#katadesmos

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/