FA´SCINUM
FA´SCINUM (
βασκανία),
fascination, en, chantment. The belief that some persons had the power of
injuring others by their looks was prevalent among the Greeks and Romans,
and, under the name
jettatura, among the
superstitious in modern Italy. The
ὀφθαλμὸς
βάσκανος, or
evil eye, is frequently
mentioned by ancient, writers. (Alciphr.
Ep. 1.15; Heliod.
Aeth. 3.7; compare
Plin. Nat.
7.16.) Plutarch, in his
Symposium
(5.7), has a separate chapter
περὶ τῶν
καταβασκαίνειν λεγομένων, καὶ βάσκανον ἔχειν ὀφθαλμόν.
The evil eye was supposed to injure children particularly, but sometimes
cattle also; whence Virgil (
Ecl. iii, 103) says:
“Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.”
Various amulets were used to avert the influence of the evil eye. The most
common of these appears to have been the phallus, called by the Romans
fascinum, which was hung round the necks of children (
turpicula res, Varr.
L. L. 7.97, ed.
Müller). Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 19.
§. 50) also says that
Satyrica signa,
by which he means the phallus, were placed in gardens and on hearths as a
protection against the fascinations of the envious; and we learn from Pollux
(8.118) that smiths were accustomed to place the same figures before their
forges with the same design. Sometimes other objects were employed for this
purpose. Peisistratus is said to have hung the figure of a kind of
grasshopper before the Acropolis as a preservative against fascination.
(
Hesych. sub voce
Καταλήνη.) Compare AMULETUM, BULLA.
Another common mode of averting fascination was by spitting into the folds of
one's own dress. (Theocr. 6.39;
Plin. Nat.
28.39; Lucian,
Navig. 15, p. 259 R.)
According to Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 28.39),
Fascinus was the name of a god, who was worshipped among the Roman sacra by
the Vestal virgins, and was placed under the chariot of those who triumphed
as a protection against fascination; by which he means in all probability
that the phallus was placed under the chariot. (Müller,
Archäol. der Kunst, § 436,
[p. 1.828]1, 2; Böttiger,
Klein.
Schr. iii. p. 111; Becker-Göll,
Charikles,
i. p. 287.)
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