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121-402: The word necromancy is adapted from Late Latin necromantia : a loan word from the post-Classical Greek νεκρομαντεία ( nekromanteía , or 'divination through a dead body'), a compound of Ancient Greek νεκρός ( nekrós , or 'dead body') and μαντεία ( manteía , or 'divination'). The Koine Greek compound form was first documented in the writings of Origen of Alexandria in

242-534: A "decline and fall", as Edward Gibbon put it, of imperial society. Writers taking this line relied heavily on the scandalous behavior of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the bad emperors reported by Tacitus and other writers and later by the secret history of Procopius , who hated his royal employers to such a degree that he could not contain himself about their real methods and way of life any longer. They, however, spoke elegant Latin. The Protestants changed

363-542: A "group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from strips of cat skin" were obviously participating in what the Church would define as "necromancy". Herbert Stanley Redgrove claims necromancy as one of three chief branches of medieval ceremonial magic , alongside black magic and white magic . This does not correspond to contemporary classifications, which often conflate "nigromancy" ("black-knowledge") with "necromancy" ("death-knowledge"). In

484-504: A Tuticanus, whose name, Ovid complains, does not fit into meter. The final poem is addressed to an enemy whom Ovid implores to leave him alone. The last elegiac couplet is translated: "Where's the joy in stabbing your steel into my dead flesh?/ There's no place left where I can be dealt fresh wounds." One loss, which Ovid himself described, is the first five-book edition of the Amores , from which nothing has come down to us. The greatest loss

605-461: A belief in the manipulation of spiritual beings – especially demons – and magical practices. These practitioners were almost always literate and well educated. Most possessed basic knowledge of exorcism and had access to texts of astrology and of demonology . Clerical training was informal and university-based education rare. Most were trained under apprenticeships and were expected to have a basic knowledge of Latin, ritual and doctrine. This education

726-399: A branch of theurgic magic . As to the practice of necromancy having endured in one form or another throughout the millennia, An Encyclopædia of Occultism states: The art is of almost universal usage. Considerable difference of opinion exists among modern adepts as to the exact methods to be properly pursued in the necromantic art, and it must be borne in mind that necromancy, which in

847-421: A collection of twenty-one poems in elegiac couplets. The Heroides take the form of letters addressed by famous mythological characters to their partners expressing their emotions at being separated from them, pleas for their return, and allusions to their future actions within their own mythology. The authenticity of the collection, partially or as a whole, has been questioned, although most scholars would consider

968-501: A coming battle ( 1 Samuel 28:3–25 ). However, the so-called witch was shocked at the presence of a familiar spirit in the image of Samuel for in I Sam 28:7 states "Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor" and in I Sam 28:12 says, "when the woman saw Samuel, she cried out in a loud voice", and the familiar spirit questioned his reawakening, asking as if he were Samuel the Prophet, "Why hast thou disquieted me?" Saul died

1089-406: A decadency, that it became nothing better than a barbarous jargon. It is the style of these times that is given the name of Low Latin .... What indeed could be expected from this language, at a time when the barbarians had taken possession of Europe, but especially of Italy; when the empire of the east was governed by idiots; when there was a total corruption of morals; when the priests and monks were

1210-472: A doctor and utilizes medical imagery. Some have interpreted this poem as the close of Ovid's didactic cycle of love poetry and the end of his erotic elegiac project. The Metamorphoses , Ovid's most ambitious and well-known work, consists of a 15-book catalogue written in dactylic hexameter about transformations in Greek and Roman mythology set within a loose mytho-historical framework. The word "metamorphoses"

1331-445: A friend of poets in the circle of Maecenas . In Tristia 4.10.41–54, Ovid mentions friendships with Macer, Propertius , Ponticus and Bassus, and claims to have heard Horace recite. He only barely met Virgil and Tibullus , a fellow member of Messalla's circle, whose elegies he admired greatly. He married three times and had divorced twice by the time he was thirty. He had one daughter and grandchildren through her. His last wife

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1452-466: A guardian to let the poet see Corinna, poem 6 is a lament for Corinna's dead parrot; poems 7 and 8 deal with Ovid's affair with Corinna's servant and her discovery of it, and 11 and 12 try to prevent Corinna from going on vacation. Poem 13 is a prayer to Isis for Corinna's illness, 14 a poem against abortion, and 19 a warning to unwary husbands. Book 3 has 15 poems. The opening piece depicts personified Tragedy and Elegy fighting over Ovid. Poem 2 describes

1573-554: A large empire, Latin tended to become simpler, to keep above all what it had of the ordinary." The origin of the term 'Late Latin' remains obscure. A notice in Harper's New Monthly Magazine of the publication of Andrews' Freund's Lexicon of the Latin Language in 1850 mentions that the dictionary divides Latin into ante-classic, quite classic, Ciceronian, Augustan, post-Augustan and post-classic or late Latin, which indicates

1694-464: A later addition to the corpus because they are never mentioned by Ovid and may or may not be spurious. The Heroides markedly reveal the influence of rhetorical declamation and may derive from Ovid's interest in rhetorical suasoriae , persuasive speeches, and ethopoeia , the practice of speaking in another character. They also play with generic conventions; most of the letters seem to refer to works in which these characters were significant, such as

1815-507: A lover; Ovid then digresses on the story of Vulcan's trap for Venus and Mars . The book ends with Ovid asking his "students" to spread his fame. Book 3 opens with a vindication of women's abilities and Ovid's resolution to arm women against his teaching in the first two books. Ovid gives women detailed instructions on appearance telling them to avoid too many adornments. He advises women to read elegiac poetry, learn to play games, sleep with people of different ages, flirt, and dissemble. Throughout

1936-578: A marketplace in the underworld where the dead convene to exchange news and gossip. There are also several references to necromancers – called "bone-conjurers" among Jews of the later Hellenistic period – in the Bible . The Book of Deuteronomy ( 18:9–12 ) explicitly warns the Israelites against engaging in the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead: When thou art come into the land which

2057-423: A new Christian context, albeit demonic and forbidden. As the material for these manuals was apparently derived from scholarly magical and religious texts from a variety of sources in many languages, the scholars who studied these texts likely manufactured their own aggregate sourcebook and manual with which to work spells or magic. In the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci , it is stated that "Of all human opinions that

2178-450: A noon tryst, introduces Corinna by name. Poems 8 and 9 deal with Corinna selling her love for gifts, while 11 and 12 describe the poet's failed attempt to arrange a meeting. Poem 14 discusses Corinna's disastrous experiment in dyeing her hair and 15 stresses the immortality of Ovid and love poets. The second book has 19 pieces; the opening poem tells of Ovid's abandonment of a Gigantomachy in favor of elegy . Poems 2 and 3 are entreaties to

2299-511: A piece on the Rape of the Sabine women , Pasiphaë , and Ariadne . Book 2 invokes Apollo and begins with a telling of the story of Icarus . Ovid advises men to avoid giving too many gifts, keep up their appearance, hide affairs, compliment their lovers, and ingratiate themselves with slaves to stay on their lover's good side. The care of Venus for procreation is described as is Apollo's aid in keeping

2420-528: A place among the chief Roman elegists Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, of whom he saw himself as the fourth member. By AD 8, Ovid had completed Metamorphoses , a hexameter epic poem in 15 books, which comprehensively catalogs the metamorphoses in Greek and Roman mythology, from the emergence of the cosmos to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar . The stories follow each other in the telling of human beings transformed to new bodies: trees, rocks, animals, flowers, constellations , etc. Simultaneously, he worked on

2541-468: A poem about the Roman calendar, of which only the first six books exist – January through June. He learned Sarmatian and Getic . The five books of the elegiac Tristia , a series of poems expressing the poet's despair in exile and advocating his return to Rome, are dated to AD 9–12. The Ibis , an elegiac curse poem attacking an unnamed adversary, may also be dated to this period. The Epistulae ex Ponto ,

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2662-405: A poem against criticism (9), and a dream of Cupid (3). Book 4, the final work of Ovid, in 16 poems talks to friends and describes his life as an exile further. Poems 10 and 13 describe Winter and Spring at Tomis, poem 14 is halfhearted praise for Tomis, 7 describes its geography and climate, and 4 and 9 are congratulations on friends for their consulships and requests for help. Poem 12 is addressed to

2783-579: A second unity of style, infima Latinitas , translated into English as "Low Latin" (which in the one-period case would be identical to media Latinitas ). Du Cange in the glossarial part of his Glossary identifies some words as being used by purioris Latinitatis scriptores , such as Cicero (of the Golden Age). He has already said in the Preface that he rejects the ages scheme used by some: Golden Age, Silver Age, Brass Age, Iron Age. A second category are

2904-750: A series of letters to friends in Rome asking them to effect his return, are thought to be his last compositions, with the first three books published in AD 13 and the fourth book between AD 14 and 16. The exile poetry is particularly emotive and personal. In the Epistulae he claims friendship with the natives of Tomis (in the Tristia they are frightening barbarians) and to have written a poem in their language ( Ex Ponto , 4.13.19–20). Yet he pined for Rome – and for his third wife, addressing many poems to her. Some are also to

3025-472: A series of supports and refutations in the short space of five years. Among the supporting reasons Brown presents are: Ovid's exile is only mentioned by his own work, except in "dubious" passages by Pliny the Elder and Statius , but no other author until the 4th century; that the author of Heroides was able to separate the poetic "I" of his own and real life; and that information on the geography of Tomis

3146-529: A significant year in Roman politics. Along with his brother, who excelled at oratory, Ovid was educated in rhetoric in Rome under the teachers Arellius Fuscus and Porcius Latro . His father wanted him to study rhetoric so that he might practice law. According to Seneca the Elder, Ovid tended to the emotional, not the argumentative pole of rhetoric. Following the death of his brother at 20 years of age, Ovid renounced law and travelled to Athens , Asia Minor , and Sicily . He held minor public posts, as one of

3267-510: A single continuous style. Of the two-style interpretations the Late Latin period of Erich Auerbach and others is one of the shortest: "In the first half of the 6th century, which witnessed the beginning and end of Ostrogoth rule in Italy , Latin literature becomes medieval. Boethius was the last 'ancient' author and the role of Rome as the center of the ancient world, as communis patria ,

3388-405: A teacher of love. Ovid describes the places one can go to find a lover, like the theater, a triumph, which he thoroughly describes, or arena – and ways to get the girl to take notice, including seducing her covertly at a banquet. Choosing the right time is significant, as is getting into her associates' confidence. Ovid emphasizes care of the body for the lover. Mythological digressions include

3509-406: A theory that is little considered among scholars of Latin civilization today: that Ovid was never exiled from Rome and that all of his exile works are the result of his fertile imagination. This theory was supported and rejected in the 1930s, especially by Dutch authors. In 1985, a research paper by Fitton Brown advanced new arguments in support of Hartman's theory. Brown's article was followed by

3630-464: A visit to the races, 3 and 8 focus on Corinna's interest in other men, 10 is a complaint to Ceres because of her festival that requires abstinence, 13 is a poem on a festival of Juno , and 9 a lament for Tibullus . In poem 11 Ovid decides not to love Corinna any longer and regrets the poems he has written about her. The final poem is Ovid's farewell to the erotic muse. Critics have seen the poems as highly self-conscious and extremely playful specimens of

3751-520: A written language, Late Latin is not the same as Vulgar Latin , or more specifically, the spoken Latin of the post Imperial period. The latter served as ancestor of the Romance languages . Although Late Latin reflects an upsurge of the use of Vulgar Latin vocabulary and constructs, it remains largely classical in its overall features, depending on the author who uses it. Some Late Latin writings are more literary and classical, but others are more inclined to

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3872-568: Is 900 CE. until 75 BC Old Latin 75 BC – 200 AD Classical Latin 200–700 Late Latin 700–1500 Medieval Latin 1300–1500 Renaissance Latin 1300– present Neo-Latin 1900– present Contemporary Latin Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso ( Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs ɔˈwɪdiʊs ˈnaːso(ː)] ; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( / ˈ ɒ v ɪ d / OV -id ),

3993-454: Is Ovid's only tragedy, Medea , from which only a few lines are preserved. Quintilian admired the work a great deal and considered it a prime example of Ovid's poetic talent. Lactantius quotes from a lost translation by Ovid of Aratus ' Phaenomena , although the poem's ascription to Ovid is insecure because it is never mentioned in Ovid's other works. A line from a work entitled Epigrammata

4114-400: Is a didactic elegiac poem in three books that sets out to teach the arts of seduction and love. The first book addresses men and teaches them how to seduce women, the second, also to men, teaches how to keep a lover. The third addresses women and teaches seduction techniques. The first book opens with an invocation to Venus, in which Ovid establishes himself as a praeceptor amoris (1.17) –

4235-491: Is also known for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti . His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages , and greatly influenced Western art and literature . The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology today. Ovid wrote more about his own life than most other Roman poets. Information about his biography

4356-474: Is drawn primarily from his poetry, especially Tristia 4.10, which gives a lengthy autobiographical account of his life. Other sources include Seneca the Elder and Quintilian . Ovid was born in the Paelignian town of Sulmo (modern-day Sulmona , in the province of L'Aquila , Abruzzo), in an Apennine valley east of Rome , to an important equestrian family, the gens Ovidia , on 20 March 43 BC –

4477-473: Is found in Homer 's Odyssey . Under the direction of Circe , a powerful sorceress, Odysseus travels to the underworld ( katabasis ) in order to gain insight about his impending voyage home by raising the spirits of the dead through the use of spells which Circe has taught him. He wishes to invoke and question the shade of Tiresias in particular; however, he is unable to summon the seer's spirit without

4598-601: Is going to use his abilities to hurt his enemy. He cites Callimachus' Ibis as his inspiration and calls all the gods to make his curse effective. Ovid uses mythical exempla to condemn his enemy in the afterlife, cites evil prodigies that attended his birth, and then in the next 300 lines wishes that the torments of mythological characters befall his enemy. The poem ends with a prayer that the gods make his curse effective. The Tristia consist of five books of elegiac poetry composed by Ovid in exile in Tomis. Book 1 contains 11 poems;

4719-407: Is most corrupt. By corrupt, du Cange only meant that the language had resorted to nonclassical vocabulary and constructs from various sources, but his choice of words was unfortunate. It allowed the "corruption" to extend to other aspects of society, providing fuel for the fires of religious (Catholic vs. Protestant) and class (conservative vs. revolutionary) conflict. Low Latin passed from the heirs of

4840-599: Is no evidence that these necromancers ever organized as a group. One noted commonality among practitioners of necromancy was usually the utilization of certain toxic and hallucinogenic plants from the nightshade family such as black henbane , jimson weed , belladonna or mandrake , usually in magic salves or potions. Medieval necromancy is believed to be a synthesis of astral magic derived from Arabic influences and exorcism derived from Christian and Jewish teachings. Arabic influences are evident in rituals that involve moon phases, sun placement, day and time. Fumigation and

4961-545: Is of Greek origin and means "transformations". Appropriately, the characters in this work undergo many different transformations. Within an extent of nearly 12,000 verses, almost 250 different myths are mentioned. Each myth is set outdoors where the mortals are often vulnerable to external influences. The poem stands in the tradition of mythological and etiological catalogue poetry such as Hesiod 's Catalogue of Women , Callimachus ' Aetia , Nicander 's Heteroeumena , and Parthenius ' Metamorphoses . The first book describes

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5082-538: Is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity . English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries AD , and continuing into the 7th century in the Iberian Peninsula . This somewhat ambiguously defined version of Latin was used between the eras of Classical Latin and Medieval Latin . Scholars do not agree exactly when Classical Latin should end or Medieval Latin should begin. Being

5203-649: Is to be reputed the most foolish which deals with the belief in Necromancy, the sister of Alchemy , which gives birth to simple and natural things." In the present day, necromancy is more generally used as a term to describe manipulation of death and the dead, or the pretense thereof, often facilitated through the use of ritual magic or some other kind of occult ceremony. Contemporary séances , channeling and Spiritualism verge on necromancy when supposedly invoked spirits are asked to reveal future events or secret information. Necromancy may also be presented as sciomancy,

5324-572: Is understanding what media , "middle", and infima , "low", mean in this context. The term media is securely connected to Medieval Latin by du Cange's own terminology expounded in the Praefatio , such as scriptores mediae aetatis , "writers of the middle age". Du Cange's Glossary takes words from authors ranging from the Christian period (Late Latin) to the Renaissance , dipping into

5445-601: The Ars Amatoria (the Art of Love ), a parody of didactic poetry and a three-book manual about seduction and intrigue, which has been dated to AD 2 (Books 1–2 would go back to 1 BC ). Ovid may identify this work in his exile poetry as the carmen , or song, which was one cause of his banishment. The Ars Amatoria was followed by the Remedia Amoris in the same year. This corpus of elegiac, erotic poetry earned Ovid

5566-688: The Ars Amatoria concerned the serious crime of adultery . He may have been banished for these works, which appeared subversive to the emperor's moral legislation. However, in view of the long time that elapsed between the publication of this work (1 BC) and the exile (AD 8), some authors suggest that Augustus used the poem as a mere justification for something more personal. In exile, Ovid wrote two poetry collections, Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto , which illustrated his sadness and desolation. Being far from Rome, he had no access to libraries, and thus might have been forced to abandon his Fasti ,

5687-651: The Aeneid in the case of Dido and Catullus 64 for Ariadne, and transfer characters from the genres of epic and tragedy to the elegiac genre of the Heroides . The letters have been admired for their deep psychological portrayals of mythical characters, their rhetoric, and their unique attitude to the classical tradition of mythology. They also contribute significantly to conversations on how gender and identity were constructed in Augustan Rome. A popular quote from

5808-462: The Fasti , a six-book poem in elegiac couplets on the theme of the calendar of Roman festivals and astronomy. The composition of this poem was interrupted by Ovid's exile, and it is thought that Ovid abandoned work on the piece in Tomis. It is probably in this period that the double letters (16–21) in the Heroides were composed, although there is some contention over their authorship. In AD 8, Ovid

5929-507: The Munich Manual of Demonic Magic : The rare confessions of those accused of necromancy suggest that there was a range of spell casting and related magical experimentation. It is difficult to determine if these details were due to their practices, as opposed to the whims of their interrogators. John of Salisbury is one of the first examples related by Richard Kieckhefer , but as a Parisian ecclesiastical court record of 1323 shows,

6050-500: The tresviri capitales , as a member of the Centumviral court and as one of the decemviri litibus iudicandis , but resigned to pursue poetry probably around 29–25 BC, a decision of which his father apparently disapproved. Ovid's first recitation has been dated to around 25 BC, when he was eighteen. He was part of the circle centered on the esteemed patron Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus , and likewise seems to have been

6171-500: The Ars Amatoria , and is primarily addressed to men. The poem criticizes suicide as a means for escaping love and, invoking Apollo, goes on to tell lovers not to procrastinate and be lazy in dealing with love. Lovers are taught to avoid their partners, not perform magic, see their lover unprepared, take other lovers, and never be jealous. Old letters should be burned and the lover's family avoided. The poem throughout presents Ovid as

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6292-471: The Holy Roman Empire ) under Charlemagne . Toward the end of his reign his administration conducted some language reforms. The first recognition that Late Latin could not be understood by the masses and therefore was not a lingua franca was the decrees of 813 CE by synods at Mainz , Rheims Tours that from then on preaching was to be done in a language more understandable to the people, which

6413-550: The Metamorphoses , scholars have focused on Ovid's organization of his vast body of material. The ways that stories are linked by geography, themes, or contrasts creates interesting effects and constantly forces the reader to evaluate the connections. Ovid also varies his tone and material from different literary genres; G. B. Conte has called the poem "a sort of gallery of these various literary genres". In this spirit, Ovid engages creatively with his predecessors, alluding to

6534-509: The Metamorphoses , the Fasti was to be a long poem and emulated etiological poetry by writers like Callimachus and, more recently, Propertius and his fourth book. The poem goes through the Roman calendar, explaining the origins and customs of important Roman festivals, digressing on mythical stories, and giving astronomical and agricultural information appropriate to the season. The poem was probably dedicated to Augustus initially, but perhaps

6655-476: The battle of the centaurs , and Iphigeneia . The thirteenth book discusses the contest over Achilles' arms , and Polyphemus . The fourteenth moves to Italy, describing the journey of Aeneas , Pomona and Vertumnus , and Romulus and Hersilia . The final book opens with a philosophical lecture by Pythagoras and the deification of Caesar . The end of the poem praises Augustus and expresses Ovid's belief that his poem has earned him immortality. In analyzing

6776-491: The classical period if a word originated there. Either media et infima Latinitas refers to one age, which must be the middle age covering the entire post-classical range, or it refers to two consecutive periods, infima Latinitas and media Latinitas . Both interpretations have their adherents. In the former case, the infimae appears extraneous; it recognizes the corruptio of the corrupta Latinitas which du Cange said his Glossary covered. The two-period case postulates

6897-441: The ghosts of deceased forebears. Classical necromancers addressed the dead in "a mixture of high-pitch squeaking and low droning", comparable to the trance-state mutterings of shamans. Necromancy was prevalent throughout antiquity with records of its practice in ancient Egypt , Babylonia , Greece , ancient Etruria , Rome , and China . In his Geographica , Strabo refers to νεκρομαντία ( nekromantia ), or "diviners by

7018-407: The inferioris Latinitatis scriptores , such as Apuleius (Silver Age). The third and main category are the infimae Latinitatis scriptores , who must be post-classical; that is, Late Latin, unless they are also medieval. His failure to state which authors are low leaves the issue unresolved. He does, however, give some idea of the source of his infima , which is a classical word, "lowest", of which

7139-485: The vernacular . As such it is an important source of information about changes in the spoken language, while not being a simple replication of the state of the oral language at the time. Also, Late Latin is not identical to Christian patristic Latin, used in the theological writings of the early Christian fathers. While Christian writings used a subset of Late Latin, pagans , such as Ammianus Marcellinus or Macrobius , also wrote extensively in Late Latin, especially in

7260-601: The 3rd century AD. The Classical Greek term was ἡ νέκυια ( nekyia ), from the episode of the Odyssey in which Odysseus visits the realm of the dead souls, and νεκρομαντεία in Hellenistic Greek; necromantīa in Latin , and necromancy in 17th-century English. Early necromancy was related to – and most likely evolved from –forms of shamanism or prehistoric ritual magic that calls upon spirits such as

7381-614: The Emperor Augustus, yet others are to himself, to friends in Rome, and sometimes to the poems themselves, expressing loneliness and hope of recall from banishment or exile. The obscure causes of Ovid's exile have given rise to much speculation by scholars. The medieval texts that mention the exile offer no credible explanations: their statements seem incorrect interpretations drawn from the works of Ovid. Ovid himself wrote many references to his offense, giving obscure or contradictory clues. In 1923, scholar J. J. Hartman proposed

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7502-464: The Heroides anticipates Machiavelli's "the end justifies the means". Ovid had written "Exitus acta probat" – the result justifies the means. The Amores is a collection in three books of love poetry in elegiac meter, following the conventions of the elegiac genre developed by Tibullus and Propertius . Elegy originates with Propertius and Tibullus, but Ovid is an innovator in the genre. Ovid changes

7623-534: The Italian renaissance to the new philologists of the northern and Germanic climes, where it became a different concept. In Britain, Gildas ' view that Britain fell to the Anglo-Saxons because it was morally slack was already well known to the scholarly world. The northern Protestants now worked a role reversal; if the language was "corrupt", it must be symptomatic of a corrupt society, which indubitably led to

7744-473: The LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or who useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all who do these things are an abomination unto

7865-464: The LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee ( KJV ). Though Mosaic Law prescribed the death penalty to practitioners of necromancy ( Leviticus 20:27 ), this warning was not always heeded. One of the foremost examples is when King Saul had the Witch of Endor invoke the spirit of Samuel , a judge and prophet , from Sheol to divine the outcome of

7986-528: The Middle Ages was called sorcery, shades into modern spiritualistic practice. There is no doubt, however, that necromancy is the touch-stone of occultism, for if, after careful preparation the adept can carry through to a successful issue, the raising of the soul from the other world, he has proved the value of his art. The archvillain in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings fantasy, Sauron, first reappears in

8107-753: The Silver Age and then goes on to define other ages first by dynasty and then by century (see under Classical Latin ). In subsequent editions he subsumed all periods under three headings: the First Period ( Old Latin ), the Second Period (the Golden Age) and the Third Period, "the Imperial Age", subdivided into the Silver Age, the 2nd century, and the 3rd–6th centuries together, which was a recognition of Late Latin, as he sometimes refers to

8228-471: The Younger and Agrippa Postumus (the latter adopted by him), were also banished around the same time. Julia's husband, Lucius Aemilius Paullus , was put to death for a conspiracy against Augustus , a conspiracy of which Ovid potentially knew. The Julian marriage laws of 18 BC , which promoted monogamous marriage to increase the population's birth rate, were fresh in the Roman mind. Ovid's writing in

8349-420: The act of burying images are also found in both astral magic and necromancy. Christian and Jewish influences appear in the symbols and in the conjuration formulas used in summoning rituals. Practitioners were often members of the Christian clergy, though some nonclerical practitioners are recorded. In some instances, mere apprentices or those ordained to lower orders dabbled in the practice. They were connected by

8470-440: The assistance of others. The Odyssey ' s passages contain many descriptive references to necromantic rituals: rites must be performed around a pit with fire during nocturnal hours, and Odysseus has to follow a specific recipe, which includes the blood of sacrificial animals, to concoct a libation for the ghosts to drink while he recites prayers to both the ghosts and gods of the underworld. Practices such as these, varying from

8591-543: The author. Its origins are obscure, but the Latin expression media et infima Latinitas sprang into public notice in 1678 in the title of a Glossary (by today's standards a dictionary) by Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange . The multivolume set had many editions and expansions by other authors subsequently. The title varies somewhat; most commonly used was Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis . It has been translated by expressions of widely different meanings. The uncertainty

8712-532: The authors of the Manual knowingly designed the book to be in discord with ecclesiastical law . The main recipe employed throughout the Manual used the same religious language and names of power alongside demonic names. An understanding of the names of God derived from apocryphal texts and the Hebrew Torah required that the author of such rites have at least a casual familiarity with these sources. Within

8833-419: The book, Ovid playfully interjects, criticizing himself for undoing all his didactic work to men and mythologically digresses on the story of Procris and Cephalus . The book ends with his wish that women will follow his advice and spread his fame saying Naso magister erat, "Ovid was our teacher". (Ovid was known as "Naso" to his contemporaries. ) This elegiac poem proposes a cure for the love Ovid teaches in

8954-550: The capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia , on the Black Sea , where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars. Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses , a continuous mythological narrative in fifteen books written in dactylic hexameters . He

9075-459: The comparative degree is inferior , "lower". In the preface, he opposes the style of the scriptores aevi inferioris (Silver Age) to the elegantes sermones , "elegant speech", the high and low styles of Latinitas defined by the classical authors. Apparently, du Cange was basing his low style on sermo humilis , the simplified speech devised by Late Latin Christian writers to address the ordinary people. Humilis (humble, humility) means "low", "of

9196-528: The date is uncertain as it depends on a notice in Am. 2.18.19–26 that seems to describe the collection as an early published work. The authenticity of some of these poems has been challenged, but this first edition probably contained the first 14 poems of the collection. The first five-book collection of the Amores , a series of erotic poems addressed to a lover, Corinna, is thought to have been published in 16–15 BC;

9317-604: The dead", as the foremost practitioners of divination among the people of Persia , and it is believed to have also been widespread among the peoples of Chaldea (particularly the Hermeticists , or "star-worshipers") and Babylonia. The Babylonian necromancers were called manzazuu or sha'etemmu , and the spirits they raised were called etemmu . Traditional Chinese folk religion involves necromancy in seeking blessing from dead ancestors through ritual displays of filial piety . The oldest literary account of necromancy

9438-567: The death of the emperor prompted Ovid to change the dedication to honor Germanicus . Ovid uses direct inquiry of gods and scholarly research to talk about the calendar and regularly calls himself a vates , a seer. He also seems to emphasize unsavory, popular traditions of the festivals, imbuing the poem with a popular, plebeian flavor, which some have interpreted as subversive to the Augustan moral legislation. While this poem has always been invaluable to students of Roman religion and culture for

9559-462: The early part of the period. Late Latin formed when large numbers of non-Latin-speaking peoples on the borders of the empire were being subsumed and assimilated, and the rise of Christianity was introducing a heightened divisiveness in Roman society, creating a greater need for a standard language for communicating between different socioeconomic registers and widely separated regions of the sprawling empire. A new and more universal speech evolved from

9680-618: The elegiac genre. About a hundred elegiac lines survive from this poem on beauty treatments for women's faces, which seems to parody serious didactic poetry. The poem says that women should concern themselves first with manners and then prescribes several compounds for facial treatments before breaking off. The style is not unlike the shorter Hellenistic didactic works of Nicander and Aratus .       Si quis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi,            hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet. The Ars Amatoria

9801-466: The emperor for forgiveness. Book 3 in 14 poems focuses on Ovid's life in Tomis. The opening poem describes his book's arrival in Rome to find Ovid's works banned. Poems 10, 12, and 13 focus on the seasons spent in Tomis, 9 on the origins of the place, and 2, 3, and 11 his emotional distress and longing for home. The final poem is again an apology for his work. The fourth book has ten poems addressed mostly to friends. Poem 1 expresses his love of poetry and

9922-554: The end of the Silver Age as the death of Hadrian at 138 CE. His classification of styles left a century between that event and his final period, the 3rd–6th centuries CE, which was in other systems being considered Late Antiquity. Starting with Charles Thomas Crutwell's A History of Roman Literature from the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius , which first came out in 1877, English literary historians have included

10043-711: The environs of Middle Earth as 'the Necromancer of Dol Guldur ' in Tolkien's standalone prologue to the trilogy The Hobbit . In fictional settings such as Dungeons & Dragons , or fantasy video games, necromancy is associated with the reanimation of corpses often meant to be used as weapons. This tradition appears to combine associations of conjuring the dead from European and Mediterranean traditions with elements involving Zombies that seem to derive from Caribbean folklore and practice. Late Latin Late Latin

10164-501: The first piece is an address by Ovid to his book about how it should act when it arrives in Rome. Poem 3 describes his final night in Rome, poems 2 and 10 Ovid's voyage to Tomis, 8 the betrayal of a friend, and 5 and 6 the loyalty of his friends and wife. In the final poem Ovid apologizes for the quality and tone of his book, a sentiment echoed throughout the collection. Book 2 consists of one long poem in which Ovid defends himself and his poetry, uses precedents to justify his work, and begs

10285-464: The first semester of the year, with each book dedicated to a different month of the Roman calendar (January to June). The project seems unprecedented in Roman literature. It seems that Ovid planned to cover the whole year, but was unable to finish because of his exile, although he did revise sections of the work at Tomis, and he claims at Trist. 2.549–52 that his work was interrupted after six books. Like

10406-507: The formation of the world, the ages of man , the flood , the story of Daphne 's rape by Apollo and Io 's by Jupiter. The second book opens with Phaethon and continues describing the love of Jupiter with Callisto and Europa . The third book focuses on the mythology of Thebes with the stories of Cadmus , Actaeon , and Pentheus . The fourth book focuses on three pairs of lovers: Pyramus and Thisbe , Salmacis and Hermaphroditus , and Perseus and Andromeda . The fifth book focuses on

10527-475: The full spectrum of classical poetry. Ovid's use of Alexandrian epic, or elegiac couplets, shows his fusion of erotic and psychological style with traditional forms of epic. A concept drawn from the Metamorphoses is the idea of the white lie or pious fraud : "pia mendacia fraude". Six books in elegiacs survive of this second ambitious poem that Ovid was working on when he was exiled. The six books cover

10648-409: The ground". The Christian writers were not interested in the elegant speech of the best or classical Latin, which belonged to their aristocratic pagan opponents. Instead, they preferred a humbler style lower in correctness, so that they might better deliver the gospel to the vulgus or "common people". Low Latin in this view is the Latin of the two periods in which it has the least degree of purity, or

10769-432: The historical Sappho to Phaon , seems spurious (although referred to in Am. 2.18) because of its length, its lack of integration in the mythological theme, and its absence from Medieval manuscripts. The final letters (16–21) are paired compositions comprising a letter to a lover and a reply. Paris and Helen , Hero and Leander , and Acontius and Cydippe are the addressees of the paired letters. These are considered

10890-412: The leader of his elegies from the poet, to Amor (Love or Cupid). This switch in focus from the triumphs of the poet, to the triumphs of love over people is the first of its kind for this genre of poetry. This Ovidian innovation can be summarized as the use of love as a metaphor for poetry. The books describe the many aspects of love and focus on the poet's relationship with a mistress called Corinna. Within

11011-535: The letters mentioned specifically in Ovid's description of the work at Am. 2.18.19–26 as safe from objection. The collection comprises a new type of generic composition without parallel in earlier literature. The first fourteen letters are thought to comprise the first published collection and are written by the heroines Penelope , Phyllis , Briseis , Phaedra , Oenone , Hypsipyle , Dido , Hermione , Deianeira , Ariadne , Canace , Medea , Laodamia , and Hypermnestra to their absent male lovers. Letter 15, from

11132-419: The main elements: Classical Latin, Christian Latin, which featured sermo humilis (ordinary speech) in which the people were to be addressed, and all the various dialects of Vulgar Latin . The linguist Antoine Meillet wrote: "Without the exterior appearance of the language being much modified, Latin became in the course of the imperial epoch a new language... Serving as some sort of lingua franca to

11253-499: The mainstream philologists of Latin literature. A few writers on the periphery still mention it, influenced by the dictionaries and classic writings of former times. As Teuffel's scheme of the Golden Age and the Silver Age is the generally accepted one, the canonical list of authors should begin just after the end of the Silver Age, regardless of what 3rd century event is cited as the beginning; otherwise there are gaps. Teuffel gave

11374-474: The mundane to the grotesque, were commonly associated with necromancy. Rituals could be quite elaborate, involving magic circles , wands , talismans , and incantations . The necromancer might also surround himself with morbid aspects of death, which often included wearing the deceased's clothing and consuming foods that symbolized lifelessness and decay such as unleavened black bread and unfermented grape juice. Some necromancers even went so far as to take part in

11495-444: The mutilation and consumption of corpses. These ceremonies could carry on for hours, days, or even weeks, leading up to the eventual summoning of spirits. Frequently they were performed in places of interment or other melancholy venues that suited specific guidelines of the necromancer. Additionally, necromancers preferred to summon the recently departed based on the premise that their revelations were spoken more clearly. This timeframe

11616-528: The next day in combat, with Chronicles 10:13 implying this was due to the prohibition against necromancy. Many medieval writers believed that actual resurrection required the assistance of God. They saw the practice of necromancy as conjuring demons who took the appearance of spirits. The practice became known explicitly as maleficium , and the Catholic Church condemned it. Though the practitioners of necromancy were linked by many common threads, there

11737-447: The only men of letters, and were at the same time the most ignorant and futile mortals in the world. Under these times of darkness, we must, therefore, rank that Latin, which is called lingua ecclesiastica , and which we cannot read without disgust. As 'Low Latin' tends to be muddled with Vulgar Latin , Late Latin, and Medieval Latin , and has unfortunate extensions of meaning into the sphere of socio-economics, it has gone out of use by

11858-483: The quality of his poetry. The Epistulae ex Ponto is a collection in four books of further poetry from exile. The Epistulae are each addressed to a different friend and focus more desperately than the Tristia on securing his recall from exile. The poems mainly deal with requests for friends to speak on his behalf to members of the imperial family, discussions of writing with friends, and descriptions of life in exile. The first book has ten pieces in which Ovid describes

11979-409: The rule of Gothic kings prevailed. Subsequently, the term Imperial Latin was dropped by historians of Latin literature, although it may be seen in marginal works. The Silver Age was extended a century, and the four centuries following made use of Late Latin. Low Latin is a vague and often pejorative term that might refer to any post-classical Latin from Late Latin through Renaissance Latin, depending on

12100-478: The scenario to fit their ideology that the church needed to be purified of corruption. For example, Baron Bielfeld , a Prussian officer and comparative Latinist, characterised the low in Low Latin, which he saw as medieval Latin, as follows: The fourth age of the Latin tongue is that of the remainder of the middle age, and the 1st centuries of modern times, during which the language fell by degrees into so great

12221-438: The solace it brings; while 2 describes a triumph of Tiberius. Poems 3–5 are to friends, 7 a request for correspondence, and 10 an autobiography. The final book of the Tristia with 14 poems focuses on his wife and friends. Poems 4, 5, 11, and 14 are addressed to his wife, 2 and 3 are prayers to Augustus and Bacchus , 4 and 6 are to friends, 8 to an enemy. Poem 13 asks for letters, while 1 and 12 are apologies to his readers for

12342-521: The song of the Muses , which describes the rape of Proserpina . The sixth book is a collection of stories about the rivalry between gods and mortals, beginning with Arachne and ending with Philomela . The seventh book focuses on Medea , as well as Cephalus and Procris . The eighth book focuses on Daedalus ' flight, the Calydonian boar hunt, and the contrast between pious Baucis and Philemon and

12463-563: The spare century in Silver Latin. Accordingly, the latter ends with the death of the last of the five good emperors in 180 CE. Other authors use other events, such as the end of the Nervan–Antonine dynasty in 192 CE or later events. A good round date of 200  CE gives a canonical list of nearly no overlap. The transition between Late Latin and Medieval Latin is by no means as easy to assess. Taking that media et infima Latinitas

12584-471: The state of his health (10), his hopes, memories, and yearning for Rome (3, 6, 8), and his needs in exile (3). Book 2 contains impassioned requests to Germanicus (1 and 5) and various friends to speak on his behalf at Rome while he describes his despair and life in exile. Book 3 has nine poems in which Ovid addresses his wife (1) and various friends. It includes a telling of the story of Iphigenia in Tauris (2),

12705-493: The surviving version, redacted to three books according to an epigram prefixed to the first book, is thought to have been published c.  8 –3 BC. Between the publications of the two editions of the Amores can be dated the premiere of his tragedy Medea , which was admired in antiquity but is no longer extant. Ovid's next poem, the Medicamina Faciei (a fragmentary work on women's beauty treatments), preceded

12826-501: The tales related in occult manuals are found connections with stories from other cultures' literary traditions. For instance, the ceremony for conjuring a horse closely relates to the Arabic One Thousand and One Nights and French romances ; Chaucer's The Squire's Tale also bears marked similarities. This becomes a parallel evolution of spells to foreign gods or demons that were once acceptable, and frames them into

12947-411: The term already was in professional use by English classicists in the early 19th century. Instances of English vernacular use of the term may also be found from the 18th century. The term Late Antiquity meaning post-classical and pre-medieval had currency in English well before then. Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel 's first edition (1870) of History of Roman Literature defined an early period, the Golden Age,

13068-441: The various poems, several describe events in the relationship, thus presenting the reader with some vignettes and a loose narrative. Book 1 contains 15 poems. The first tells of Ovid's intention to write epic poetry, which is thwarted when Cupid steals a metrical foot from him, changing his work into love elegy. Poem 4 is didactic and describes principles that Ovid would develop in the Ars Amatoria . The fifth poem, describing

13189-467: The wake of inconsistencies of judgment, necromancers and other practitioners of the magic arts were able to utilize spells featuring holy names with impunity, as any biblical references in such rituals could be construed as prayers rather than spells . As a consequence, the necromancy that appears in the Munich Manual is an evolution of these theoretical understandings. It has been suggested that

13310-427: The wealth of antiquarian material it preserves, it recently has been seen as one of Ovid's finest literary works and a unique contribution to Roman elegiac poetry. The Ibis is an elegiac poem in 644 lines, in which Ovid uses a dazzling array of mythic stories to curse and attack an enemy who is harming him in exile. At the beginning of the poem, Ovid claims that his poetry up to that point had been harmless, but now he

13431-425: The wicked Erysichthon . The ninth book focuses on Heracles and the incestuous Byblis . The tenth book focuses on stories of doomed love, such as Orpheus , who sings about Hyacinthus , as well as Pygmalion , Myrrha , and Adonis . The eleventh book compares the marriage of Peleus and Thetis with the love of Ceyx and Alcyone . The twelfth book moves from myth to history describing the exploits of Achilles ,

13552-504: The writings of those times as "late". Imperial Latin went on into English literature; Fowler's History of Roman Literature mentions it in 1903. The beginning and end of Imperial Latin is not well defined. Politically, the excluded Augustan Period is the paradigm of imperiality, but the style cannot be grouped with either the Silver Age or with Late Latin. In 6th-century Italy, the Western Roman Empire no longer existed and

13673-406: Was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus . He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace , with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature . The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists . Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis ,

13794-505: Was already known by Virgil , by Herodotus and by Ovid himself in his Metamorphoses . Most scholars, however, oppose these hypotheses. One of the main arguments of these scholars is that Ovid would not let his Fasti remain unfinished, mainly because this poem meant his consecration as an imperial poet. Ovid died at Tomis in AD 17 or 18. It is thought that the Fasti , which he spent time revising, were published posthumously. The Heroides ("Heroines") or Epistulae Heroidum are

13915-459: Was at an end." In essence, the lingua franca of classical vestiges was doomed when Italy was overrun by the Goths, but its momentum carried it one lifetime further, ending with the death of Boethius in 524 CE. Not everyone agrees that the lingua franca came to an end with the fall of Rome, but argue that it continued and became the language of the reinstituted Carolingian Empire (predecessor of

14036-534: Was banished to Tomis , on the Black Sea , by the exclusive intervention of the Emperor Augustus without any participation of the Senate or of any Roman judge . This event shaped all his following poetry. Ovid wrote that the reason for his exile was carmen et error – "a poem and a mistake", claiming that his crime was worse than murder, more harmful than poetry. The Emperor's grandchildren, Julia

14157-568: Was connected in some way to the influential gens Fabia and helped him during his exile in Tomis (now Constanța in Romania). Ovid spent the first 25 years of his literary career primarily writing poetry in elegiac meter with erotic themes. The chronology of these early works is not secure, but scholars have established tentative dates. His earliest extant work is thought to be the Heroides , letters of mythological heroines to their absent lovers, which may have been published in 19 BC, although

14278-487: Was not always linked to spiritual guidance and seminaries were almost non-existent. This situation allowed some aspiring clerics to combine Christian rites with occult practices despite its condemnation in Christian doctrine. Medieval practitioners believed they could accomplish three things with necromancy: will manipulation, illusions, and knowledge: The act of performing medieval necromancy usually involved magic circles, conjurations, and sacrifices such as those shown in

14399-435: Was one style, Mantello in a recent handbook asserts of "the Latin used in the middle ages" that it is "here interpreted broadly to include late antiquity and therefore to extend from c. AD 200 to 1500." Although recognizing "late antiquity" he does not recognize Late Latin. It did not exist and Medieval Latin began directly from 200 CE. In this view all differences from Classical Latin are bundled as though they evolved through

14520-421: Was stated by Tours Canon 17 as rustica Romana lingua , identified as Romance , the descendant of Vulgar Latin . Late Latin as defined by Meillet was at an end; however, Pucci's Harrington's Mediaeval Latin sets the end of Late Latin when Romance began to be written, "Latin retired to the cloister" and " Romanitas lived on only in the fiction of the Holy Roman Empire ." The final date given by those authors

14641-498: Was usually limited to the twelve months following the death of the physical body; once this period elapsed, necromancers would evoke the deceased's ghostly spirit instead. While some cultures considered the knowledge of the dead to be unlimited, ancient Greeks and Romans believed that individual shades knew only certain things. The apparent value of their counsel may have been based on things they knew in life or knowledge they acquired after death. Ovid writes in his Metamorphoses of

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