Canidia, Rome’s First Witch

Canidia is one of the most well-attested witches in Latin literature. She appears in no fewer than six of Horace’s poems and in three she has a prominent role. Throughout Horace’s Epodes and Satires she perpetrates acts of grave desecration, kidnapping, murder, magical torture and poisoning. She invades the gardens of Horace’s literary patron Maecenas, she rips apart a lamb with her teeth, she starves a Roman child to death, and she threatens to unnaturally prolong Horace’s life to keep him in a state of perpetual torment. She can be seen as an anti-muse: Horace repeatedly sets her in opposition to his literary patron, he casts her as the personification of his iambic poetry, and he gives her the surprising honor of concluding not only his Epodes but also his second book of Satires.

This volume is the first comprehensive treatment of Canidia to date. It offers translations of each of the three poems which feature Canidia as a main character as well as the relevant portions from the other three poems in which Canidia plays a minor role. These translations are accompanied by extensive analysis of Canidia’s part in each piece that takes into account not only the poems’ literary contexts but their magico-religious details.