The scratchings you see on this picture are not my students’ writings, which makes me glad for two reasons. First, they are written in Ancient Romano-British Latin. Second, the lead tablet shown here records a ritualistic curse — it is a type of item found widespread in the Ancient world. 130 examples alone, dating from the second through fourth centuries, have been found in the Roman town of Bath in Britain. Curses often sought revenge, and invoked the aid of a deity like “Sulis Minerva.” And they did not hold back. For instance, one reads: “Docimedis has lost two gloves and asks that the thief responsible should lose their minds [sic] and eyes in the goddess’ temple.” Another requests that anyone merely knowing about a theft should “be accursed in (his) blood, and eyes and every limb and even have all (his) intestines quite eaten away . . . ” Such curses testify to the lack of recourse to public justice that many Romano-British locals experienced: if the legal system isn’t going to set your affairs right, you might look to magical curses to fix things.
Source(s): See ancient-origins.net. “Curse tablets of Roman Britain, _Peterborough Archaeology. Sept, 2017. Wikipedia, “Bath Curse tablets”.
