Thessaly, Land of Greek & Roman Magic

To the north of Greece stretches Thessaly, a vast plain surrounded by mountains, cradle of mythical heroes… and a major center of witchcraft in ancient imagination. From the classical era, the Greeks and then the Romans attributed to this fertile region a singular reputation: that of a land where formidable sorceresses operate, capable of extraordinary incantations. From the mythical Medea to the witches mentioned by Latin poets, Thessaly established itself as the land of enchantments and occult practices. Journey.

Birth of a magical reputation in Thessaly

The reputation of Thessaly as a land of magic appears as early as sources from the 5th century BC. Aristophanes, in his comedy The Clouds (423 BC), humorously alludes to it: a debt-ridden character suggests to “buy a Thessalian sorceress” in order to bring the Moon down from the sky and keep it captive, hoping thus to stop the passage of time to avoid paying interest. The Thessalian here appears as a professional witch, familiar with lunar powers. A few decades later, around 380 BC, Plato also testifies to this popular belief in a passage from Gorgias. He compares the moral compromises of political life to the formidable effects of Thessalian spells: “lest we suffer […] the same as the Thessalian women, who are said to bring the Moon down.” The philosopher thus confirms that in his eyes, the common people attribute to the women of Thessaly the supernatural power to act on the night star.

This idea of lunar witchcraft rooted in Thessaly is probably no coincidence. Ancient authors suggested that the region housed ancient cults linked to magic: the goddess Hecate, mistress of the Moon and nocturnal enchantments, was particularly honored there. In any case, from classical antiquity the Thessalian sorceress became a stock character. Her very name became synonymous with the witch par excellence, to the point that later a Latin author could refer to “Thessalian wonders” to designate magical feats. Writers regularly place the most spectacular occult exploits in Thessaly. It is enough for a traveler or hero to pass through Thessaly for the dangerous and fascinating specialty that makes up half its reputation to be praised locally. In other words, in the minds of the Ancients, Thessaly became the land of witches and magical rites.

Thessalian witches and sorceresses

Several mythological and legendary stories contributed to shaping this image of Thessaly as a “land of witchcraft.” One of the first great sorceresses of Greek mythology, Medea, acts precisely in Thessaly. Coming from the East with Jason and the Argonauts, Medea stays in Iolcus (in Thessaly) where her occult knowledge will disrupt the fate of King Pelias. The Colchian witch performs disturbing wonders there: she rejuvenates Jason’s father by boiling him in a cauldron with enchanted herbs, then deceives Pelias’s daughters by persuading them to cut their father into pieces in the hope of regenerating him. This murder by magical trickery, committed on Thessalian soil, inscribes in local mythology the idea of a terrifying occult power. Medea herself now embodies the figure of the witch capable of concocting potions and poisons, taming fabulous creatures, and manipulating life or death through her arts. Alongside her, other mythical female characters like Circe (a sorceress who enchants Odysseus’s companions) are mentioned in contrast – but Circe acts on her distant island, while Medea acts indeed in Thessaly, giving this region a special place in the mythical geography of magic.

Beyond myths, Greek and then Latin literature widely spread the image of Thessalian witches, enriching their portrait with striking details. Already in Hellenistic poetry, these sorceresses were credited with formidable rituals. A fragment attributed to the historian Aglaosthenes (or a later author) reported, for example, that Thessalian witches could bring the Moon down from the sky in exchange for a horrific sacrifice – losing what they hold most dear, such as a child or even one of their eyes, in return for this power. This idea of paying a high price for magic reinforces the sinister aura of these women. In the same spirit, the legend of Aglaonice of Thessaly, a priestess and astronomer of the 3rd century BC, tells that she predicted lunar eclipses and claimed, through her chants, to cause them. Her contemporaries said that Aglaonice “detached the Moon from the sky by her magical charms” and noted that each time she accomplished this feat, misfortune struck her family. Here reality (the scientific prediction of eclipses) mixes with belief: the scholar is perceived as a sorceress capable of enslaving the night star, in line with the Thessalian stereotype.

Latin authors of the late Republic and early Empire took up and amplified these motifs, making the Thessalian witch a recurring character in their works. Propertius, an elegiac poet of the 1st century BC, opens his Book I by evoking the bewitching power of love and alludes to Thessalian enchantments. Powerless against his passion, the fictional lover wonders “which witch, which sorcerer could free me with Thessalian potions”. This passage shows that Thessalian potions, that is, potions and spells from this land, were considered the most effective for love enchantments. Similarly, in his Amores and Remedia Amoris, Ovid makes many nods to Thessalian witchcraft. Sometimes the poet claims that a Thessala saga (a Thessalian witch) cast a spell responsible for his temporary impotence in love; other times he advises his readers against using harmful herbs and magical arts from Thessalian lands, practices he considers outdated. “It is the old way of practicing witchcraft,” writes Ovid about these occult remedies, before offering the reader more rational means to heal a broken heart. Through these allusions, the Latin writer confirms that in his audience’s mind, Thessaly rhymes with love magic, poisons, and enchantments.

It is, however, in Roman poetry and satire that the Thessalian witch takes full form, often as an old woman expert in dark arts. Horace, in his Epodes (around 30 BC), stages the formidable Canidia and her accomplices preparing macabre spells. Although these witches operate in Rome, Horace explicitly associates them with occult knowledge from Thessaly. Thus, in Epode 5, the witch Folia, accomplice of Canidia, is presented as a schemer capable of making the stars fall: “with a Thessalian word, [she would] make the Moon and Sun fall from our sky”. The expression “Thessalian word” here means a magical formula inherited from Thessaly, powerful enough to unhinge the stars from the firmament. Horace thus suggests that these Italian witches draw their knowledge from the old Thessalian magical traditions. Elsewhere, speaking generally of superstitions, the same poet advises the wise to laugh at everything that scares the common folk: dreams, magical terrors, nocturnal ghosts, and “Thessalian wonders.” Thessalian witchcraft became, for Horace and his readers, a synonym for frightening sorcery.

Prose accounts of the imperial era also exploit this vein. Around the 1st century AD, the poet Lucan sets one of the most striking scenes of his Pharsalia (epic of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey) in Thessaly. In Book VI, the young Sextus Pompey consults the witch Erichtho in the plains of Pharsalus on the eve of the great battle. Lucan paints a terrifying portrait of this Thessalian sorceress: she is a wild old woman living among tombs, feeding on dead flesh and desecrating corpses for her rituals. Her incantations overturn the order of nature: “At the voice of a Thessalian, the laws of nature are interrupted: the earth is covered with floods, the sun darkens, and the sky thunders without Jupiter’s knowledge”. Erichtho practices necromancy: Lucan shows her collecting the still warm blood of a dead soldier to anoint a corpse and revive it – the specter torn from the Underworld will then prophesy the battle’s fatal outcome. This macabre witchcraft scene, set on Thessalian soil itself, strikes the minds of Roman readers. After Lucan, no one would ever mention a Thessalian witch without thinking of this repulsive figure, capable of making the dead speak and suspending the course of the stars.

Thessaly also serves as the setting for the Latin novel The Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass) by Apuleius (2nd century AD), which largely revolves around the theme of magic. The hero, Lucius, is a young Greek fascinated by enchantments: “knowing he was in the heart of Thessaly, cradle of magical arts whose powerful spells are praised worldwide”, he is eager to uncover their secrets. Very soon, he becomes involved with the misdeeds of formidable Thessalian witches. Apuleius first presents the witch Meroe, who attacks an unfortunate traveler: she drains his blood while he sleeps and leaves him dying, demonstrating a terrifying evil power. Later, it is the sorceress Pamphile, with whom Lucius lodges, who reveals the extent of local witchcraft. Every night, Pamphile transforms into an owl by rubbing herself with a magical ointment to meet her lover. Surprised by Lucius, she inspires dangerous curiosity in him. The young man tries a transformation himself, but a mistake turns him into a donkey – a picaresque misadventure that provides much of the novel’s flavor. Throughout the story, Apuleius accumulates episodes presenting Thessalian occult practices: summoning spirits of the dead, love elixirs, transformations of men into beasts or stone for revenge, nocturnal flights through the air... The author emphasizes that Thessaly was considered “the cradle of magical arts”, the ideal place to satisfy [his] hero’s curiosity about witchcraft.

Notably, it is also in Thessaly that an earlier Greek version of the same novel takes place, attributed to Lucian of Samosata (Lucios or The Ass, 2nd century AD). This satirical tale, very close to Apuleius’s, features a hero transformed into a donkey after spying on the spells of a Thessalian woman. Whether truly by Lucian or another author, the choice of Thessaly as setting is no accident: by the 3rd century AD, every reader knew this region was “renowned worldwide as the cradle of magical arts and enchantments”. Lucian, moreover, mocks credulity towards magic and “miracle workers” in other works. The fact that he sets this metamorphosis tale in Thessaly confirms once again the unbreakable link between this land and witchcraft in ancient thought. From then on, the myth of Thessalian witches was firmly established, with its notable figures (from Medea to Erichtho) and recurring themes: lunar invocations, love potions, poisons, necromancy, transformations… Greco-Roman antiquity thus bequeaths a rich tableau of magic in which Thessaly holds a privileged place.

Fortune of an esoteric image

The powerful image of Thessalian witches did not disappear with the end of Antiquity: it has crossed centuries in Western scholarship and esoteric imagination. In the Middle Ages, the figure of the ancient sorceress partly merged with the demonized figure of the medieval witch, but scholars did not forget the classical stories. Translations and commentaries of ancient authors during the Renaissance rediscovered these Thessalian enchantresses. Humanists and demonologists of the 16th century, denouncing witchcraft practices of their time, often mention Greek and Roman examples: Medea, Circe, or the Thessalian women capable of bringing down the Moon, as mythical precedents to contemporary malefices. Renaissance and Baroque artists and poets also drew from this pool of images: witches surrounding a magic cauldron under the full moon, love potions and poisons inherited from Thessaly. Montague Summers, a scholar of the early 20th century, reports that in the eyes of the ancient Greeks “the Thessalian ladies were considered, more than any other people, experts in witchcraft and enchantments”. This remark, from a 1927 work, shows that the tradition was still very much alive in minds. Indeed, many esoteric authors of the 19th and 20th centuries perpetuated Thessaly’s mystical aura. The old expression “to bring down the Moon,” directly inherited from Thessalian witches capable of pulling the night star to themselves, has entered common language to designate an impossible quest – a sign of a lasting cultural memory of these myths. Moreover, some modern neo-pagan currents, like Wicca, have symbolically reused the ritual of “bringing down the Moon” in their practices, in explicit reference to the Thessalian enchantresses.

The ancient magical Thessaly has never quite ceased to haunt the imagination. From ancient authors to modern occultists, the extraordinary powers attributed to its witches have been celebrated – or feared – without end. Land of horses and centaurs, the Thessalian plains were also, thanks to literature, the domain of women with potions and incantations. This legendary construction, born from the fears and fantasies of classical Greece, has endured through the ages. It reminds us how a region can, through the power of stories, become the privileged stage of the invisible and the marvelous. Thessaly as a land of magic thus remains a fascinating legacy of ancient culture, having nourished centuries of poetry, myths, and esoteric beliefs.

Sources:

• Aristophanes – The Clouds (423 BC), vv. 749-755 (allusion to Thessalian sorceresses and the “descent” of the Moon).

• Plato – Gorgias (around 380 BC), 513a (proverbial mention of Thessalian women bringing down the Moon).

• Propertius – Elegies, I, 1 (evocation of Thessalian potions to cure lovesickness).

• Horace – Epodes, V and XVII (witches Canidia and Folia, use of Thessalian enchantments).

• Ovid – Amores and Remedia Amoris (references to Thessalian witches and critiques of ancient magical practices).

• Lucan – Pharsalia, VI (portrait of Erichtho the Thessalian and necromancy before Pharsalia).

• Apuleius – Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass (2nd century AD), books I-III (adventures of Lucius with Meroe and Pamphile in Thessaly, transformations, etc.).

• (Pseudo-)Lucian of Samosata – Lucius or The Ass (2nd century AD), Greek novel attributed to Lucian (same plot as Apuleius’s, highlighting the tradition of Thessalian witches).

• Jacques Cazeaux – “Thessaly of the Sorceresses,” in Thessaly (Proceedings of the Lyon roundtable, 1975), 1979. Historical study on the construction of the myth of the Thessalian witch.

• Brian Clark – The Witches of Thessaly (Paper, 2000s). Analysis of Thessaly’s reputation as a center of witchcraft in Antiquity and beyond.

• Montague Summers – The Geography of Witchcraft, Kegan Paul, 1927. (Dated) work discussing the tradition of Thessalian witches in Western culture.