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CHAPTER ONE
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Witchcraft in Ancient Greece and Rome As mentioned, the earliest records in Western culture to refer to Witches appear in ancient Greek and Roman writings. Witches certainly existed in other areas of Europe, but unfortunately the regional inhabitants were illiterate during this era. Therefore we have no written records through which we can examine Witches or Witchcraft outside of the Aegean/Mediterranean until much later in history. By the time of the ancient Greeks, prehistoric concepts had evolved into a religion based upon Nature in many ways. The forces of Nature were personified into deities of fields, woods, rivers, springs, oceans, and the phenomena of Nature itself. Spirits were believed to inhabit natural settings as well as objects. By the classical era the means of communicating with the animating forces of Nature were more refined than in prehistoric times. The use of an oracle became a great focus and a means of communicating with the unseen realm that lay hidden from the waking world. Special individuals were selected to serve in the oracles, and they often bore the title of priest or priestess. Secret societies formed, such as those at Delphi and Eleusis, and only initiates were allowed to partake in the Mysteries. It was into this world that the Witches first appear in recorded writings. The names used to indicate a Witch in the early Greek and Latin writings are pharmakis and saga, respectively. Pharmakis refers to a person with the knowledge of the pharmaceutical properties of plants (and in the case of Witches such plants were largely herbs). Saga is a term used to indicate a person who practices divination. In other words this is someone who can communicate with the Otherworld, a seer. Here we see the Witch as an herbalist and fortuneteller. To the Romans the Witch figure was known as a strix, striga, or venefica. The first two words refer to a woman who could transform into a supernatural bird, which was in most cases a screech owl. We encountered the prehistoric roots of this figure earlier in the chapter. The last word (venefica) is a bit more complicated to understand. Venefica shares the same root word vene with such words as venerate (meaning heartfelt) and venereal (meaning from “love making� or more plainly, an act of physical intimacy). Vene itself indicates a relationship to Venus,