Uncanny Archaeology of Halloween

This kind of cursing, especially in competitive situations, was as persistent as it was pervasive in the Greek and Roman world. To what degree was it tolerated by society? A character in one of Plato's dialogues, penned in the early fourth century B.C., asserts that "if it be held that a man is acting like an injurer by the use of spells, incantations, or any such mode of poisoning, if he be a prophet or diviner, he shall be put to death." It is clear that Plato's character thinks that magic, as a technique or technology, should be punished, but this is stated nowhere in ancient Greek or Roman law, which focuses instead on the use to which magic is put--if you murder someone with poison or a magic spell, the punishment is death. Eight centuries after Plato, the future St. Augustine could recall in his Confessions that as a youth he had refused a magician's offer to guarantee him victory in a poetry competition. Was he afraid of the legal or moral ramifications? Apparently not. He refused the offer, he says, because it would have involved killing an animal. It seems that, like the bound rooster used in the binding curse against the Carthaginian charioteer, the proposed ritual would have bound or impaled a living creature.