These three dark charms are reminiscent of the
types of curses levelled in Greco-Roman times. The practice of ‘Defixio’
involved using a ‘curse tablet’ Tabella Defixionis (Roman) or Katadesmos
(Greek) to damn a victim or cast a love spell on a subject of desire. The
tablets consisted of thin pieces of lead sheet upon which script was scratched.
Often the defixiones were then folded, rolled or pierced with nails to contain
the incantation. To empower them, you needed to place them underground. Many
were buried in graves and tombs, thrown into wells or cisterns, or nailed to
the walls of temples of Chthonic deities such as Demeter and Persephone. The
fact so many examples of these tablets exist is due to the fact placing a lead
tablet in the ground preserves it.
Defixio is derived from the word for ‘to pierce’
or ‘to bind’. The tablets were used to ask the gods to bind a victim to an act
that either condemned them to misfortune or compelled them to do something
against their will. These invocations fell into various categories such as
hindering a competitor, thwarting an opposing litigant in a court case, or
forcing someone to fall passionately in love or punish their unfaithfulness. There
was also the extreme option of seeking your enemy’s torture, death and the
downfall of their family line!
Here is an example of vicious curse against
a competitor. ‘I implore you, spirit, whoever you are, and I command you to
torment and kill the horses of the green and white teams from this hour on,
from this day on, and to kill Clarus, Felix, Primulus, and Romanus, the
charioteers.’ Tunisia C3rd CE
This imprecation is less malevolent,
seeking a comedian’s routine to fall flat: ‘Sosio must never do better than the
mime Eumolpos. He must not be able to play the role of a married woman in a fit
of drunkenness on a young horse.’ Rauranum in western France C3rd CE.
The first examples of defixiones were
discovered in the city of Selinus in Sicily. The majority of the
twenty-two tablets were concerned with court cases. There are also examples of
small effigies, sometimes referred to loosely as Voodoo dolls. Three such dolls
were found in Athens at around the end of the C5th BCE. Each figurine lies
within a casket with their hands lashed behind their back and their feet tied
together. The curse scored into the casket implores the gods to bind the victim
so they will perform poorly in court. The elaborate nature of these defixiones
suggests the hand of a professional magician (paid by a wealthy client)
compared to the more common DIY lead sheets found in their thousands in Athens.
Christopher A. Faraone, professor of
classical languages and literature at the University of Chicago, posits there
were an extraordinary number of curse tablets found in late Classical Athens because
lead was a convenient by-product of the silver mines that contributed to the
wealth of that city. As such, lead was a very cheap and reusable medium useful
for business communications. After the silver mines were exhausted, however, the
stockpile of lead was soon depleted. Curses were then written on wax and
papyrus which did not survive burial underground.
The use of magic in Classical Athens does
not appear to be illegal. Athenians would most likely have seen it as a chthonic
religious ritual connected with those gods who lived in the ground and were
very closely connected with ghosts and the dead. The Ancient Romans were not so
tolerant. Under the Law of the Twelve Tables (the first codified set of laws
established in 451 BCE), the use of incantations to cause dishonour or disgrace
attracted capital punishment. However, clearly the threat of death was
insufficient to deter the use of defixiones given the number of curse tablets found
across the Roman world over the centuries.
Defixiones seeking justice were useful
where a crime was senseless and the perpetrator unknown to the victim. A number
of curse tablets were discovered in digs in Roman Britain. One trove of 130 defixiones
is known as the Bath Curse Tablets found at the site of Aquae Sulis. All bar
one sought restitution of goods (evidently theft was rife in bathhouses).
Here’s an example of a bathhouse curse: ‘Docimedis
has lost two gloves and asks that the thief responsible should lose their minds
and eyes in the goddess’s temple.’ Somerset 2nd -4th CE
And here is a nuclear option. ‘The human who stole Verio’s cloak or his
things, who deprived him of his property, may he be bereft of his mind and
memory, be it a woman or those who deprived Verio of his property, may the
worms, cancer, and maggots penetrate his hands, head, feet, as well as his
limbs and marrows.’ Frankfurt C1st CE
By the end of the Hellenistic period (circa
323 BCE), magical handbooks began to appear which continued to be used into Roman
Imperial times which provide evidence magical practices were done by
professionals. Different languages were used, and different gods were implored,
including the Jewish Yahweh or the Egyptian gods. The increasing commerciality
of the Defixio practice is evident given tablets could be prepared in advance,
with a space left for a customer to insert the name of their victim.
'Bind the tongue and the thoughts of ____________,
who is about to testify against me.'
Interestingly, the playwrights of Ancient
Roman and Greek literature attribute the primary use of magic to women, but
archaeological evidence shows men to be the principal practitioners. In a
series of over 400 tablets found in Roman Britain, over two-thirds of those inscribing the
curse/spell were males.
Learning about curse tablets inspired me to
create two of my own as a major plot device in the A Tale of Ancient Rome series.
In The Golden Dice, a soldier risks capital punishment by not only damning
his rival to a grisly fate but also inscribing an enchantment to entice his
lost love to return by ‘hammer [ing] both desire and curse into the brickwork with
one long iron nail—to remain there forever potent and terrible, guarded by
ghosts.’ If you want to know whether such defixiones were successful, you’ll need
to read the trilogy.
Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the A Tale of Ancient Rome series. Now she is obsessed with twisted Germanic history
with her upcoming release, Fables & Lies, set in WW2 Berlin.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons as follows:
-Magic curse written on a lead figurine in a
lead box, found in the enclosure of Aristion, and dating 420-410 BCE Kerameikos
Archaeological Museum (Athens). Photographer Giovanni Dall'Orto.
-Roman
Curse Tablet, North Lincolnshire Museum. Photographer Martin Forema.
-Ancient
roman lead tablet inscribed with a curse from the Baths of Diocletian in Rome –
Photographer Bari' bin Farangi.
-Roman
lead curse tablet Kent County Council. Photographer Andrew Richardson.
-Well in which lead scroll fragments were intentionally thrown for magical practices. C4th CE Israel. Photographer Mikey641.
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