Graeco Italian Magic

The Greek words for magic and magician, μαγεία and μάγος, are admittedly of Persian origin, and in all probability did not find their way into Greece before the Persian War, that is, before about 480 b.c. It was therefore an obvious inference, which was drawn in 1863 by O. Hirschfeld ( de incantationibus et devinctionibus amatoriis apud Graecos Romanosque ), that as the name magic was not known in Greece before the Persian Wars, neither was the thing. The inference is indeed obvious, but it...