Are they, and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host, Matt Smith, and with me today is Associate Professor Rihanna Nevens, head

at the Department of Languages and Linguistics at Latrobe University.

This is episode C-L-X-X-V-I, witches in the Roman world, a witch-occupied estranged

niche in the Roman world, distrusted but respected, persecuted but employed by the most elite,

a witch in Rome existed on the sidelines and spoken of in hushes, and to many of the

powerful, a weapon that could be employed.

Here's Rihanna Nevens.

What was the witch in the context of the ancient world?

Well, it's an interesting question.

Some people would say that it's not one we should ask, which is a medieval invention.

We should call them female practitioners of magic, they're worse on men, but most

of those in our sources turn up as female.

I think it's fine to gloss that as witches.

It's just that if we imagine a figure in black on a broomstick, that doesn't occur in antiquity

in our sources.

That is a later invention and one that's kind of spawned specifically by films like S.

or it's been made concrete in our heads by that, but we do have women often connected

to magical acts, sometimes involving sorcery and spells and potions that are often seen

as illicit, sometimes illegal, malevolent in some way.

The other thing I think we need to bear in mind is that there does seem to be a broad

division between the way that Greeks and Romans thought about witchcraft and witches.

...