Abstract
Despite the fact that lots of modern antiquity-related works focus on ancient magic, its sound, “musical” aspect continues to be one of the most obscure and mysterious fi elds of research. However, some scholars’ mentions of the fact, that Ancient Roman incantations were sung rather than pronounced, is worth emphasizing. The article attempts to provide a more detailed enquiry into the exact ways the spells and incantations could sound in the Ancient Rome; various written sources have been analyzed to resolve the problem in question, like The Natural History (Naturalis historia) by Pliny the Elder, The Apologia by Apuleius, The Sentences (Senteniae) by Julius Paulus etc. The author provides a detailed examination of incantationrelated Latin terms and emphasizes the fact, that although the wide variety of sources was used to designate incantations, the major part of them was connected to singing, with “a song/to sing” being the most frequent meaning. The more detailed descriptions, that contain the characteristics of the incantations sounding, are examined as well. The author comes to the conclusion, that the Ancient Roman spells and incantations used to be a sort of proto-musical intoning forms, which were represented by two major types: an intoning shout (ululatus) and murmur/songlike mutter (murmur). The suggestion is made, that these types of intoning were prevalent during the pronunciation of an incantation partly due to the fact, that it must have been as diff erent from daily speech, as possible, producing the eff ect of transition into “another”, magic reality.
Keywords
Ancient Rome, Ancient magic, incantation, magic song, proto-musical intoning forms, archaic melos.
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