Securing Divine Favor or Influence

Alongside the more common manifestations of state religion, ancient peoples sought individual contact and assistance, along with influence, with the heavenly realms through other channels. Prominent among these means, of securing individual divine favor or influence, falls something that ancient authors and practitioners associated with the term “magic”. Associations with this term tend to be an evolving process in ancient literature, but generally speaking ancient magic reflects aspects of broader religious traditions in the Mediterranean world, that is, a belief in magic reflects a belief in deities, divination, and words of power.

The concept of magic however came to represent a more coherent and self-reflective tradition exemplified by magicians seeking to fuse varying non-traditional elements of Greco-Roman religious practice into something specifically called magic. This fusing of practices reached its peak in the world of the Roman Empire, in the third to fifth centuries of our era.