Lecture Intro: Magicae Feminae

Hey folks,

Mr. Gallagher here!  I love mythology, and I was originally drawn to Classics in the first place because of the wonderfully rich stories of authors like Ovid and Homer.  As I learned more and more about mythology, I grew enamored with Medea in particular.  I loved her growth as a character, and that lead me to want to learn more about her, and in turn, more about the other witches and magical women of the ancient world.

While many of you may have heard of the most famous mythological witches like Medea or Circe, there are a number of other really cool magical women from the ancient world that get overlooked.  In my class, I'll be showing you some of these witches (such as Lucan's Erictho or Horace's Canidia) while exploring the very idea of a witch itself and the perception of witches in both the ancient and modern world.

We'll be looking at everything from laws to gravestones to epic poetry to elegiac poetry in our quest to understand the Roman witch.  Some of the witches will be focused on making love potions, while others will be gathering morbid ingredients to draw the moon down from the sky or even resurrect the dead!   Buckle up, it's going to get a little bit spooky!