Ephesia Grammata are Ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 magical formulas

Magic in the Greco-Roman world

The study of magic in the Greco-Roman world is a branch of the disciplines of classics, ancient history and religious studies. In the ancient post-hellenistic world of the Greeks and Romans , the public and private rituals associated with religion are accepted by historians and archaeologists to...

 attested from the 5th or 4th century BC. According to Pausanias the Lexicographer (Eust. ad Od. 20, 247, p. 1864), their name derives from their being inscribed on the cult image of Artemis

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

 in Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

. Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria

Titus Flavius Clemens , known as Clement of Alexandria , was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen...

 considers them an invention of the Daktyloi

Dactyl (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Dactyls were the archaic mythical race of small phallic male beings associated with the Great Mother, whether as Cybele or Rhea. Their numbers vary, but often they were ten spirit-men so like the three Curetes, the Cabiri or the Korybantes that they were often interchangeable...

.

Similar to the mantra

Mantra

A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...

s of Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 and Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

, they were "meaningless words" (ἄσημα ὀνόματα) potent to protect those who could speak them correctly, their power residing in their sound, so that they were ineffective if mispronounced.
Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 (Quaest. Conv. 706D) reports that the Magi

Magi

Magi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...

 instructed victims of demonic possession to recite the Ephesia Grammata.

In the 4th century comedy Lyropoios by Anaxilas, one character carries Ephesia Grammata inscribed on his belt.

The best known Ephesia Grammata are a group of six words:

(or )

A version of this formula seems to be attested by a damaged inscription from Himera

Himera

thumb|250px|Remains of the Temple of Victory.thumb|250px|Ideal reconstruction of the Temple of Victory.Himera , was an important ancient Greek city of Sicily, situated on the north coast of the island, at the mouth of the river of the same name , between Panormus and Cephaloedium...

, Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, which must date to before the Carthaginian

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

 destruction of the city in 409 BC

409 BC

Year 409 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Cossus and Medullinus...

. The next earliest epigraphic evidence for the formula comes from the 4th century BC, and it continues to re-appear on magical papyri

Greek magical papyri

The Greek Magical Papyri is the name given by scholars to a body of papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt, which each contain a number of magical spells, formulae, hymns and rituals. The materials in the papyri date from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD...

 throughout the Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...

. The words sometimes occur in significantly different variants, for example on the lead tablet of Phalasarna

Phalasarna

Falasarna/Phalasarna is an ancient Greek harbor town on the northwest coast of Crete. The currently visible remains of the city were built around 335 BCE and include several imposing sandstone towers and bastions, with hundreds of meters of fortification walls protecting the town and a closed harbor...

, Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

:

There were various attempts by ancient authors to make sense of the words. was interpreted as the name of a Dactyl.
Androcydes

Androcydes (Pythagorean)

Androcydes was a Pythagorean whose work On Pythagorean Symbols survives only in scattered fragments. The dating of his life is uncertain; he lived before the 1st century BC but possibly as early as the 4th...

 proposed an interpretation as philosophical symbols (Clement, Stromata

Stromata

The Stromata is the third in Clement of Alexandria's trilogy of works on the Christian life. Clement titled this work Stromateis, "patchwork," because it dealt with such a variety of matters...

5, 8, 45, 2):
( "shadowless") as "darkness", ( "shadowy") as "brightness" (brightness being necessary in order to cast shadows), (Hsch.

Hesychius of Alexandria

Hesychius of Alexandria , a grammarian who flourished probably in the 5th century CE, compiled the richest lexicon of unusual and obscure Greek words that has survived...

: ) as an ancient term for "Earth", and ( "fourfold") as the year (the four seasons), as "Sun" and ( "right, fitting, auspicious") as Logos

Logos

' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

.