Venenum, nebo venenum? : Tacitus, magie a větrné mlýny Dona Quijota : několik poznámek k metodologii studia antické magie

Difficulties complicating the search for a universally acceptable definition of magic, which sometimes end in the claim for abolishment of magic as a scientific category of generic nature (J. Z. Smith, J. G. Gager), led some scholars to attempt to delineate magic with the help of emic data. -- The main objective of this study is to test the practical applicability of this set of data to help further define magic. The chosen test case, a passage of Tacitus (Annales 2.69) describing the circumstances of the death of Germanicus, the adoptive son of the emperor Tiberius (and the heir apparent), during his visit to Antioch, is considered to be a serious obstacle to these attempts. The emic approach aspiring to understand magic in terms of the studied culture is for the interpretation of this incident utterly impractical, since Tacitus uses only one word venenum for two different activities (a magical attack and an act of poisoning). The translation of this expression, and thus the interpretation of the whole incident, becomes impossible unless we have a pre-existing etic category of magic at our disposal, even if it remains concealed. -- The author of this study does not deny the usefulness of information, which can be extracted from emic data. Nevertheless, he maintains that this knowledge by itself is not able to produce any solid base for a construction of a scientific category of magic, because its existence is a necessary precondition of any extraction of this sort.