Sylloge of Defixiones from the Roman West. Volume I

This publication provides a catalogue of Latin and bilingual curse tablets from the western Roman Empire.

Defixiones, also known as curse tablets, are one of the most revealing sources for ancient magico-religious practices. Born of rancour, anger, desire, love, envy, or just out of desperation, curse tablets were a strategy for obtaining ''individual justice'' for those who could not accomplish their purposes through the available means, due to a lack of knowledge, power or legal/economical resources. In this volume, the reader will find a detailed catalogue that discusses 535 curse tablets written in Latin and a wide range of local languages. The catalogue is preceded by a full introduction in which the main features of these inscriptions are discussed together with leading scholarship. Such a detailed yet global study of these texts sheds light on various aspects of curses that vary on a regional basis, thus showing how this magico-religious technology was not only adopted but also adapted in new and creative ways by the local populations throughout the Roman West.