Profs & Pints DC: Witches of Antiquity

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Witches of Antiquity,” on the sorceresses of ancient Greece and Rome, with Barbette Stanley Spaeth, professor emerita of classical studies at William & Mary and scholar of magic and the supernatural in the ancient world.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-witches-of-antiquity .]

Seductive enchantress. Murderous sorceress. Corpse-mangling hag. The witches of the ancient world were among antiquity’s most vivid and disturbing characters.

Get to know some of antiquity’s most unforgettable women with the help of Barbette Stanley Spaeth, who last year gave fantastic Profs and Pints talks on ancient magic and ancient terrors of the night.

We’ll spend time with Homer’s beautiful Circe, Euripides’ passionate Medea, and Horace’s sinister Canidia. You’ll encounter Lucan’s terrifying Erictho, a witch so powerful she could raise the dead and force even the gods to obey her.

Along the way, we’ll ask why the image of the witch changed so dramatically as it traveled from Greece to Rome. Greek writers often imagined witches as beautiful, alluring, and sometimes even helpful. Roman authors, on the other hand, increasingly portrayed them as ugly, lustful, dangerous old women. What can these frightening figures tell us about ancient attitudes toward magic, women, sexuality, and power?

The answers take us beyond spells and potions into some of the deepest anxieties of the ancient world, about women who possessed power, men who feared losing it, and what might happen when accepted boundaries—between male and female, human and divine, living and dead, and even order and chaos—began to break down.

For over thirty years at William & Mary and Tulane University, Dr. Spaeth taught courses on ancient magic and the supernatural. She has published several studies of ancient witchcraft and is currently working on a book on the subject. Her talk is sure to leave you spellbound. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From “Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus,” an 1891 painting by John William Waterhouse (Gallery Oldham / Public Domain).