This dissertation provides the first systematic analysis of the development of the Roman concept of magic as expressed in extant Latin literature down to the Augustan era. Using digital corpora of Latin texts, it identifies key points of convergence in terminology and argues that a distinctive Roman concept of magic first emerges in Augustan poetry. A general introduction discusses the prior scholarship on magic in Latin literature and outlines the methodology used to quantify and analyze the collocations of key terminology. The resulting data is presented in the appendices that follow the dissertation’s conclusion. Chapter 1 examines six key word families (carmen, uenenum, superstitio, saga, deuotio, and magus), each in their own section, tracing their development from the earliest sources down to the last decades of the first century BCE. It specifically examines the many nuances of meaning and conceptual associations that accompany each word family and influence the development of the concept of magic. Chapter 2 takes a more chronological approach as it turns to the literature of the age of Augustus. The first section examines how the early poetry of Vergil and Horace laid the foundations for the subsequent construction of magic. The second section examines in depth the elegies of Tibullus and Ovid in which, I argue, a distinctive Roman concept of magic first emerges. The third section discusses the appearance of magic in the great epics of Vergil and Ovid, while the fourth examines its absence in contemporary prose texts. The final section looks at the associations that developed between magic, gender, and social marginality. Chapter 3 is divided into two halves, each of which looks ahead to later developments of the Roman concept of magic. The first considers the further evolution of the literary concept of magic through Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. The second investigates how the literary concept of magic is used to describe and shape an audience’s perception of “real world” events in Tacitus’ Annals and Apuleius’ Apology. A general conclusion speculates on the further implications of the dissertation.