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• A Curse Against the Greens

  117–121.

  György Németh

  Andrea Barta

  Views:

  106

  The curse tablet presented in this study is part of the collection of Musée Bargoin in Clermont-Ferrand. After its discovery in 1906, it was forwarded to Auguste Audollent for examination. However, no scholarly investigation has been conducted on the tablet since then, and it has not been published, save for a short reference. The tablet, as indicated by its inscription, may have been made with the intent of influencing the outcome of a North African chariot race involving the Green team.

• Ito Pater, Eracura and the Messenger: A Preliminary Report on a Curse Tablet from Aquincum

  101–113

  Andrea Barta

  Views:

  103

  This paper publishes a new curse tablet from Aquincum. While the letter-forms are well-preserved, the text requires interpretion through linguistic analysis aided by analogies with other curse tablets and literary sources.

• Parallel Phrases and Interaction in Greek and Latin Magical Texts.: The Pannonian Set of Curse Tablets

  27-36

  Andrea Barta

  Views:

  222

  Magical texts represent an inexhaustible source for the phenomena of an ancient language for special purposes. The scope of this paper is limited to the different kinds of word-borrowings in the Pannonian set of curse tablets. One-language, well written and easily readable magical texts can be difficult to understand while explicit and unambiguous wording is expected in such practical genre like curses which level at definite persons. Harmful curse tablets and protective amulets, however, can be obscure. This study aims to give a comprehensive account of the possible reasons why these texts have a cloudy style, with special outlook of parallel phrases in Greek pieces of evidence.

• Cursed horses

  109–115.

  György Németh

  Edina Gradvohl

  Views:

  59

  A small lead tablet with the drawing of a horse’s head is kept in the collection of the Musée Bargoin in Clermont-Ferrand. This study examines depictions of horses on curse tablets and magic gems and concludes that no examples of such depictions have been found so far.

• Sequences of charakteres in some circus defixiones in Latin from Hadrumetum

  95–111

  György Németh

  Views:

  111

  A peculiar feature of a series of curse tablets from Hadrumetum, published by Audollent in his Defixionum tabellae (1904) and in a further study dated 1906, is that they contain four recurring sequences of magical charakteres. One of the sequences occurs on a single tablet, another on three tablets, the third in five, and the fourth is found 34 times on ten tablets. In each case the context is a curse against chariot-teams, i.e. charioteers and horses. Since the names of some charioteers show up on nearly all the tablets in the group, we may assume that the series was written over a relatively brief number of years. This inference is supported by the fact that the appearance and physical size of the tablets differ considerably. From these data we can conclude that there was a circle of magicians, using the same handbook and specialising in chariotracing, who invented the recurring sequences of charakteres, though – as far as we know – their innovation was not adopted in other regions.

• Escribiendo una defixio: los textos de maldición a través de sus soportes

  79–93

  Celia Sánchez Natalías

  Views:

  97

  The aim of this paper is to analyze binding curse tablets found in the Latin West from a material perspective, in order to rethink their multifaceted nature, since sometimes – but not always – defixiones are inscribed pieces of lead.