ABSTRACT
We are on the face of it infinitely better informed about male magicians in Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC than we are about their female counterparts. It is possible that our sources reflect a reality and there were indeed more men at work as magicians than there were women. There are, however, complications. The common ancient assumption was that women were more likely to be expert in magic than men. 1 It sounds as though it was already a commonplace by 428 BC when Euripides' Hippolytus was performed: the Nurse, speaking in the presence of the women of Troizene, who form the chorus of the play, and with the charms and incantations that can cure the lovelorn of their sickness in mind, says to her mistress Phaedra that men would be slow to find their way to such cures without the inventiveness of women. 2 The Nurse uses the first person plural in speaking of the inventiveness of women. The context suggests that she embraces in her remarks not only women in general, but more immediately herself and the women of Troizene. Of course it can be and in fact has been argued by those with a certain parti pris that utterances of this type express a stereotyped view of women as scheming and devious and are not in consequence to be relied upon. That the Nurse is giving expression to a stereotyped view can certainly be conceded. The question that needs to be asked is whether the stereotype reflects a reality or only male prejudice and fear. There is ultimately no way of settling the matter, since those who like to think that the figure of the sorceress is largely a figment of the male imagination are not going to be persuaded by any of the counter-examples that might be brought against their position. It is nonetheless not easy to see why, if the notion that women are all potential sorceresses is a construct of the male mind, male magicians enjoy a much greater prominence in the writings of male authors in the fifth and fourth centuries BC than do their female equivalents.
