RE-AIR: Conversations: Sorceresses & Satire, Witches of Ancient Greece & Rome w/ Maxwell T Paule

Thanks for your patience... New episodes are (fingers crossed) coming soon! For now, this episode originally aired in October 2021 (which, yes, Liv looked up AFTER guessing it was 'a couple years ago'... time is a flat circle). Liv speaks with Maxwell T Paule all about witches (and much, much more) of classical myth and Roman poetry... Follow Maxwell on Twitter https://twitter.com/veneficusipse?s=21 and TikTok https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8a5WsUb/. The poem recited is Horace's Epode 5, translated by Maxwell T Paule. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 1:39Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here with

• 1:49Liv Albert?

  another re-air episode, but I'm recording an introduction this time because, ugh, I'm very sorry that I have not had new episodes as much as I would like. Nobody's actually been complaining, but part of me then feels like that's because no one listens to me anymore, because of how little new episodes I've done. So, huh, I'm here just to reintroduce this conversation. It's been a couple of years since we had this, and...

• 2:23Liv Albert?

  It it seemed like the right, the right time to to re-air. I, I have been so MIA lately and I'm sorry, this, the Odyssey book really has made it nearly impossible for me to research new topics, even in spooky season, which I had kind of thought things would have slowed down, but they haven't, so I'm still kind of scrambling for content and I really, I don't know, I feel super weird about like having not done too much new stuff lately, but that's probably my anxiety speaking. I

• 3:00Liv Albert?

  also, I wish that I was doing regular episodes because I have sort of styled myself as a person who's going to talk about some of the issues of the world within these episodes. And while that's obviously not the like premise of the show, it is something I've felt really strongly about for like the entire time I've had the show. And obviously, everything right now is pretty bad. And I haven't really had a chance to talk about it because I'm just sort of, I mean, just trying to get through the day, honestly, but also, you know, like everyone else, I mean, or like I assume a lot of my listeners, I'm

• 3:44Liv Albert?

  paying very close attention to everything. So to my American listeners, particularly in cities that have been overtaken by ICE slash the American Gestapo, I, a lot of Canada's watching and hoping the best for you. And I don't even know, it's so fucked. So, I, yeah, I just, I think we need to just escape, I guess, right now with this episode. So.

• 4:23Liv Albert?

  This is an episode I recorded, like I said, a couple, a few years ago, I guess, with Maxwell Paul, who has done a lot of work on Roman witches, particularly with this one author whose name I'm gonna forget because it's been a few years, but obviously it's gonna come up in the conversation, so then you're gonna hear about it. But we talked a lot, if I recall, about the ways that these Roman witches are so different from Greek witches, which always entertains me because the Romans, like, I mean, Greek mythology has more than enough misogyny to go around, but then the Romans were like, what if we made it like virulently worse, you know?

• 5:03Liv Albert?

  Like, what if anytime a woman had like agency and power, she was also like an old ugly hag who only wanted to force men to love her? Because that's realistic, right?

• 5:15Liv Albert?

  Anyway, we had a great conversation about these, these particular types of witches that are like written by Roman men and like what that might say about them. And I, yeah, I mean, it's spooky season here. Have some witches that are very far removed from our current realities. And so you can maybe escape a little bit into the absurdity of Roman witches. And, and I don't know, maybe find a little bit of joy there. I also really want to get back to reading the Thebaid. It was also, I was like so close, started recording, keep overthinking it.

• 5:56Liv Albert?

  But Michaela and I were joking about like recording or reading of just like a chapter of Dracula, because I love Dracula and I just kind of want to read it out loud. But then I got in my own head about how not Greek mythology that is. So I don't know, if you hear this and you're like, Liv, I would listen to you read a chapter of Dracula just for the fun of it. Let me know, I guess, because like I would do that. But in the meantime. Maxwell was a great guest these couple of years ago, and he I know has done a lot of really good, important work on various social issues in the classics world. So he and I haven't chatted for a while, but I'm sure he's still out doing great stuff. So check out his work and enjoy this conversation because if I recall, it was a goddamn delight.

• 6:40Liv Albert?

  You know how I love to rant about misogynist ideas of quote unquote witches.

• 7:03Liv Albert?

  Conversations, Sorceresses and Satire: Witches of Ancient Greece and Rome with Maxwell T. Paul.

• 7:24Liv Albert?

  Witches. I'm so excited to talk to somebody who knows more than the minimum that I have found in the like, two or three books that I have. So yeah, witches in the ancient world.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, witches are fantastic.

• 7:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah, they're amazing. And I know the mythological ones super well, and how limited, you know, the sourcing is on somebody like Hecate. I don't know what the best way to pronounce her name is these days, but.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  That'll work.

• 7:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah, she, you know, she's amazing. People want episodes about her all of the time. And I'm like, I, if there was more, I would tell you, I promise, I'm not holding anything back.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Do you want to, do you want a two line scrap that mentions?

• 8:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I swear to God, I've covered everything possible, people. I'm not holding back.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  And then there's the, like, when she shows up in Hesiod, you're like, this is not, this is not expressly the witchy content you are all looking for. You're like, oh, like, your Harvest of Fishes is more exciting today. Cool. That's not, no one showed up for that.

• 8:25Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, when she's just all about, you know, crossroads or whatever, I'm like, well, I mean, cool, not the witchy stuff that people want for spooky season.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:36Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So yeah, what are, who are the witches that you've studied?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  So, no, and you're, you're not wrong. And then like, if you're looking at witches in antiquity, like, they're kind of the biggies, right? Like, you've got Hecate is the sort of divine witchy overseer kind of thing, if we're being very general. But right, there's Medea, there's Circe. My favorite is Canidia.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Which if you do a Google search, it either corrects to Canada or Canidiensis, which is the technical term for yeast infection.

• 9:13Liv Albert?

  Oh, lovely.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Cannot recommend. Yep.

• 9:17Liv Albert?

  Love Googling ancient words.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  So good. You got Canidia, and then the other like, big, well-known one is Erycto in Lucan's Civil War. And after that, like, you've kind of got like, these minor sketches, maybe they're unnamed. What's his face? Theocritus has a witch as his Virgil. Right? Like, they're not, they're not the super cool, exciting witches you're looking for. Like, you, you kind of get these little thumbnail sketches, and that's, that's what there is to go on.

• 9:48Liv Albert?

  I was actually just looking at the Theocritus one, because I don't know if it was you, somebody sent it to me on Twitter as possible, like, reading material for the show.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  That was not me, but yeah.

• 10:00Liv Albert?

  Okay. Somebody, I can't believe I've already forgotten who it was, because it was like, last week.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Thanks, Twitter person.

• 10:06Liv Albert?

  Yeah, Twitter's best. But yeah, because it's like a love spell, kind of thing, right?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 10:12Liv Albert?

  That one's quite interesting, but still not a lot.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  No. And I, I had to confess to my students. So I just, I taught a course on witches in the Greek and Roman world last year. Time is weird because of COVID. Yeah. But yeah, I taught this class, and I had to confess that I'm like, okay, Theocritus wrote this poem, and then Virgil sort of has his own take on it, and they're so similar that I can never keep them separate. Like, they're not, it's not like a shot-for-shot remake, but it's real close. And I'm like, I don't know, there's, they're in love with somebody.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  And they would like that person to come back to them like as an insight into sort of sexual mores and or social practices fascinating, but as for like witchcraft, it's yeah, it's much more love magic and much less spooky season, unfortunately.

• 11:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And I mean, as a as somebody who focuses a lot on, you know, women and feminism in Greek myth, like my favorite thing is not women like longing after men and and, you know, well, and I should clarify like men writing about women who are longing after men.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 11:27Liv Albert?

  Not my favorite genre.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Though, all right, so I'm gonna, I might be wrong here because again, I haven't read this in a hot minute, but if I remember correctly, a cool thing about the Theocritus bit is that we do have an unmarried woman expressing sexual desire, which is neat, right?

• 11:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's rare.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Like, all of the all of the misogyny and patriarchy aside, like, it is exceedingly rare to like have a woman actually be like, no, no, no, this guy's hot, and I should like this to continue happening, and I'm sad that it didn't.

• 12:02Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  But anyway, I digress.

• 12:04Liv Albert?

  No, but that's a good point. That is a good point. Maybe I'll save it for like Valentine's season.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:09Liv Albert?

  Read it then.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 12:10Liv Albert?

  It's not spooky. I mean, maybe my version of Valentine's.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  It's not spooky. I did mention that like the legit creepiest thing that I've seen in most of Latin literature is not a witch, but it's still still ghostly, right? So, T bullus, who are you at all familiar with T bullus?

• 12:36Liv Albert?

  I don't think so.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Hmm. You know, he's no one's favorite, right? Like,

• 12:40Liv Albert?

  I have, I have the source book that I assume is one of the only source books when it comes to, you know, witches.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Daniel Ogden's.

• 12:47Liv Albert?

  Yes, exactly.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 12:49Liv Albert?

  I'm like, I imagine there's not a ton of those. And so I I covered a lot from that last year, I think. So it's possible I covered this and I'm already forgetting. But yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  I would be very surprised if it shows up. I could be wrong. I don't know. Ogden is encyclopedic, nothing else. So this is a guy being like, I'm in love with you. And by the way, his, his love interest name is Nemesis.

• 13:15Liv Albert?

  Oh, that's good. That's a good sign.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  It's a great sign.

• 13:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  He's like, oh, like, I'm so in love with you. I go to your dead sister's grave. And I like, I cry by her grave. And you should know that like, she's not gonna put up with you rejecting me for too long. So you better be careful, right? Like, it's, it's so, it's so manipulative. But ultimately, he's like, so, yeah, you'd better sort of stop rejecting me. Otherwise, the ghost of your dead sister is gonna hang out by your bed while you sleep.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  And she's going to look all bloody and gross, just like how she did when she fell out of a window to her death. And you're like, what the fuck? What the actual fuck, Tibalas? Like, it was weird enough that you're like, I've been praying by your dead sister's grave. And now you're like, she's, she's gonna be all mangled and disgusting, like how she was in her death and haunt, yeah.

• 14:26Liv Albert?

  That's both hilarious and horrifying.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Correct. Correct, right? So all the witchy stuff where people are like, I will rip apart your body. You're like, oh, yeah, I get it. Like, I'm in a horror show. But like, having this just creep into an otherwise, like erotic love context is super weird.

• 14:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  Don't approve.

• 14:47Liv Albert?

  No. That sounds like, now, and this might be my bias coming through, but that sounds really Roman, like.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  I mean, yes.

• 14:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I mean, I know it is Latin, but also like, it just sounds, it sounds Roman and it's sort of darkness, I guess.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it really, it really is. The others stand out as far as like, very creepy women. Is it Rick, though? She is the subject of easily, it's like 150 lines, where Lucan is just like, how can I describe the weirdest, most impious witchy person ever? And you're like, all right, well, let's see what you do. And as you know, he, Lucan is. Writing very much in the shadow of Virgil's Aeneid. So just how our hero Aeneas gets to go visit the underworld in book six and see the Sybil, who is kind of witchy in that she can predict the future, but we would just probably call her

• 15:46Speaker 02

  prophetess. Anyway, Lucan is like, nah, in my dark world, we're gonna have Eryx though, also in book six, and we're gonna get a prophecy, just like Aeneas got, but it's gonna be dirty and grotesque. Okay, cool. I see the, I see the imagery. I see what we're doing. Wonderful. Carry on, sir. But it's just, it's over the top, right? Like, Eryx though, can't bear the light of day, so she has to sleep in a tomb. Right? Like, I, I can't remember if she's braiding snakes in her hair, but you know, something, snakes are very key. And she's

• 16:24Speaker 02

  unwashed. And then we just run through like, she's going to steal the flame from pyres for her dark deeds. All right. Okay, that's bad. She'll also kill people. If she, she needs a body, she's gonna kill people. And you're like, oh, I mean, okay, we're getting a little darker. It then talks about her like, cutting open pregnant women and like, taking their babies.

• 16:47Liv Albert?

  Lovely.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Correct. Or like, pulling, realizing like, I'm making a crucified symbol. It's fine. It's for the podcast. This is wonderful imagery. But yeah, so when there are people that have been crucified, Lucan talks about Eryx, they're like, climbing up the crucifix and like, pulling on their bodies with her teeth.

• 17:10Liv Albert?

  I love her. Yeah. She sounds amazing.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  She's, she's incredible. And after all of this, the prophecy that she eventually gets by like, resurrecting a guy and like, washing his innards with moon juice, it's a shit prophecy. Like, it's just, it's not worth all of the effort. And she's just like, yeah, well, that's what you get.

• 17:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Cool, cool, cool. Do you have a favorite witch on your own?

• 17:38Liv Albert?

  Um, Medea, I guess.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Sure. Yes.

• 17:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Tell me more.

• 17:42Liv Albert?

  I mean.

• 17:44Liv Albert?

  I, you know, I've made this point a lot. I'm not defending murder, but I love everything she does. And I don't necessarily see anything wrong with it. No, I mean, I do. And I know, you know, she only kills her kids in Euripides' version. So maybe if we go elsewhere, then I'm fine with all of what she does. Her brother is an unfortunate, you know, side problem.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  You gotta go, you gotta go.

• 18:10Liv Albert?

  I mean, I think what it is, is that I like, like I recently read the Argonautica for the podcast.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 18:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like read it aloud because I do reading episodes when I can't fit in conversations. Um, and it, I also have to read public domain translations.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 18:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So they tend to be, uh, very old and stuffy. And the first book I, or section I read, I, I didn't do any kind of like in the moment, translating of my own. And then I kind of realized it would be easy for me to change certain words to just like modern English.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 18:48Liv Albert?

  You instead of thou. And like, it's all that hard to do that in the moment. So.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:52Liv Albert?

  But, uh, you know, the first couple of books were like pretty boring to read aloud. But then when you get to Medea, like her stuff in the Argonautica is actually incredible.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  It's really good.

• 19:01Liv Albert?

  It's so good. And then I also, I just love that she is explicitly under like a spell by a goddess, you know? Like it's, it's very clear in the Argonautica that it, if it weren't for, it's gotta be Hera, right? Or Aphrodite.

• 19:18Speaker 02

  Something like this. Yes.

• 19:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah. If it weren't for that, like she wouldn't be doing all this. She wouldn't love Jason like that. She wouldn't think that he was all that because he's ultimately not. Like he is objectively boring.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 19:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And so I love it because it's like, it really takes away her. We like it takes away her agency, but it takes away her agency when it comes to like all the murder that she did. So it's just an interesting, it shows her power and her abilities while also still kind of keeping her morally clean. I don't know. I just think it's really interesting. Like it, it's just, it's very clear that she, I mean, and you know, you can't necessarily pull that all the way to Euripides's play, but, but at least in the Argonautica, it's really like she is fully under the influence of him. It's really clear that he could not have done it without her, but also that she would not have necessarily made these decisions were it not for the goddess's like spell.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  So Pindar also makes it clear in, I think, one of his Pythian Odes, I can't remember, that she is under a spell. Like Jason actually wields the, the magic yokes or something like this, um, right? Which is neat and brings into questions is like, wait a second. Like I thought Medea was supposed to be the witch, but you're wielding the magic spell. All right, Jason, very young. Yeah. The question of divine agency is a fascinating one because we, we talk about this all the time, right? Like just because a god has helped, doesn't mean that the god is responsible, but it also doesn't mean that you're not responsible. It's this, it's just a very interesting line to walk, um, that I think the Greeks

• 20:59Speaker 02

  were very comfortable with, um, in general, like, yeah, like you can still do terrible things because a god made you, but like, that's still kind of on you, even though we recognize like the, the god was involved. Yeah. That is fascinating. Man. Now, Medea, Medea is delightful, uh, especially in the Argonautica. Um, have you, have you read Cersei?

• 21:23Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Okay. I would be surprised if you had not. So one of the, one of the things I just love about it is how much she mined the Argonautica for the interactions between Cersei and Medea. Like picked up on so many small details, but one of the ones I just loved. Was that when Medea goes to Cersei's island and is like, okay, I like kind of screwed up. I did murder my brother and I need to be ritually purified. Obviously Cersei does this, but like a minor detail is that Cersei talks with Medea in Colchian.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  So this it's very much like you, Medea, brought this boy to my island. We're gonna speak in our own language. I do not give a shit that this guy cannot follow the conversation because he does not matter to me. And you're just like, oh, that's so good. It's so good.

• 22:25Liv Albert?

  She sees Jason for what he really is.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm not even sure she directly addresses Jason in that scene. Like he's there and dealt with, but like, as in most other heroic business, we'd be talking to the guy. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. So good. So good.

• 22:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's fascinating. No, but I just, I mean, Medea is so fascinating because of her in Ovid is also one of my favorites. Because she, she rides that dragon chariot so much in Ovid in a way that she does not elsewhere. And it's like, you know, take what you will about original sourcing and, you know, not original, but older sourcing and whatever Ovid made up. And for all his stuff, I, I will take her riding around in a dragon chariot. Like, I mean, yeah, it's, I, I covered that in a recent, well, I recently re-aired them, thankfully, after the Argonautica while I was away. But I did Medea episodes last year or the year before, even maybe, I don't know. Time is a platter call.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Thank you. I say that all the time, all the time.

• 23:31Liv Albert?

  I mean, especially now. I've said that pre pandemic and now I'm like, well, now it's just true. Like, what is time? I have no idea. But yeah, and I, for the first time, I really went through the, the Ovid sections on her and they're just so incredible. I mean, what she does to Pelias's grand, or daughters and Pelias in general, and the dragon chariot. Like, it's just some of Ovid's best. And I feel like it's not often referenced amidst the metamorphoses. I think because Euripides is so famous. And of course, like, I mean, I live for Euripides' take on her too, but but Ovid is so unique and gives such different insight into like, it's almost her witchiest take.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:17Liv Albert?

  Like, the witchiest version of her, I think, is in Metamorphosis.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's it's so good. Um, yeah, Ovid deeply loves Medea, and I am so sad we don't have his play. Uh, right, like I.

• 24:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I think I spoke about that recently. I, you know, just was reminded, looking on a list of lost things. It's like, oh, my God, like.

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:40Liv Albert?

  And I think Euripides wrote a cadmus, and I'm like, between those two things, I just want them more than life itself.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Would be incredible. But Ovid's also got this way of humanizing her.

• 24:51Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  So in his lesser known Heroides, which they're not that great.

• 24:58Liv Albert?

  Some of them are interesting. Like, I think I've done the Medea one and Penelope. You know, they've got, yeah, they've got some interesting pieces in them, and I think the construct is interesting. Like, the fact that he did that.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 25:11Liv Albert?

  That alone is enough for me, you know?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely.

• 25:16Liv Albert?

  I should clarify, my, I don't know if my listeners are fully familiar with the Heroides, because I haven't covered them a ton, but Ovid wrote a series of letters, like, they're letters from women to the men who kind of fucked with them. So there's like a letter from Medea to Jason, there's a letter from Hypsipoly to Jason, which is the ones I think I have kind of covered. Penelope to Odysseus, Dido to Aeneas, the Sappho one we can pretend didn't exist.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 25:40Liv Albert?

  Um, yeah, so it's just a bit of fascinating kind of just construct in general that he decided to write these things.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what I love, I love that you've covered both the Hypsipoly and the Medea is because we get to see in, like, Medea, I think, a rather humanized, almost elegiac version of this sort of lovestruck woman who's been wronged, and we know, we, the reader, know, like, what she's capable of.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  But she seems very much just like a normal woman who has been horribly wronged by a man. You're like, yeah, I'm on board. And then hearing Hypsipoly talk about her, it's very much to like, oh, that barbarian witch. So it's clearly like Ovid being aware of like, this, this is a person who's got different flavors. And depending on who's telling the story, she's going to be a different character, which I love. I genuinely love. It's very easy to sort of pick an author and be like, oh, in X, Medea does this. You're like, nah, he's going to give you different versions, right? Like, it's so cool. Love it.

• 26:44Liv Albert?

  Well, and she's one of the most complex characters, I think, because, both because of her character and because of all the different versions we have of her.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:52Liv Albert?

  From all the different people over the years.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Yes. You mentioned the dragon cherry. I can ask this question, not knowing the answer. There's the famous image of her on what I think is like a Sicilian. I can't remember the name of the pot. It's a big pot.

• 27:09Liv Albert?

  Pottery, yep.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Yes, writing a dragon cherry. Do you have any sense of the date for that?

• 27:15Liv Albert?

  I bet you Theoi can tell me really quick, because.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Probably like, I think that gives us some sort of insight into like, okay, this was relatively early on.

• 27:25Liv Albert?

  Well, I mean, and it is in Euripides, too.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yes, right.

• 27:29Liv Albert?

  So that alone.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  So there's at least this, this concept of her as this, yeah, badass witchy person.

• 27:36Liv Albert?

  The pottery, fourth century, actually.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Ooh, okay.

• 27:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but I think, I mean, this might even be more so based than off of Euripides.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, great. I am very happy that, that Medea is one of your favorites.

• 27:49Liv Albert?

  I mean, she's the best.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  She's fantastic.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  And I think it's in the Argonautica where we get this sort of tour of the world as she just flies from place to place, collecting all the stuff she needs.

• 28:02Liv Albert?

  That's in Ovid.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  That's in Ovid.

• 28:04Liv Albert?

  That's in, that's the Ovid dragon cherry that I love so much.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  There we are, okay. Wonderful.

• 28:09Liv Albert?

  It's so extensive and fascinating that, I mean, yeah, it's, I think it's while she's collecting the things to then completely take out Pelias's daughters.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:20Liv Albert?

  And yeah, and you it's in there's it's so extensive and it's visceral and weird. And yeah, it she sort of tours around collecting all of these things from her dragon chariot.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  A delight. Have you covered my favorite spooky witch, uh, Canidia?

• 28:39Liv Albert?

  No.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:40Liv Albert?

  No. And that's what I would love from you because I've even seen it's in she's in your Twitter bio.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  She is. Uh, I'm obligated to talk about her because I wrote a whole ass book about her.

• 28:51Liv Albert?

  There we go.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  They said it couldn't be done. And I do mean literally multiple presses said, we don't want a book just about Canidia. Uh, but someone eventually said, yes. So Canidia is weird in that she shows up in six poems by Horus.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  And honestly, a lot of people don't read Horus much, so it's not surprising that she's flown underneath the radar. And if you have read Horus, you're like, yeah, yeah, the carp ADM. Cool, cool. Got it. Nice. So Horus writing his stuff. Yeah, he has this recurring character. Which for a not real, I put quotation marks around that, um, person, it's odd that she shows up so much.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Horus is frequently talking about like a wide cast of characters in his social ambit. And you're like, great, you, you keep seeing some of the same faces, but Canidia keeps popping up. And she does weird things, obviously. The weirdest, okay, not, no, we'll just go with the weirdest is she is conducting some sort of spell in a graveyard, except it's not quite a graveyard. It used to be a graveyard. Now it's like a, a pleasure garden.

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:10Liv Albert?

  Quite a reversal.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  There's been some, uh, some urban renewal slash gentrification in Rome. And Horus's patron, Mycenus, has redone the space. It used to be like a graveyard for the poor. Um, you're just gonna be dumped here. You're like, okay, that's not, that's not great. So yes, and now it's been refurbished. Um, and unfortunately, Canidia keeps showing up there like doing witchy shit.

• 30:38Liv Albert?

  She's like, to me, it's still a graveyard.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Correct. And right? Almost certainly those bones would have still been there.

• 30:44Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Right?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  This wasn't, this wasn't, I cannot imagine. You're like, no, no, no, we'll lay these all carefully to rest elsewhere. Like, mm-mm. No.

• 30:54Liv Albert?

  I mean, they probably wouldn't do that for like even sort of more middle class, let alone if it's a graveyard for the poor. Yeah.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Canidia shows up and is, like she's digging up bones and she's digging into the ground. She's doing a lot of things that some old school scholars are like, okay, I think we can pinpoint the precise magical thing. She said, no, you cannot. This is, this is an absurd, fantastic pastiche. That's just to be like, Canidia is very scary and like she's burying things in the ground and that's weird. Like, okay, fine. Um, but the whole, I say this is weird because the whole poem is narrated by a talking statue of Priapus.

• 31:41Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  Um, would you care to explain to your dear listeners, uh, why that's so funny? In case they're not on board.

• 31:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, I can't even tell you necessarily what he's the official god of, but he's just the guy who walks around with like a two foot long erect.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Absolutely. He's associated with any number of things, fertility being high among them.

• 32:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah. There's one, um, it's a wall, maybe a, yeah, wall painting or something.

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 32:14Liv Albert?

  Where he's, yep, it's, um, being held up by a scale.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:19Liv Albert?

  Like they're weighing it.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's weighing his massive cock against just a like bushel of, um, I believe it's like fruits and vegetables.

• 32:29Liv Albert?

  It lives in my mind because I've seen it like once and it's like, well, I'll never forget that image.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. If you want to see it, I believe it's the house of the Vedi in Pompeii, very famous for that.

• 32:39Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah. If you just search Priapus, like you're gonna find it.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  It'll, it'll pop up. Yeah.

• 32:44Liv Albert?

  Among other things.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Indeed. So yeah, this, this statue is narrating the whole thing.

• 32:52Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Correct. It's odd. And then at the end. All right. So the other thing that Priapus does is in addition to sort of being a god associated with fertility, which is why you might want him in a garden. Great. Excellent. Being ethaphallic, he is also a guardian, right? He's gonna protect space. And so you'll see these these huge statues in gardens with warnings that are obscene.

• 33:24Liv Albert?

  The Romans were obscene.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 33:28Liv Albert?

  Moral of the story, too.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  These are explicitly saying, like, if you come into my garden, like, this statue will physically assault you. And depending on your bits, it's gonna go this way, this way, or this way. And you're like, wow, you really spelled that one out.

• 33:41Liv Albert?

  They lay it out. Wow.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Lay it all out. So like, don't take the cucumbers. All right, fine. Got it. So this this statue is in a like, position of defense, but also like, is just a statue. So it's angry about Canidia doing her thing. And so the end of the poem happens when the statue farts. And then Canidia and her friend Sagana, they're shocked and their teeth fall out and their wigs fall off and they they go run. Maybe it's not their teeth, whatever. Like, they're they lose some accoutrement, certainly a wig, and go running off back into the city. You're like, ha, ha, ha, ha, there was a witch, but the farting statue of Priapus drove them away.

• 34:30Liv Albert?

  Is this supposed to be scary or funny or both?

• 34:34Speaker 02

  I think it's supposed to be funny. Like, there's no way. Certainly, the ending is highly comedic.

• 34:41Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  This characterization of her really seems like a let's make fun of this person. Because she's invoking Cersei in some ways, but like, she's a dime store Cersei. She's invoking the witches of Theocritus and Virgil, but is also a dime store version of them, too, right? Like, so at every turn, she's just not living up to the people she's trying to be and then gets chased off by a fart.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  That's why I was like, okay, I need to, I need to write about this. My dissertation was supposed to be about like five witches and I got into chapter one and I was like, oh, okay, this is what's happening.

• 35:20Liv Albert?

  It's all about her, yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. The actual like scary bit is in his epodes, this is epo five, uh, for anyone who cares.

• 35:32Liv Albert?

  People like Horace, I'm sure people care.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Hooray.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  She and like three of her witch buddies have caught a young Roman boy and they have buried him alive in what seems to be their house and they're going to starve him to death so they can make a love potion out of his organs.

• 36:01Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 36:03Liv Albert?

  It's pleasant.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. Yeah, it's, it's pretty creepy.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  There are some comedic moments, like one of Canidia's friends is like grunting as she's digging the hole and you're like, okay, I guess that's a little funny. But I view the like, at the end of the day, if you are burying a child and starving him to death, like that's, that's not really funny.

• 36:30Liv Albert?

  No, it seems like that like is sort of the polar opposite of a story of her being, yeah, buried by Bravas.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Correct. But like I have, have disagreed in print with scholars who are like, how can you possibly read this as horrific? I'm like, did we read the same poem? I feel like we read the same poem. Cause the, the end is delightful and horrifying when this boy gives an impassioned speech. It's not a speech that like an eight year old should be able to give, but we're gonna overlook that.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  And it's essentially like, all right, you're gonna kill me. But when I die, I'm gonna come back as a night fiend. And I'm gonna terrorize you in your sleep. And also, my parents, whom you all have forced to like outlive their children. They're gonna come after you. And they're going to essentially stone you to death as you're running through the streets. And you're like, okay, yeah, that's, that's high comedy right there. So creepy, right? This is-

• 37:38Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I would argue that one's a creepy one.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Canidia is absolutely great for spooky season. Yeah. And those are her most, I would say, most creepy ones. A lot of the other ones, it's, okay, so the big question is, who the hell is this woman? Why is Horus writing about her six times?

• 37:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Three times, she's clearly an in-joke, right? She shows up for like two lines, that's it. And it's like, oh my God, did Canidia breathe on this? Gross. Okay, neat. Like, do you expect that we know your poetry, Horus? Or like, are we best buds and you know who we're making fun of? Like, what's going on? The best scholarly, hmm, not even consensus, just guess. The best scholarly guess, and these are from the scolliest who are like, oh, if Horus said it, it must be true. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna piece together this woman's life. It's all hot garbage. But this is at least what they suspect the actual Canidia is, is like, okay.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  We know that poets would like change the names of people. So like, Claudia became Lesbia. Neat. So they're like, okay, Canidia, real name, Grotidia. Nailed it.

• 38:58Liv Albert?

  Is that a real Roman name?

• 39:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 39:01Liv Albert?

  Okay, good.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  At least I don't think so. I have not run into it before. Lives in Naples, named Grotidia, sells perfume. Again, all of this is just people reading Horace's poetry and be like, there's a detail. It must be true. Got it. And then the kicker is because Horace has this later poem where he's essentially saying like, "Dear Canidia, I am so sorry for all the mean things I said about you. Not, will you please forgive me? I hate you." And then Canidia is essentially like, "No, no. How about no?" The scolast is also like, "So obviously they were lovers, definitely. And they broke up and it was bad. And so Horace wrote all these mean things.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  And now he's trying to sort of make moments, maybe."

• 39:52Speaker 02

  It's wild. It is absolutely wild. But yeah, that is, that is this creepy weird little witch that is near and dear to my heart.

• 40:00Liv Albert?

  Interesting. I mean, she sounds fascinating.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  She is. She is. And you can read all six poems in like, under half an hour.

• 40:21Liv Albert?

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• 41:03Liv Albert?

  The thing, they have really great basics, like they have really great things that you can wear with so many other things, just the options are endless. And as the weather gets colder, like all the sweaters in my closet, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. And of course, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And if we haven't learned anything in the last 10 years, isn't it just getting rid of the middlemen, you know, making things more affordable?

• 41:48Liv Albert?

  So find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was me. Let's talk about myths, baby. It's the best way to support the show.

• 42:14Speaker 01

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• 42:48Speaker 01

  Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals, no kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  So Cersei was, because obviously Cersei spooky season.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Where do you come down on the? All the animals on her island are, used to be men.

• 43:52Liv Albert?

  I love that idea. I'll admit, I haven't given it like a ton of thought, but I would like to believe that's true.

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 43:59Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  I like it.

• 44:00Liv Albert?

  How about you?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  That's, yes, I'm 100% there. Especially because it, it gives such a macabre cast to Odysseus's first encounter, wherein he like, he kills the stag and you're like, that definitely used to be a dude and you fed him to your entire crew. And it also makes, there's a slight detail that the stag,

• 44:28Speaker 02

  it's like, either wasn't running away as expected, or was just, it was doing something that was, made it a touch easier to kill. And you're like, yeah, that was, that was a guy you murdered and ate.

• 44:42Liv Albert?

  I mean, it's Odysseus.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Correct. It's Odysseus. Totally fine. You know, I, I absolutely love Cersei and it's so unfortunate, like that in the Odyssey, she doesn't really get to shine as much as a character you, you think she should be able to, because she's very much the like, I'm here to help you. Okay, fine.

• 45:02Liv Albert?

  She is, at least because of course, the Odyssey is like most of what we have.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:08Liv Albert?

  But she, she's still quite unique in it.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 45:12Liv Albert?

  Just as a woman enough that I'm like, okay, no, like I'm with you, you know? You know, she does stand up for herself. I appreciate that she's like, I won't do anything until we've already had sex. Like that's my, that's where I draw the line.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:26Liv Albert?

  Um, I also appreciate that it does also seem like Odysseus consents, you know? I do want to make that clear. It doesn't, I, I don't take it as, like, I think Calypso down the line. It

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Oh, that's definitely compelled.

• 45:38Liv Albert?

  There's like, yeah, but with Cersei, it seems like he's kind of looking at her and he's like, well, she doesn't seem so bad. She's kind of hot. Like, it's been a while.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:47Liv Albert?

  You know?

• 45:48Speaker 02

  And right, it's a little hard to argue that the guy who just pulled a sword is being coerced into something.

• 45:53Liv Albert?

  Well, exactly.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:54Liv Albert?

  It's like, you know, he probably could have forced her to transform his men without that. And meanwhile, he was like, well, sure. Yeah. Oh, oh, shucks. That's what you want. Okay. Well, only if that means you'll really will transform them back. She holds so much power and she is, she is very unique when it comes to just like, characters of women. You know, in myth of she gets what she wants. She, you know, she really does sort of draw the lines and she, aside from the moment where Hermes like inexplicably helps Odysseus defeat her in some kind of way.

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 46:31Liv Albert?

  Which is such an odd moment. It doesn't really fit, you know? It's a, yeah, it's a weird little bit. I was talking about that with somebody else I was recording with the other day as well, because, I mean, it's interesting in Madeline Miller's Cersei that she makes that based in a relationship between them. But yeah, I mean, it is, it is an odd moment in the Odyssey regardless. And like, I don't think, and I don't know if you know this at all, but I don't think there's any textual evidence to suggest that Cersei and Hermes ever had a thing.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I don't think so. I think that was a very clever interpretation by Miller.

• 47:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause it works. It makes it work. It gives you, it gives you a reason why Hermes would be there versus just like, hey, I'm gonna help you. Which of course is sort of its own reason in Greek myth of a god's gonna help a hero because a god's gonna help a hero.

• 47:23Speaker 02

  Correct. Correct. Right. Which then gets us back to as you were talking about the, the sort of divine agency. We could be like, oh, like, Odysseus did overcome Cersei. Like, I mean, not, not really, not really. Hermes did, but like, reflected, yeah. It's all, it's all mixed up in there.

• 47:44Liv Albert?

  What would have happened to Odysseus if Hermes hadn't just happened to come in and say, like, here's this moly?

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:51Liv Albert?

  Go with it.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Death, death is what happens.

• 47:54Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And that would have been, I mean, sort of, I guess, a sad end to the very beginning of

• 48:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:00Liv Albert?

  The Odyssey. And thus we have to have Hermes come in and help out.

• 48:05Liv Albert?

  Hecate is so interesting because she really is like, I want her to have so much more. You know, I talked about how I'm certainly not hiding anything when it comes to her. There just isn't anything, but she just really seems like there should be so much there as this idea of the goddess of witches, but also crossroads and, you know, various other things. And she's, she's a chthonic deity, she lives in the underworld, but she also, I think we're supposed to assume spent a lot of time on the upper world before Persephone went to the underworld. You know, she's, she takes place or she takes a part in the Homeric hymn to Demeter as like, sort of helping Demeter find Persephone and then staying with Persephone in the underworld.

• 48:50Liv Albert?

  I don't know. It's an interesting thing.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  So I'm going to plug Dr. Ellie Roberts here. Have you talked with her yet?

• 48:56Liv Albert?

  I have. Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:58Liv Albert?

  Way back, actually. She was one of my first. Oh, she came on to talk Persephone. Oh, my God.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  I was just about to say, you should talk to her about Persephone.

• 49:05Liv Albert?

  Oh, gosh. No, yeah. She's, she's definitely was a part of one of everyone's favorite episodes.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  Okay, fantastic.

• 49:11Liv Albert?

  And talked about the Persephone cult in, um, for Locris.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Yeah, the Locrian cult.

• 49:18Liv Albert?

  And the Persephone cult there because there's a lot of like really interesting things suggesting that women really identified with her and, you know, some identified with her as if she went with Hades consensually and some went the other way. And oh, utterly fascinating from like a real, yeah, real person perspective.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Fantastic. Great. Well, wonderful. You got that covered. I was like, she should really be able to talk a lot about this.

• 49:39Liv Albert?

  Oh, gosh. Yeah. That was great.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Wonderful. So beyond Hecate and her, all her amazingness and God, I really do wish we could, like, we will never get this information, but if we could sort of untangle like, okay, what, what was going on underworld wise? Like who was, who was down where, according to whom, doing what? Yeah. Would be lovely.

• 49:58Liv Albert?

  Yeah. What did it really look like? Like what did they, or what did they picture it looking like? Because that's super, I mean, it's like clear if you want to say clear, but like it's, you know, certain people talked about certain things, but there's not a lot of Greek sourcing on it beyond the names of the rivers and that one was the main river.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:17Liv Albert?

  And then any other kind of visuals, you're more so into Virgil. And then it's like, well, what was Virgil basing it off of? We don't know if that connects to the Greek at all. And

• 50:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. I guess we've got the Plato's myth of Ur, which I want to say is late in the Republic.

• 50:34Liv Albert?

  What does he talk about? Because I don't usually go to Plato for myths as

• 50:37Speaker 02

  Completely reasonable. But no, I think, God, I'm not a Plato guy, but I'm relatively positive. This is in the Republic wherein this guy named Ur talks about going to the underworld. Or maybe it's Socrates talking about Ur, whatever, doesn't matter. Anyway, we discuss being in the underworld and resurrection and the like. You get to choose the sort of new life you want to inhabit. And so it's all an endorsement of philosophy because like those who have like truly understood knowledge and what it is to investigate a thing can best look at the new life they're going to inhabit

• 51:19Speaker 02

  and make the best decisions. But still, like, we've got discussions of reincarnation, which generally people don't think about in terms of ancient Greece.

• 51:29Liv Albert?

  Not at all. No, that's really interesting.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. But one of the exercises I like to do when folks are talking in class and they're like, so wait, what did it look like? What did they imagine? And so we're like, okay, cool. What we're gonna do is we've got a class of like 20 people, all of whom, like, if they are not Christian, have at least grown up in or spent a considerable amount of time in sort of Christian dominated United States in the 21st century.

• 51:57Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah, I mean, Canada's exactly the same, right? In North America, you get like, I'm not remotely Christian or religious or anything. And I feel like I've gotten enough information.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, there's enough ambient noise. You're like, great, got it. And so you're like, okay, everybody, like, let us try to like, write down how we understand either hell or heaven, like, pick one. And you're like, oh, even with everybody all in the same room with very similar backgrounds, as far as this goes, again, even if you have nothing to do with Christianity personally, like, you've absorbed it. Even then, you're like, you've got wildly disparate ideas, like some folks are going with the like angels and the halos and the hanging out on on clouds and other folks are like, no, it's some completely different thing. It's just white space or maybe there's not actually heaven. And you're like, okay, great. So we can't agree.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  And like largely we're coming in the same place, trying to come up with a diachronic explanation of what would have worked for Greeks over a course of centuries or millennia, let alone from city state to city state. You're like,

• 53:05Speaker 02

  just, just try to pin down like, what did this person at this one point over here think?

• 53:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but even that, we don't really have much, which is what's so interesting. It's like, I don't know if they didn't want to talk about it, or if they didn't think about it, or they just didn't write it down.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  They definitely talked about it. Definitely wanted to talk about it.

• 53:26Speaker 02

  Right? Cause it's it. It seems to dominate so much, at least in terms of mystery cults, right? Like there's so much out there. We're like, we should be all like concerned with the underworld.

• 53:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's true. The mystery cults alone, but then they're even more mysterious.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 53:41Liv Albert?

  Unfortunately.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 53:42Liv Albert?

  Those damn things. I know. I've been looking into the Samothracian mystery cult lately.

• 53:49Speaker 02

  Which I know nothing about. Please tell me.

• 53:51Liv Albert?

  So, I mean, I can't find a ton. I mean, it's just generally fascinating because it was, I didn't even know about it at all.

• 53:57Speaker 02

  I've literally never heard of it. The only thing I know about Samothrace is there's the winged Nike of Samothrace.

• 54:01Liv Albert?

  Yes. Which is, turns out, if you Google Samothrace, it's 90% Nike. And I'm like, okay, but what if I want to know about the island? And they're like, nope, just here's the loof. And I'm like, fuck off. Um, yeah. So no, the Samothracian mystery cult was the second biggest mystery cult next to Eleusinian.

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Excuse me, what?

• 54:20Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one who learned this and was like, what the actual fuck? Second biggest. It was enormous. They say the Argonauts were inducted. Most of the buildings that we know of are Hellenistic. So maybe it's just that it was super late, like. It looks like, I think, I don't know if it was the Philip that's Alexander's dad, or just another Philip.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  True.

• 54:42Liv Albert?

  There's a lot of Phillips in Macedon. But they built a lot, they did, there's like a lot of Macedonian work and Helen, from the Hellenistic period and everything on Samothrace. But in top of, like, just in terms of the mystery cult, they have this enormous temple complex sanctuary, which has like eight buildings. It's huge and is like mostly like an archaeological site now, like huge amounts to find. Um, and yeah, so second biggest mystery cult, it was associated primarily with, uh, like the sea and sailors. So if you wanted to like have a good,

• 55:23Liv Albert?

  I guess, life on the sea to be blessed by Poseidon, I guess, you know, you're getting inducted into the Samothration mystery cult. They also, I think it made it easier to then get inducted into the Eleusinian too.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Great, excellent.

• 55:35Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  I want to get one free.

• 55:36Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Um, but then at the same time, because of how close Samothrace was to Lemnos, it's super associated with Hephaestus, even though it seems like the purpose was safety for sailors. But.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Is Lemnos the place that what's his face gets abandoned as well?

• 55:57Liv Albert?

  Yes. And also generally is just like Hephaestus's island.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  Okay. Wait, why is it volcanic?

• 56:07Liv Albert?

  I don't think so.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 56:09Liv Albert?

  It's weird. I don't know, but it's like even in the, um, it's in the story in the Odyssey, I said Odyssey or the Iliad, where it's like the side story where, um, Hephaestus catches Aphrodite and Ares.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yep.

• 56:22Liv Albert?

  Right? Yeah. When he angrily storms off, he goes to Lemnos. And that's where he says, like, he, that's how he tricks them too. He's like, I'm going to Lemnos, you know, pretends to leave.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:34Liv Albert?

  And catches them. So it, but yeah, so there was this whole, the like Kabiroi, which are these, the two mystery gods of Hephaestus. They're really deep in the Samothration mystery cult.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 56:47Liv Albert?

  It's fucking fascinating.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Huh. Is that where we, so we've got those weird, um, Kabiroi vases.

• 56:53Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  With.

• 56:55Liv Albert?

  I don't think I know about them.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. So.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  If at least if I remember correctly. So yeah, there are these vases referred to as the Capitular vases that depict, among other things, Odysseus and Cersei.

• 57:09Liv Albert?

  Oh, interesting.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  And they're comic in that Cersei is like sort of an old crone and Odysseus has got a pot belly and his dick's hanging down to his knees. Yeah.

• 57:25Liv Albert?

  Weird.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:27Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God. Okay. Well, I wrote those down.

• 57:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:30Liv Albert?

  That's fascinating.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I'm curious how they would then link up to, because the Kabir are supposed to be, well, and I think there's a lot of different interpretations of them because they're mystery gods.

• 57:40Speaker 02

  I believe that.

• 57:41Liv Albert?

  But they're like possibly the sons of Hephaestus, twins, and then sometimes they're connected with Castor and Polydeques and

• 57:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:48Liv Albert?

  That that part of twins, because it seems like they're allowed, they're the only twins that are allowed to exist in a degree.

• 57:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:55Liv Albert?

  So there's others sometimes, but yeah, that's really interesting. But yeah, no, Samotheres is like, turns out it's unreal. And it's this tiny, silly little island. And so now I'm obsessed with going and seeing the sanctuary.

• 58:08Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 58:09Liv Albert?

  And but I don't know how we got here. Mystery cults.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  That's totally fun. That's totally fine.

• 58:14Liv Albert?

  But yeah, you're right. The underworld, the the idea of picturing the underworld certainly would have been important to the mystery cult.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. I did have another brainwave about another witch who is also decidedly creepy.

• 58:29Liv Albert?

  Great.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Meraway in Apuleius's Menomorphoses.

• 58:36Liv Albert?

  Oh, yes. So I have I have considered covering this.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 58:42Liv Albert?

  In the past.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 58:44Liv Albert?

  But I'm going to not recall the details, just the level of problematic that it is. It made me go, I'm not going to try to do a whole episode on this, but I would love to to be reminded and talk about it because it's certainly easier in a conversation setting.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. So.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  As a teacher and as someone who's read these things many times before, I should, I should have known better. I remembered, oh, there's some vaguely sketchy things in this. I think we read most of this for one of my classes, but one day I showed up to class and my students are like, you know, it would have maybe been a good idea to give us a heads up about like the explicit A, bestiality and B, pedophilia that was in this book. I was like, mm hmm. Now it's all coming back to me. Yes.

• 59:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I had a whole plan to do an episode and then I start reading it and I'm like, no.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a little, you need to, you need to know what you're getting into. You need to know what you're getting into. And it's not all like that, but there's enough that you can't just be like, it's great.

• 59:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Fortunately, none of that in the Maraway section.

• 59:54Liv Albert?

  Perfect.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  Where she is essentially, she's put into the stereotype of the lusty innkeeper, which I was not aware was a stereotype, but my grads, my grad school advisor was like, yeah, this is a thing. It's like, good, good to know, friend. But yeah, the, the lusty innkeeper, the lusty innkeeper's wife, either one, but she is the innkeeper. And she like starts having this relationship with a guy named Socrates, not that Socrates, but you're clearly kind of supposed to think about that Socrates, not him. And in the course of this relationship, like Socrates' life just falls to shit. Like he's

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  unwashed, he's becoming emaciated, like his buddy finds him just like, I don't know if he's sitting beside the road or just like not doing well. And Socrates then confesses to his friend that like he wasn't in good straits and then like he started sleeping with Maraway and really it all went downhill. So that currently he's like penniless and everything he does get, he gives to Maraway. Okay, that's maybe not great. He's also abandoned a wife and child back home to be with this woman. Like it's, it's not good.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  And so his new buddy is like, hey, maybe let's get you back on your feet. Let's. It's kind of get you moving again. It doesn't, it doesn't work, does not work terribly well. Because Socrates is like, look, Meraway, Meraway has powers. You can't just like talk shit about this woman. She's gonna get you.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  That is, in fact, the case because we hear that Meraway has the ability to like turn people into animals. And the people who have wronged her, she like has terrible things happen to them, right? So like some woman, I don't know, was mean to her or whatever. Was maybe a rival, uh, maybe their sexual rival, I can't remember. Either way, she was forced to like remain pregnant for years.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, or someone else she turned into a beaver. Because at least according to the Romans, when beavers are threatened, they gnaw off their own testicles.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Such that anyone who's pursuing them will be like, ooh goodies, and stop chasing the beaver.

• 1:02:13Liv Albert?

  I love Roman science.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  It's so, so close, it's so far. Right, so we just get so many tales of Meraway being kind of a badass. Uh, and Socrates being like, yeah, it's not, it's kind of, I'm kind of stuck.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  So his buddy is like, fine, we're gonna break you out, it's gonna be fine. And then in the middle of the night, Meraway and her friend, another witch, like come in, they, they stab Socrates like they cut his throat. In the middle of the night, and then like drain out all of his blood.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  And then they take a sponge and like, it's gonna be fine. And they just shove it down through the hole, uh, that they've stabbed into his throat. And they're like, it's fine, everything's gonna be fine. You'll wake up. Ta-da. Oh, and then to add insult to injury, these two women also then like crouch over Socrates' friend and just like pee all over him. Yes, like it's a, it's a whole thing. I'm sure if anyone wanted to do a Freudian reading of this, it would be completely possible. And then they leave. It's great. And then the room just goes back to the way it was. Socrates buddy eventually wakes up in the morning and is like afraid that his friend is dead. And it's like, all right, here's the deal. I'm essentially staying at a motel six, but in

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  the ancient world and my roommate got murdered by witches. Like, how do I explain this? So like, he tries to leave and the doorman is like, no one's leaving. It's like, it's not even, it's daytime. Like, you cannot leave. What if you murdered your roommate? And the guy's like, okay, all right, fine. Thinks about killing himself. That falls apart. Because actually, I believe he does try to hang himself and then the rope breaks and he falls on Socrates and then Socrates wakes up. Socrates wakes up. It's like, what are you doing? You smell like piss. So it's, it's a funny tale. And then these two like could go off about their business, right up until the point that Socrates like tries to take a drink from a river. And then suddenly, the, the story is all true again, right?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  The, the sponge pops out of the hole and Socrates is dead. And you're like, okay, cool. It's great, great time.

• 1:04:28Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Liv Albert?

  That's just so many things.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  So many things. And it's like one of three really weird witch stories that happened in the first two books.

• 1:04:38Liv Albert?

  That's the thing about that book. I mean, so I've, you know, I read Cupid and Psyche when I was real young.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Liv Albert?

  I love Cupid and Psyche. I have revisited it. I definitely did not give it the right amount of justice in terms of the, the level of creepy that does actually exist within that.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Liv Albert?

  Um, but I mean, I, I've read that a lot.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:05:01Liv Albert?

  And then even though there's definitely some like major weird consent issues that, you know, should be talked about, I did not. And I, I kind of want to go back, but I also don't. It's people's favorite episode. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But, you know, besides that, like, it's still pretty normal and nice and it's, it's quite a lovely story. And then the rest of that book is wild.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  Bad shit insane.

• 1:05:27Liv Albert?

  Yes, I've only tried to read bits of it. And I'm like, what is this? Like, how is this the book that contains Cupid and Psyche?

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  So here's the thing. So first, first, you probably maybe already talked about this in your episode. Did you talk about Beauty and the Beast?

• 1:05:45Liv Albert?

  I don't remember if I did. I mean, I know the Beauty and the Beast is based on Cupid and Psyche, for sure.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  Which as soon as you start making critiques of that, you're like, oh, oh, wait a second. Delightful. Anyway, wonderful. Great. You're on the same page. So as I said, I'm not a philosophy guy, but people smarter than I am have been like, okay, so here's the deal with Apuleius. He is a Neoplatonist. And what he has done is in the center of this, I think it's 11 book, novel, in the dead center of this, stretching from books four to five to six, you've got this long ass story of Cupid and Psyche, which can be read as an allegory for the immortality of the soul.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Hmm. Because Psyche, obviously Greek soul, great, got it. And so like, she has to overcome all of these things to eventually leave behind her earthly trappings. And then go be immortalized after suffering a death in the underworld. Like it's, there is a philosophical reading to be made of that text. I am not endorsing it 100%, but it does at least go some way to being like, what the fuck is this doing here? And why did you put so much importance on this?

• 1:07:03Liv Albert?

  Hmm. Yeah, because it, it feels very out of place. I mean, again, I haven't read the rest of it, but I've like, you know, read little bits in and around it. But it feels, it feels out of place. It's definitely surrounded by weirdly bizarre things. And, you know, of course, the, the consent issues would not have really been an issue back then. So it would have been even more out of place. It would have been even more like, this is a beautifully romantic tale in the midst of utter nonsense.

• 1:07:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And even more nonsensical is the final book where it's just. A like detailed description of what would appear to be initiation rites into the cult of ISIS.

• 1:07:48Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Book 11 is bananas.

• 1:07:53Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  Yes. And so the lot, a lot of scholars have done work on this and they're like, what? Like, is this like, you're actually revealing mysteries? Is that legit? Is this satire? What's happening here? Yeah, um, book 11 is absurd.

• 1:08:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Liv Albert?

  Oh, that's fascinating.

• 1:08:13Speaker 02

  Yes. So it's such a weird book. It's such a weird book.

• 1:08:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Now, back to the witch in it.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:08:22Liv Albert?

  Cause as you were talking about it, I just kept thinking like, so, I mean, how much do we think certainly these types of witches? You know, the Roman, I would say specifically.

• 1:08:33Liv Albert?

  The Greek is harder because they span mythology in a different way.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Liv Albert?

  Um, but how much are these women sort of, or these witches? Commentary on women, basically.

• 1:08:44Speaker 02

  Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah.

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  I mean, I think one of my standard bylines when we're, when we're reading ancient texts is that the vast majority of what we're reading is written by elite men, for elite men, about elite men. Right? So it's really hard to extricate discussions or sort of snapshots of women from that context. Cause you're like, yeah, like even, even if you have sort of the most well-intentioned Roman author, like this is still very much being produced by Roman men, again, largely for Roman men.

• 1:09:24Liv Albert?

  Which is what leads me to say, like, or just imagine that these women are sort of like in jokes of like, oh, wives, right? God, they can be so much like they're always trying to trick me or

• 1:09:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Liv Albert?

  you know, poison me. I don't know. All these different things. Like, it just feels like, yeah, it feels like an in-joke commentary on.

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  That's certainly, that's certainly a read and not one that I disagree with. Um, I will say I. I had a very pointed and cogent critique of some of my work by, I don't know how she pronounces her last name, Pauline Rapat, I believe. And one of the things that she pointed out is that underneath a lot of these stories about witches and beyond the literature, like actual like evidence we've got of on the ground magical practice, what we can see is a demonstration of actual anxiety by women about the lives and relationships that they had. And so even if we've got sort of many layers of patriarchy and misogyny to sort

• 1:10:29Speaker 02

  of pull back, what we can see in a lot of these instances is a genuine concern about like their day to day lives. Now, Maraway, not so much, unless you like really want to squint hard and be like, okay, concern about other romantic partners, running a business. Because one of the things she's concerned about is people who are sort of competing in her economic market. So that men would be concerned that women would use their magic while she's like, okay, I see what you're doing here, buddy. Yeah. But on the face of it, you're absolutely correct. A lot of this is just guys projecting their own anxieties. Absolutely.

• 1:11:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's just interesting. Also, I kept thinking too, like, at the beginning at least, but does, does that make Cersei a lusty innkeeper?

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  I think some people would absolutely argue that she would fall into that category. Yes.

• 1:11:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, certainly at the beginning. And I mean, she does house them for a year.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Liv Albert?

  And she starts things off with, all right, I'm gonna get some, and then I'm gonna help you. So, I mean, I kind of like it.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, indeed.

• 1:11:46Liv Albert?

  I mean, well, this has been Perfect conversation about witches. I've learned so much about Roman ones. It's great because I really, my sourcing on Rome is not remotely as good as what I can find for Greece.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  Happy to be of help.

• 1:11:59Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah, I mean, thank you so much for doing this. This has been really great.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

• 1:12:04Liv Albert?

  Very happy to. What, um, where can listeners find you? You do TikTok, so you should promote

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  Oh, that's true.

• 1:12:11Liv Albert?

  Among other things.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  So, um, I'm teaching at Urlum College, uh, down in Richmond, Indiana, great place. Uh, and you can find me online on TikTok at Prof Maxwell. It's a really pretentious name, but it works fine. Um, and on Twitter, I'm at Winaficus Ipsa. Yeah, with a V. Yep.

• 1:12:34Liv Albert?

  Okay, that one's a little harder to find, I would argue.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  That's why I renamed myself Prof Maxwell on TikTok.

• 1:12:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. Smart, smart.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  Thank you. So there we are.

• 1:12:44Liv Albert?

  Uh, wonderful. And you have a book about Canidia, so that's very cool.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  I do. Yeah. Well, thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it.

• 1:12:51Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I'm thrilled.

• 1:13:09Liv Albert?

  This is the Canidia of Horus's Epo'd Five.

• 1:13:15Liv Albert?

  Oh, whatever God above guides the world and the human race, what does this commotion mean? Why are all your cruel faces turned against me alone? I beg you by your children, if Lucina was invoked at their actual births by this futile band of purple by Jupiter, who is sure to condemn these acts, why do you gaze at me like a stepmother or like some wounded beast? The boy spoke with quavering lips, then grew quiet as the trappings of his youth were stripped away. His was the body of a child youthful enough to soften even the godless hearts of the

• 1:13:53Liv Albert?

  Thracians, yet Canidia, her unkempt hair bound with slender snakes, orders fig-trees to be uprooted from tombs, she orders funereal cypress and a feather and eggs from a nocturnal strix, smeared with the blood of a hideous frog, and herbs that Eolcus and Hiberia, fertile in poisons, send forth, and bones snatched from the mouth of a starving hound. All of these she orders to be burned in Colchian flames. In the meantime Sagana immediately sprinkles water from Lake of Varinus throughout the

• 1:14:33Liv Albert?

  entire house, her bristling locks standing on end like a sea-urchin or a running boar. Vaya, unrestrained by any sense of guilt, groans with exertion, and she digs up the earth with a firm maddock, so that the boy buried in the pit can be starved to death in sight of a meal that is renewed two or three times a day while only his head projects from the earth like a swimmer whose chin just emerges from the water. She does this so that his dried liver and bone marrow can be made into a love potion

• 1:15:13Liv Albert?

  just as soon as his pupils, fixed on the forbidden food, have melted away. If a Crimean folia, she with the lust of a man, were not in attendance, opulent Naples could not believe it, nor could any of the towns near by, after the stars have been charmed by her Thessalian voice. She rips them from the sky along with the moon. Now, as fierce Canidia gnawed at her untrimmed thumb with a blackened tooth, what did she say, or what did she leave unsaid? "Night and Diana, not unfaithful overseers of my affairs, you who maintain silence when the sacred rites occur.

• 1:15:56Liv Albert?

  Now, now be at hand, now turn your wrath and power against hostile homes. While the listless beasts sleep sweetly in the treacherous woods, the bitches of the Subura bark at that adulterous old man, something everyone laughs at, smeared with an ointment whose better my hands have never fashioned." What happened? Why are the dire poisons of Medea, the barbarian, not working? With these she took her revenge and escaped that haughty concubine, the daughter of great Creon. With a cloak, a gift rubbed down with slime, she snatched the new bride away in flames.

• 1:16:37Liv Albert?

  Yet no herb, no root, hidden in a treacherous place, escaped my notice. He sleeps in a bedchamber laced with the forgetfulness of all other mistresses. Ah, ah, he walks about, freed by the spell of a more powerful witch. Varus, you are soon to weep profusely. Not through the use of my usual potions, will you run back to me and your mind, though summoned by Marcian chants, will not return. I will prepare something else, a better potion to pour upon you in your reluctance. And the sky will sooner sit beneath the sea with the earth stretched atop it, before you fail to blaze with passion for me like bitumen in black flames."

• 1:17:22Liv Albert?

  After this, the boy no longer sought to soften the godless women with gentle words, but doubtful as how to break the silence, sent forth Thiestian oaths. Magic poisons are not strong enough to confuse right and wrong or human vengeance. I shall pursue you terribly, my terrible hatred will be appeased by no sacrifice. Condemned to die, when I breathe my last, I shall- Return a fury of the night and as a shade I shall claw at your face with hooked talons. This is the power of the gods of the dead and sitting astride your restless hearts I shall steal your sleep through fear.

• 1:18:01Liv Albert?

  A crowd attacking you hideous old women with rocks will stone you street by street and afterwards the wolves and the birds of the esquiline will tear apart your unburied limbs. And the sight will not escape the notice of my parents, alas, who were forced to survive me.

• 1:18:37Liv Albert?

  Oh nerds, thank you all so much for listening to that conversation and the very fun reading of that poem after. It was so creepy and good. So thank you to Maxwell for letting me read that. It was very exciting. Uh, thank you all so much for listening. As always, this is so much fun. I love these conversations. I love that I get to talk about spooky season with people. It's just, it's really cool and fun and I'm glad you all seem to like it as much as I do. Uh, happy fucking spooky season. Happy Halloween. Please, if you're up for it, watch Scream for me, would you? I am Liv and I love this shit.

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