Two 1,600-year-old lead curse tablets in the Museo Archeologico Civico di Bologna were recently deciphered, and one of them turns out to be the first known surviving curse directed at a Roman senator.
It starts with a dramatic drawing of a snake-headed deity, possibly Hekate, underworld goddess of crossroads, sorcery and necromancy (among other things), with her arms crossed and a star carved over her groin. Although her name is not mentioned, the phrasing of the invocation is similar to other curses that enlist Hekate to their dark cause. The crossed arms symbolize the binding of the deity to the curse. The goddess will remain bound until its terms are fulfilled.
“May Fistus dilute, languish, sink and may all his limbs dissolve …”
Carromancy (also spelled Ceromancy) is a form of divination with roots in ancient Celtic magic, though it made its way into ancient Roman culture and continued to evolve within the context of the region. It is, in its most basic definition, any form of divination that utilizes wax. However, the most common forms of the practice involve the analyzation of melted wax as it drips/is poured into frigid water. The resulting shapes and movements taken on by the wax as it cools and solidifies are then used to forecast the future. Beneath is a traditional form of Italian Carromancy I learned about several years ago, and have used several times since.
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Within a vessel of icy water, place:
3 Rosehips
3 sprigs of Rue
3 leaves of Nettle
A pinch of Cumin seeds
Once you have prepared the water, take 2 tallow candles and bind them together with a length of red ribbon or cord. Wrap the ribbon three times around before fastening tightly with a knot.
Stand the bound candles within the vessel of water and, having attained the proper state of mind through meditation or other ritual practices, light them. Watch as the wax begins to drip into the cold water, observing the ways in which the wax flows, as well as the shapes it takes on while cooling. Watch for shapes like animals, numbers, and letters in order to piece together a reading—though any and all shapes of apparent importance are worth taking notice of.
Should a shape or symbol of great personal meaning make an appearance, carefully remove it from the whole of the wax, and place it within a red bag. Carry the bag with you for 7 days, and it may serve as a talisman thereafter.
Lindsay C. Watson, Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). Paperback edition.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254644181761
A brief overview of defixiones, or curse tablets, in the Greco-Roman world.
What were they used for?
Defixiones expressed a formalized wish to bring other persons or animals under the client’s power, typically against their will and without their knowledge. Most often (but not exclusively) for:
Inflicting death or harm such as illness (ex: fever, consumption, blindness, idiocy, lameness, broken limbs, loss of memory, insomnia)
Loss of consort, family, or property
Defeat in war or athletic competition
Public humiliation
Failure in business
Loss in a legal case or conviction
Denial of afterlife
Injury to race horses
Breakdown of public baths (really!)
To revenge upon an unfaithful lover or to inspire lust in a new or former lover
When (and where) were they used?
The earliest caches of defixiones where found in Attica and date from C5th to C4th BCE – though it should be noted the Egyptian Execration texts testified to an extremely similar practice from as early as C24th to C22nd BCE! The latest example yet found may have been from Cyprus from C7th CE. In between, defixiones have been found in Rome and Sicily, Egypt, Jerusalem, and several sites in Britain.
Who made them?
The individual, certainly, especially with the spread of literacy - but largely defixiones were crafted by professionals. There seems to have been something of a cottage industry for them.
Plato notes in his Laws XI (933A) that there were scribes that could be hired to prepare a katadesmos (κατάδεσμος) for a fee
The development and inheritance of formularies such as the PGM resulting in standardized tablet conventions
Caches of tablets found in places otherwise not visited or easily accessible to multiple people - such as a single grave containing multiple tablets commissioned by different clients against different targets
Some Roman tablets were even prepared with spaces left for later inscription of a target’s name, as evidenced by notably different handwriting and noticeable gap between words (Gager, p.14)
What did they contain?
Most of the Attic defixiones contained simply a target’s name. Over time verbs (intended action against the target) and the name of an assisting god or daemon were included. In some cases the text of the spell or just the target’s name were written from right to left (ex. JOHN to NHOJ).
Voces mysticae, or unintelligible words exclusively used in magic, became increasingly present, sometimes taking up to 80-90% of the tablet in later (C4th to C5th CE) Roman samples. Roman tablets in general were much more complex, often including:
Palindromes
Charaktêres - one might describe these as sigils or astrological/celestial symbols
Vowel or consonant series
Geometric shapes formed of letters
Egyptian elements
Names ending in -êl and -ôth built on Jewish conventions
What were they made of?
In general, the medium appears largely driven by availability and economy:
Ostraca (broken shards of pottery)
Wax
Papyrus
Limestone
Gemstones, particularly when fashioned as an amulet
Most often thin sheets of metal; in particular lead or a lead alloy such as pewter
Why lead?
Cheap
Widely available (PGM VII 397 even recommends “borrowing” lead from public plumbing pipes)
Easy to make in sheet form
Was already in use as a writing medium
Over time the properties of lead became viewed as appropriate for the use. For example, “just as this lead is cold and useless, so let them (my enemies) be cold and useless.” (DTA nos 105-7)
What tools were used?
Preferably a bronze stylus (according to PGM VII lines 396ff) but ostensibly any tool used for scratching the inscription was sufficient.
Separate items were often attached, in particular dolls, hair, and nails.
Dolls
Often made of lead, mud, or wax
Depicted with hands bound behind their backs and/or deliberately disfigured
Often inscribed with the target’s name
Used in love/sex magic, to assault enemies, or in one instance, to hinder a charioteer and his horses who were specifically named.
Hair (and/or Clothing)
Sometimes referred to as ousia (“stuff”) in several surviving love spells.
Nails
Nearly all defixiones were rolled or folded but several were also pierced with one or more nails. The purpose of this is somewhat debated. It may have been used as a method of sealing the spell like one seals an envelope. To follow this analogy, some defixiones even bore a sort of “supernatural address” on an exposed outer sheet.
Given that the tablets were deposited where no human would have access to them it seems privacy would not be the primary concern. It’s more likely the nails were used in a supernatural compliment to their literal function: to fasten, “tie” down, to bind.
Where were they deposited?
Thrown into rivers, sea, wells, bath houses, or streams
Buried in coffins or graves, particularly belonging to the prematurely dead
In the home of the intended target, usually under the floor
Under stadium floors or at the gates of race courses
Sanctuaries of cthonic dieties, including crossroads
Final Note
Please let me know if there is a particular aspect you would like to read more about. I’m contemplating 102 & 201 posts in the near future to address the motivations, counter binding and protection, and practical application - please let me know if this interests you.
In the meantime I’ll leave this clip from HBO’s ROME. While not terribly historically accurate (there’s only so much you can do in two seasons), the show was marvelously authentic in their world building.
Resources
Dufault, O. (2017). Who Wrote Greek Curse Tablets? Prophets and Profits, Ed. Richard Evans (London: Routledge).
Gager, John G, ed. (1992), Curse tablets and binding spells from the ancient world, New York: Oxford University Press.
Ogden, Daniel (2002), Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: a Source Book, New York: Oxford University Press.
Tomlin, Roger (2005), Curse Tablets of Roman Britain, et al, Oxford, ENG, UK: Oxford University.
Society, H. (2015, September 19). Roman Curse Tablets. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/video/642/
www.abc.net.au, 2008. Sex curse found at ancient Cyprus site. [Online]
Available at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-07-12/sex-curse-found-at-ancient-cyprus-site/438076
Wax Couple in Embrace, Upper Egypt, north of Assiut; original location not known.
From the text it is clear that the pot and its contents were originally deposited in a cemetery. Four items: (1) two wax figurines portrayed in an embrace and wrapped inside two folded sheets of papyrus (Figure 14); (2) large papyrus sheet measuring 22.5 x 55 cm., with fifty-three lines of writing; (3) blank sheet of papyrus used to protect the sheet with writing; (4) fragments of a clay pot into which the folded sheets and wax figurines were stuffed; the pot was then sealed with chalk or plaster. The editor assigns a date in the fifth century C.E. Our couple is the only Greco-Roman example portraying such an embrace.
A rare, magic hematite intaglio, mounted in a gold pendant at a later time.
Horus-Harpocrates (front); magic inscriptions (back and border). The god, turned to the left, is stepping on two converging crocodiles, which are crossing their bodies; the god's arms are wide open, each hand holding a snake and a scorpion. Hair tied in a braid, which bends a little bit over the shoulder, as a symbol of the childhood of the god, who is not totally naked, but partially covered by a garment in the loins area. A mask of Bes is located above his head. Such effigy acquires the Harpocratic connotation of the Horus the child, which is present on the so-called Stelae of Arpocrates, coming from Egypt and widespread during the hellenistic and roman times for their thaumaturgical powers.
According to the mythical tradition, the child-god had been stung by a scorpion and cured thanks to the intervention of god Thot. The amulet with the depiction of Horus-Arpocrates, standing on crocodiles while holding scorpions and snakes in his hands, became a powerful, magical-apotropaical talisman against illnesses and poisonous stings (afterwards, also an allegory of the fight of good against evil). On the back and border of the gem: magic inscriptions. Particularly rare iconography, and of a remarkable historical interest.
Back in late spring, I closed out a three-month promo period on Kindle Unlimited with Georg Luck's Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds. I was a little wary of this book at first because worthwhile academic texts are generally not available on Kindle Unlimited (that honor seems to have been reserved for Everand), but I'm glad I gave this behemoth a shot.
This is a great resource for anyone interested in ancient Greek/Roman magic (the emphasis being on Hellenistic magic, of course).
My personal thoughts can be found here (for patrons).
Some quotes from “Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds : a sourcebook” by Daniel Ogden
Decided to break down this post into multiple ones because the quotes are too damn long. See the end of the post for links to the other ones.
The point of this is just to do some research on folklore and look for inspiration.
An old woman activates a twisted-thread anti-impotence amulet
"I strolled about a bit and had sat down in the same place as the day before, but CHrysis soon came along, dragging a little old woman after her. After saying hello she asked, "Well, my proud man, have you begun to feel better?" The old woman produced a cord from the folds of her dress, twisted together from threads of different color, and she tied it around my neck. Then she mixed some dust with spit, took it up on her middle finger, and drew a sign on my forehead, despite my objections . . . . When she had completed the spell she bade me spit three times over and drop some pebbles down my robe three times over. She had kept these stones, which she had charmed, wrapped in purple. She applied her hands and began to test the vigor of my loins. Sooner than you could say it, the muscles jumped on command, and the old woman's hand were filled with great upheavel. She was overjoyed and said, "Do you see, my Chrysis, what a hare this thing is that I have started for others to chase?"
Petronius, Satyricon, 66 AD, greek
Hera and Aphrodite's embroidered band
"Lady Hera adressed Aphrodite with cunning in her mind: "Now give me love and desire, with which you subdue all the immortals and mortal men too. For I am goinng to go to see the boundaries of the bountiful earth and Oceanus, the sire of the gods, and mother Tethys, who reared and nurtured men in their house, after they had taken me over from Rheia, when far-shooting Zeus forced Cronus beneath the land and the unputes. Forn they have been avoiding sex and love with each other for a long time now, since anger fell upon their hearts. If I could talk the couple's dear hearts round, and bring them to go to bed and unite with each other in love, they would evermore call me dear and revere me."
Laughter loving Aphrodite replied to her: "It is neither possible nor seemly to deny your request, for you sleep in the arms of the greatest God, Zeus."
So she spoke, and she took her variegated embroidered band [kestos himas] from her breast, in which she had wrought all charms. In it there was love, in it there was desire, in it there was sweet intimacy, which steals the wits of even the sensible. She put it in Hera's hands and spoke to her, addressing her by name: "Take this variegated band now, in which all things have been wrought, and tie it accross your bossom. I can tell you that you will not come back without effecting the thing you desire in you heart."
