Vengeance Most Roman: Curse Tablets and Cautions

One of my favourite things about the Roman London walks that I do is that the more I read up on and research this period, the more I come to realise that, although there are approximately 2000 years between us and them, they were exactly like us.

They fell out with each other and made up again, just like we do. They gossiped, kept domestic pets such as cats and dogs and had ambitions, hopes and fears- just like us.

A mosaic, located in the Atrium of the House of the Tragic Poet, in Pompeii, was uncovered by archeologists in 1824. The mosaic, which dates back to 1 AD, features the inscription ‘CAVE CANEM’- beware of the dog- below an image of a leashed, fierce-looking guard dog. The house down my street has a very similar sign, but not in Latin! I find the link between a mosaic created in Ancient Rome and the signs we see on people’s gates today which warn visitors that there is a dog in the house and to enter at your own risk, to be a marvellous example of how connected our modern lives are to those in Ancient Rome in 1 AD.

After all, society in the ancient world of Rome was much like our society today. People had relationships, fell in love, fell out of love; they bore grudges, with neighbour fighting neighbour; tradesmen chased outstanding payments and people gossiped and passed secrets to one another.

However, unlike us, the Romans had a unique way of letting someone know that they were cross, vengeful or had been the victim of theft: they wrote curse tablets.

Many of these tablets were written on thin sheets of lead with the writing or ‘the curse’ scratched onto the lead. The tablets could then be placed wherever you wanted- at a shrine dedicated to your favourite God or Goddess; thrown into the sea or a river (rivers were seen as sacred); nailed up at a hidden place in someone’s house; or even fixed to a chariot wheel if you wanted someone to lose a chariot race. Some curse tablets were written on papyri and rolled up and placed somewhere, while others were written in black ink onto thin slivers of wood.

Lead was used most often as it was cheap and easy to come across, as a result of it being a by-product from the silver mines and the pewter industries. Hot lead would have been poured into a mould and then cut up into small individual tablets which would’ve then been available for purchase by the general public.

Luckily for us, some of these tablets have survived, either having been preserved in the mud of a river bank or in a drain, which allows us to study them in great detail.

The motives behind curse tablets were usually negative, with the aim of exacting revenge upon the person who had wronged you.

One curse tablet that really caught my imagination can be found in the British Museum.

It was discovered in Telegraph Street in Moorgate, City of London, in 1934.

The tablet, composed of cursive Latin scratched into a piece of lead, is particularly fascinating owing to the vengeful, rather vitriolic language that the scribe has chosen, and the fact that it has been pierced with not one, not two but seven nails. The anger behind it is palpable! It reads:

‘I curse Tretia Maria and her life and mind and memory and liver and lungs all mixed together, and her words, thoughts and memory that she may be unable to speak what things are concealed.. nor to be able …..nor…’

…and then it peters out- or perhaps part of the tablet is missing, of this we can never be certain. However, what we can be certain of is that whoever penned this curse tablet possessed a very strong wrath towards Tretia Maria, one strong enough to want to completely obliterate her and render her helpless. What on earth had she done?

Unfortunately, we will most likely never know what Tretia Maria had done to invoke such anger, but this tablet serves as a wonderful example of the fact that human relationships, in their messy complexity, are universal and were experienced by the Romans in Londinium 2000 years ago, just as they are by us in present day.

There are several of these curse tablets on display at the British Museum and they are well worth a look- this particular one which curses poor Tretia Maria can be found in cabinet 49.

If you've enjoyed reading my first (of many) blog post, then why not join me on one of my 'Roman London' walks and experience the magic of ancient history being brought to life through the lens of our modern world. 

More details of this walk, and the others that I offer, can be found on my website.