Crossing un-crossable boundaries: horrific necromancy in ancient Rome

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2014
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en_US
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Abstract
In the literature of the early Roman Empire portrayals of necromancy became horrific. The concept of reanimation, or the forcing of the spirit back into the abandoned corpse, was also introduced. While not all literary representations of horrific necromancy included reanimation, all instances of reanimation were portrayed as horrific—this is likely due to the fact that, while necromancy is by nature transgressive, the physicality of reanimation draws attention to that transgression. Transgression, in turn, has an inherent potential to be horrific as it threatens a destabilization of the comfortable binaries and accepted order of the universe. I argue that the transgression of reanimation can be sorted into three discrete categories: the violation of family roles, the violation of societal rules, and the violation of the natural order of the universe. These violations are best analyzed in terms of Stephen King’s model of horror, horror as a combination of terror of an unknown threat and revulsion at a physical stressor. Reanimation would easily provide for both requirements of this model of horror as it deals with the corpse, a polluted object in the Roman Empire, and the abstract ideas of death and unnatural power, contributing to the sense of terror. The three most notable examples of this combination of reanimation and horror in portrayals of necromancy are Lucan’s Civil War, Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, and Heliodorus’ Aethiopica. All three texts are horrific to varying degrees and with different agendas, but all three do emphasize the transgressive nature of reanimation through the use of horror.
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