A representação das bruxas e da bruxaria na literatura latina da antiguidade clássica

Abstract

This work demonstrates the presence of magic in Latin literature of classical antiquity and elaborates interpretations on the representation of witches and witchcraft during this period. Our proposal consists of analyzing how magical agents and their practices were portrayed in Rome based on a literary corpus that spans from the end of the Republic to approximately 161-180 AD. We intend to investigate literary portrayals that revolve around the cultural construction of gender, religious repression, and other issues that frequently orbit the theme of witchcraft. To explain magical practice as a social reality, we rely on historiographical, epigraphical, and anthropological bases in order to understand the correlation between the phenomenon of witchcraft rituals and their representations in literature. The selected texts, in poetry and prose, deal with the magical arts performed by mythological sorceresses such as Medea, described by Ovid and Seneca, and other characters created by Latin writers, such as the sorceresses and sorcerers of Virgil, Horace, Lucan, Petronius, and Apuleius.