Figurines and gems from the Hellenistic period are now recognized for what they were: amulets.

The book is divided into three sections, each comprising three chapters. Part One, "Archaeology," reviews what can be learned about the use and production of amulets from the material record of the Greek-speaking world in the classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Vase paintings and statuary display children with a string of amulets worn diagonally across the torso and women with similar strings around their waist or thigh. Numerous examples of the types of pendants depicted on these strings—medallions with the Gorgon's head or other deities, crescent moons (lunulae), and amulet cases—have been preserved, along with a few complete necklaces or strings retrieved from the graves of children. Faraone discusses several groups of pendants in more detail: weapons (the club of Heracles was a favorite), seashells, animals, parts of real animals, and depictions of human body parts (the frontal eye, female and male genitalia, an obscene hand gesture representing the vulva). The protective power of the vulva is forcibly represented in figurines of a naked woman pointing to her vagina or brandishing a club, while the protective power of the phallus, widely represented throughout antiquity, is confirmed by literary evidence and phalli inscribed with text from the Roman period. The section concludes with a discussion of the power attributed to the various media used for amulets: metals, plants, and stones. The properties assigned to the latter when rubbed, fumigated, or worn—properties, again, learned from written manuals or inscribed stones—go some distance to explaining their value as effective materials.

In Part Two, "Images," Faraone investigates how the protective use of images becomes more explicit in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods. For some longstanding images, such as the frontal eye or the self-strangling Phthonos, the addition of an array of creatures attacking the image heightens its power to protect against envy. Two archaic scenes from the life of Heracles—of him strangling snakes as a child and strangling the lion as a man—likewise persist over time. Both images, Faraone perceptively notes, occur before Heracles became invulnerable, thus offering a more persuasive analogy for protecting the vulnerable. One fascinating phenomenon, to which Faraone devotes a chapter, is the production of miniature versions of images or figurines used in the shrines of houses and shops: naked Horus grasping animals, a frontal head (Hermes) and phallus, the triple-faced Hecate, Mercury and his money sack. The presence of an element associated with the domestic cult, such as the base...