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Abstract

Despite the semantic stratification and a complex diachronic evolution, spanning more than seven centuries, which characterizes that phenomenon commonly referred to as ‘Roman witchcraft’, scholars have mainly investigated it following anthropological and socio-cultural approaches (cf. Scobie 1978, Johnston 1999, and Stratton 2007). The only attempt to study the terminology of ‘witchcraft’ after the outdated survey by Burriss (1936) is that of Paule (2014), whose synchronic analysis lacks a chronological and historical contextualization, and reaches the unsatisfactory conclusion that the so-called “Latin witch vocabulary” is simply confused and inaccurate. This paper presents a new terminological enquiry framed in a diachronic perspective, which aims to show how the terminology of ‘witchcraft’ and the ideas related to it entered the Roman world through Greek language and culture, with a process comparable to that of μάγος and its Latin counterpart magus (cf. Costantini 2019). I shall examine literary, historical, grammatical, and epigraphic sources and offer a lexicographical examination of the terminology used in Latin to describe the female practitioner of magic, or ‘witch’, from Plautus’ time to late-antique sources. Attention will be paid to four main terms: malefica, saga, uenefica, and especially the Greek loanword strix alongside its popular doublet striga. This will make it possible to finally cast light on how the Romans borrowed the Greek term ρίξ and the ideas attached to it, refashioning its phonetic and semantic features, especially in the case of the metaplasmic form striga which is at the root of the Romance forms “estrie” (Old French), “estria” (Portuguese), “striga” (Romanian), and “strega” (Italian). In doing so, this study will not only allow for a better understanding of this set of terms and their complex semantic development over time, but it will also offer a terminological analysis that aims to contribute to the ThLL entries saga, strix/striga, and uenefica.

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