

Flint remarks how they also even appear in tablets where the descriptions suggest the dispute is “entirely between men.” Interestingly, in these tablets women are often addressed by their matronymic, rather than by their patronymic, as was otherwise customary. Alone as well as noted along with men, women’s names appear frequently in tablets (Flint 1999). defixionesĪ prevalence of the names of women across the corpus of curse tablets raises important issues for gender and the treatment of women in the ancient world. In literature, Roman witches were depicted as horrific, a testimony to how males viewed women in power. As curse tablets reveal, wives who felt threatened by their husband’s slave women could resort to secretive magic methods as the Roman law was not on their side.

These contrasts highlight how magic, and particularly female practitioners, was frowned upon in Roman society.įrom classical portrayals from Roman sources of the witch and witchcraft, female practitioners are depicted as powerful icons that challenge and break both physical and societal boundaries of the natural order. Generally, Roman witches were old, frightening, and immensely powerful –– an interesting contrast to Greek witches who were depicted as beautiful, youthful seductresses. Classical literary portraits of Roman witches and witchcraft demonstrate an emblematic relationship between gender and magic. The expansive corpus of curse tablets, drawn from across Mediterranean lands and spanning a millennium, provide the best evidence for the practice of magic from 5th Century B.C.E to 5th Century B.C. For the purpose of taking into account all the different categories and distinctions, a “witch” is defined as “a person, especially a woman, claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery.” The term “magic” in antiquity, for the purposes of distinguishing witches from classical goddesses or priestesses in classical literature, will be defined as the supernatural means or instruments to control nature and compel others to do one’s bidding (Spaeth 2014). And if Pills N Potions is any indication of that, it makes me very happy to see what The Pinkprint has in store.The term “witch” allows for a broad array of female practitioners in Greek and Roman sources to be categorized and distinguished by their methods, characteristics, abilities, association with animals, pejorative or euphemistic terms, and certain types of magic. Luke and Circuit, really gives Minaj the platform to set the stage for what is to come. Overall, this song could be one of Minaj’s best yet. The public has seen Minaj strip herself clean of the wigs and the costumes just so she can truly re-invent herself and go back to her earlier mixtape days. This change that is going on during the song really sums up her transformation as an individual in the past few months. Minaj goes very deep with this song by rapping about the people that have wronged her, but in the end of it all, she still loves and forgives. Her smooth rapping and meaningful lyrics go against some of her most recent releases like Chi-Raq and Yasss Bish.

As she progresses into the next verse, it is apparent that the Nicki Minaj that most people fell in love with, has returned. She sings, “Pills and potions/ We’re overdosing/ I’m angry but I still love you.” Right off the bat, Minaj sets a serious precedent for the song, which never falters throughout the rest of it. Minaj quickly begins to use her soft singing voice for the chorus of song. The song opens up with a simple drum beat and piano in the background. Complex Magazine even called the track “a monster of a song.” However, here’s what I had to say… Within the first couple of days, the song has received acclaim from both her fans and the critics. She kept to her word and released her new single, Pills N Potions, to the public on Wednesday of this week. In the promotional song, Yasss Bish, Minaj gave fans a hint that her single would be dropping in the next couple of weeks. For the past few months, Nicki Minaj has been teasing her fans over the release of her first single from her third album, The Pinkprint.
