Early Hispanic Curse Tablets: Greek, Latin .and Iberian?

Religion in the Roman Empire Volume 5 No. 3 2019 Curses in Context, 1: Curse-Tablets in Italy and the Western Roman Empire Preface Christopher A. Faraone, Richard L. Gordon Curse-Tablets in Italy and the Western Roman Empire: Development, Aims, Strategies and Competence Paolo Vitellozzi Curses and Binding Rituals in Italy: Greek Tradition and Autochtonous Contexts Riccardo Massarelli The Etruscan defixiones: From Contexts to Texts Francisco Marco Simón Early Hispanic Curse Tablets: Greek, Latin˜– and Iberian? Antón Alvar Nuño The Use of Curse-Tablets among Slaves in Rome and its Western Provinces Richard L. Gordon Do the ‘Vernacular’ Curse-Tablets from Italy Represent a Specific Knowledge-Practice? Stuart McKie Enchained Relationships and Fragmented Victims. Curse-Tablets and Votive Rituals in the Roman North-West Celia Sánchez Natalías Aquatic Spaces as Contexts for Depositing defixiones in the Roman West Mohr Siebeck Religion in the Roman Empire Edited by Jan Dochhorn, Maren Niehoff, Rubina Raja, Christoph Riedweg, Jörg Rüpke, Christopher Smith, Moulie Vidas, Markus Vinzent and Annette Weissenrieder Managing Editor: Prof. Dr. Jörg Rüpke (V.i.S.d.P.) Contact: Dr. Elisabeth Begemann Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt, Postfach ° ˛ ˛˝˝˙, °° ˙˛ˆ Er furt, Germany, e-mail: rre@uni-erfurt.de Information for authors: Information on submitting manuscripts, about transferral and retainment of rights, as well as the correct presentation style for submissions can be found at www.mohrsiebeck.com/rre by selecting “Manuscripts”. Frequency of publication: One volume with three issues per year. Subscriptions: Information on subscriptions can be found at www.mohrsiebeck.com/rre under “Subscriptions”. 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Advertising service: Tilman Gaebler, Postfach 113, 7˝ˇ ˛3 Bisingen. Tel. (˛˘ ˇ˘6) 3ˇ ˛ˆ, t ilman.gaebler@t-online.de. V.i.S.d.P.: Kendra Mäschke, Mohr Siebeck, maeschke@mohrsiebeck.com. Typeset by: Martin Fischer, Tübingen. Printed by: Gulde-Druck, Tübingen. Printed on age-resistant book paper. ISSN ˝˙° °-ˇ ˇ 63 (print edition) eISSN ˝˙° °-ˇ ˇ˘˙ (online edition) Printed in Germany Francisco Marco Simón Early Hispanic Curse Tablets: Greek, Latin – and Iberian? Abstract To date, thirteen curse tablets from the area of modern Spain have been published that can (roughly) be dated prior to the Augustan period, which is early in comparison to other similar texts in the Latin West. The two earliest examples are written in Greek, followed after a sizeable chronological gap by those in Latin. However, we also know of more than 100 texts written on lead in the Iberian language, with the earliest coming from the same period as the Greek examples. The funerary context of a handful of these tablets, as well as their apparent contents, such as lists of names, suggests that they might also be magico-religious texts, comparable to, say, the Oscan curse tablets in southern Italy. The texts in Latin, on the other hand, seem to be largely independent from these earlier efforts, suggesting a close dependence upon Italian models. Key words: Curse tablets, defixiones, Hispania, Iberian texts on lead, Iberian language, epigraphic habit, Hellenistic cultural koiné, ancient globalisation 1 Introduction1 The curse tablets found in the Iberian peninsula and dating from before the Augustan period belong to two chronologically and linguistically welldefined groups. The Greek texts, which are older (fourth to third century bce), come from the port town of Emporion/Ampurias in modern Catalonia. By contrast, the Latin texts, which are considerably later (midsecond century bce to early first century ce), were mainly found much farther south, in the Guadalquivir valley, most notably in the area surrounding Roman Corduba/Córdoba, the capital of the province of Hispania Ulterior/ 1 Abbreviations used: AE = L’Année épigraphique; DTM = Blänsdorf 2012; HEp = Hispania Epigraphica; MLH = Untermann 1990; PGM = Preisendanz and Henrichs 1973–74; SEG = Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. RRE 5 (2019), 376–397 ISSN 2199-4463 DOI 10.1628/rre-2019-0022 © 2019 Mohr Siebeck Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 377 Fig. 1: Map with the provenance of the curse tablets cited in the text. The underlined names refer to the Iberian texts. Baetica.2 This area was increasingly heavily settled by speakers of Latin and other Italic dialects from around 200 bce, with the process intensifying during the late Republican period in particular (for a map, see fig. 1). This paper makes two main suggestions. First, in considering the adoption of this particular writing practice in the Iberian peninsula, account also needs to be taken of what I believe to be a third group of texts, namely a halfdozen examples of writing in the Iberian language on lead-sheet, which can plausibly be identified as curse tablets of some kind. These texts date from the first half of the fourth century to the early second century bce, a date that coincides with that of the two Greek texts from Emporion, and were found in the so-called Mediterranean Levant, an intermediate area extending from the North-East of Hispania to the Guadalquivir Valley in the South, i. e., covering most of the eastern littoral of modern Spain. A case is made in this paper for two possible sources of the hypothesised awareness among 2 The documents in Latin from this area were found in Corduba (five), and one each from El Portal (prov. Cádiz), Menjíbar (prov. Jaén), and Peñaflor/Celti (prov. Sevilla). There are two pre-Augustan curse tablets in Latin from Emporiae (the Latin name of Emporion). An isolated bilingual Greek-Latin text has been found at Barchín del Hoyo (prov. Cuenca), a mining town roughly midway between Emporion and the Guadalquivir valley. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 378 Francisco Marco Simón RRE Iberians of the practice of writing private curse tablets. The first, and most obvious, of these potential sources is Emporion but a second possible trajectory can also be identified in contacts between Iberian mercenaries and Sicily. Such a development would closely parallel the pattern identified by Paolo Vitellozzi elsewhere in this issue for the adoption of private cursing on lead-sheet by Oscans in southern Italy, and that identified by Riccardo Massarelli in relation to Etruria. The second suggestion this paper makes is that, given the temporal gap between them, it is very unlikely that the Greek and perhaps Iberian texts exercised any direct influence upon the later Latin curse tablets from Hispania Ulterior/Baetica, which are rather to be understood as additional evidence for Italian curse-patterns, even if they are also an expression of a wider ‘Hellenistic koinē’. 2 Early texts in Greek and Iberian 2.1 The Greek curse texts from Emporion/Ampurias Emporion (in Latin, Emporiae) was founded in the sixth century bce by Phoceans from Massalia/Massilia/Marseille. The two curse tablets in Greek found there are of particular interest due to their chronology. The first,3 recovered from Hellenistic débris covering the cemetery of Campo de Martí and dated to the fourth century bce, contains a bare list of the names of seven men who supported a certain Aristarchos (who himself heads the list), evidently in a legal dispute (fig. 2).4 Several of the names point to an origin in the Greek city of Massalia, or even further afield. In particular, the final name, Pythogenes, is a theonym recalling the Delphic Apollo (Apollo Pythios), whose cult was among the most important in Massalia.5 The second text, which was folded once along each axis, and presents a poorly-written list of six names, is dated to the third century bce or perhaps a little later.6 Here again a verb of cursing or ‘writing down’ is purely implicit. The first name, Tintinōn, is not Greek but related to the Latin gentilicium Titinius, a name fairly widespread in northern Italy and attested very occasionally in Gallia Narbonensis (modern Provence) Curbera 1997, 90–91 no. 1 = De Hoz García-Bellido 2014, 126–128 no. 132 = SEG 47: 1538. There is metathesis of the R and second A of Aristarchos. The heading runs πάντα<ς> τοὺς ὑπὲρ Ảριστάρχ[ου], ‘(e. g., I write down) all the men who support Aristarchos’. Curbera 1999 [2000], 165–166 suggests that ὑπέρ + genitive, as here, might be a mark of Sicilian curse-practice. 5 Names derived from the cult of Apollo occur especially frequently in Phokis (on the west coast of modern Turkey) and its colonies, such as Massalia. However, the most important Massalian cult was that of Ephesian Artemis. 6 Curbera 1997, 91–93 no. 2 = De Hoz García-Bellido 2014, 128–130 no. 133 = SEG 47: 1539. 3 4 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 379 Fig. 2: Greek curse tablet from Ampurias, fourth-third century bce (after Curbera 1999). and Hispania. The second name, the theophoric Posidonas alluding to the god Poseidon, was fairly common in Massalia. These links to Massalia/Massilia and northern Italy may point to tensions and disputes attendant upon an influx of traders and perhaps even would-be residents.7 It has been pointed out that curse tablets began to be written on lead at around the same time as business letters and contracts. Such documents are first attested in the Western Mediterranean at the end of the Archaic period, and both types try to resolve issues by seeking external assistance, mortal in the case of letters and contracts, supernatural in the case of the curses. A letter from Emporion, inscribed on lead and dated to c. 530–500 bce, mentions the Emporitans and a deal of some sort in Saiganthe (perhaps Saguntum); the recipient is encouraged to seek the help of a certain Basped[- (probably an Iberian) in completing the transaction.8 Bearing in mind the general chronology of this type of document and the early development of western Mediterranean connectivity, documents such as this provide a plausible reference point for the early date of the Emporitan curse tablets written in Greek. It must, however, be admitted that such primitive curse texts – brief lists of names – reveal no developed ‘curse culture’ in Emporion such as that which we already find in Sicily, let alone the astonishing efflorescence of the practice in fourth- and third-century Athens.9 The question obviously arises as to how the practice of private cursing on lead might itself have reached Massalia or Emporion at such an early date – possibly from Sicily? 8 Eidinow and Taylor 2010, 52, no. D2. 9 For Athens, see esp. Eidinow 2007, 139–344; Riess 2012, 164–234. 7 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 380 Francisco Marco Simón RRE 2.2 Some Iberian texts written on lead Elsewhere in this issue, Paolo Vitellozzi rehearses Paolo Poccetti’s thesis about the appropriation of Sicilian/Southern Italian Greek curse-models by Oscan communities in the fourth and third centuries bce, and their subsequent appropriation by Latin-speaking individuals further north in the Italian peninsula.10 I would like to propose that a similar process of appropriation by speakers of Iberian may have taken place in Hispania, no doubt influenced by Emporion/Emporiae and possibly by Sicily as well. One of the most notable characteristics of the texts in the Iberian language, attested from south-eastern Spain to the Languedoc in France,11 is the use of lead as a support. Over 100 texts inscribed on lead-sheet are currently known, but in the majority of cases these are unfortunately lacking in archaeological context.12 These texts are characteristic of the Hispanic Levante (see again fig. 1). It must be admitted right at the start that the Iberian language can be read but not translated, which of course greatly hinders the interpretation of these texts. However, the majority have been identified as economic or financial documents (accounts, etc.) involving private communication between individuals, similar to the documents already mentioned.13 Nevertheless, some at least of these texts seem to have a religious character or to have been used for a ritual purpose. My suggestion is that some of these may actually be curse texts. Applying the criteria used by Vitellozzi and Massarelli to identify curse tablets in the Oscan and Etruscan worlds, i. e., the lead support, the funerary context, and lists of names, combinations of at least two of these criteria are found in half a dozen of the Iberian inscriptions on lead. For comparison, fourteen such tablets have been recognised within the Oscan corpus of 800 inscribed texts,14 while there are fewer than a dozen likely Etruscan curse tablets from a corpus of more than 12,000 texts. The most telling example from Hispania is the lead tablet found in tomb 21 of the cremation necropolis of El Cigarralejo (Mula, Murcia), datable to 375–350 bce (fig. 3).15 The original editor, Emeterio Cuadrado, himself sug10 E. g., Poccetti 1999. 11 Iberian epigraphy on stone: see now Velaza Frías 2018. On the influence of Latin on Iberian 12 13 14 15 funerary epigraphy, note, e. g., Barrandon 2003. Sabaté Vidal (forthcoming). De Hoz 2011, 422. Murano 2013. MLH G.13.1. This very early date, which may make this text even earlier than the earlier of the two Greek texts from Emporion, is admittedly a problem for the scenario argued for here. On general grounds, however, it seems much more likely that awareness of private Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 381 Fig. 3: Iberian text on lead from El Cigarralejo, Mula (prov. Murcia), 375–350 bce. Museo Arqueológico ‘Emeterio Cuadrado’ (Photo: F. Marco Simón). cursing on lead was transmitted from Greeks to Iberians – if they indeed appropriated the practice – rather than the other way round. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 382 Francisco Marco Simón RRE gested that it should be identified as a defixio.16 The text comprises seven lines arranged in a remarkable mise en page – somewhere between concentric and serpentiform – containing several possible personal names, as well as what seem to be divine names (in l.4), of whom some kind of action may be expected: iuntegen : e[---] / sakarbes : sos[---] / lagutas : kebes+[---] / isgenus : andinue+[---]biandingorsanlenebarerbeigulnarerganikbos: / tarikedelbabinetarke+s+[---]+riknela : ebanalbasusbeliginela / sabarbasderik : bidedenedesbesanelas : / ikbaidesuisebartasartiduragunan.17 In view of the fact that it seems to have been partly melted, evidently after being placed among the funerary gifts at the point of cremation, Javier de Hoz inclines to believe that it had a ritual use.18 However, this may not invalidate the hypothesis, since we know of another (admittedly much later) case in which curse tablets were melted – this was, for example, the regular means of transmitting curses to the other world behind the temple of Mater Magna at Mogontiacum/Mainz between 80–120 ce.19 Moreover, the text from tomb 21 is circular (about 12 cm in diameter). Texts written on circular supports are not common,20 and those written in a spiral even less so. Shape and mise en page are chosen to differentiate select texts from those written normally, and their content thus tends to be magico-religious.21 The mise en page of the El Cigarralejo lead sheet also reminds one of the spiral inscription on a lead tablet found inside a vase from Olbia (fig. 4), likewise datable to the first half of the fourth century bce.22 Furthermore, three lead tablets were discovered in Orleyl (Vall de Uxó, Castellón) inside or under a funerary urn, an exceptional wine-krater bearing a scene of a battle between heroes and gryphons and datable to 380–360 bce. The krater has traditionally been interpreted as part of an assemblage of grave goods that include a bronze nail and an astragalus.23 Cuadrado 1950, 42. Transcription by Sabaté Vidal (forthcoming). De Hoz 2011, 419–420. Blänsdorf 2012, 39–40; Veale 2017, 297. Among curse tablets, besides the cases at Barchín del Hoyo and Córdoba, and that from Camp de Modevre, we may mention cases in Germany (CIL 13.7550, Bad Kreuznach), Sicily (Curbera 1999 [2000], nos 3–4, 22–24, Camarina, Selinus), Campania (Murano 2013, 129 no. 4, with 250 pl.XII, Cumae), and Greece (Martin 2010, 49, Athens and Nemea). 21 Spiral writing is recommended in several recipes in the magical papyri (PGM VII 300 and 589–591; see Crippa 2010, 123–124). On the codified, intensive and sacralising character of spiral writing, see Pastoureau 1989. 22 Dubois 1996, 171, no. 105. Moreover, Lebedev (1996) has identified two spirally written graffiti from Olbia as devotiones. 23 MLH F.9.5–7; for the krater, see Melchor, Ferrer and Benedito 2010, 52–53. 16 17 18 19 20 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 383 Fig. 4: Curse tablet from Olbia written spirally (after Dubois 1996). According to De Hoz, the texts may have had a function similar to the Orphic ‘gold leaves’ and other similar texts from funerary contexts, that is, to provide instructions for the soul in the underworld.24 One of them (Orleyl V ) measures 27 x 4.4 cm, and, like the other two, was originally discovered rolled up: ire.bototas.bitebakirsbane.barenmliki.antinmlituturane. arikar.seken / iusu.atilebeiu. lauriskerkate.banmlirbaiturane.kaisanylirbaitura.nei / tailinire. kutur.biteroketetine. eratiare.kokor.tauebartiat.arikarbinmlikise. / iunstirlaku.bototaseai. selkeaibartuneai. unibeikeai.anerai.unibeikeai.iu / nstirlaku.uskeike.bototiki.keietisiatense. urtalarikaune. banmiresu[- / lu.bitirokebetense.uskeanerlati.25 24 De Hoz 2011, 421. On the Orphic gold leaves, see, e. g., Graf and Johnston 2007; Bernabé Pajares and Jiménez San Cristobal 2008. 25 MHL F.9.5 (385) transcription. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 384 Francisco Marco Simón RRE Although it is impossible to subscribe to a recent suggestion that this is a public curse invoking the gods of the underworld against certain persons on account of damage caused in warfare,26 provenience and discursivity together suggest that it may well be a curse of some sort. Another item, a narrow L-shaped strip of lead from El Llano de la Consolación, close to the Iberian sanctuary of Cerro de los Santos (Montealegre del Castillo, Albacete), which was found folded up, probably also came from a tomb: side A: aitigeldun+ : iunstir : bekor : salbitas : oderoketa : banotagian, Side B: iskeriar.27 Although most scholars have interpreted the document as a letter of some sort, the fact that all the words are carefully separated from one another, as well as its provenience, suggest that it should rather be classified as a religious text and thus perhaps even as a curse list.28 Two more Iberian texts on lead can be adduced here. The first is from Cerro Lucena (Enguera, Valencia), which was likewise inscribed with a series of names arranged in ten lines within an incised rectangle and then rolled up (Fletcher Valls 1984): bekoiiltun. / soribeis. / urkarailur. / tueitikeiltun. / ikorisker. / oltoitir. / selkisker. / otokeiltir. / iskeiltun. / selkimiltun.29 A final possible example is the lead tablet from Tossal del Mor (Tárrega, Lérida), which reads [-]ŕdilako · isdiganir · ibeŕtaneś· oŕdin+keŕ.30 The main arguments for identifying it as a curse are that it was found rolled up and carries just four personal names deliberately written around the edge. The palaeography suggests a date between the end of the third century bce and the start of the second.31 There are, as noted above, two sources upon which Iberians may plausibly have drawn in modelling private curse tablets. One source was surely the Greek settlement at Emporion, where, as we saw, in addition to curse tablets, letters and contracts on lead from the late Archaic period have also been found. There is also a possibility of direct contact with Sicily. As is well 26 Silgo Gauche 2009. 27 Sabaté Vidal (forthcoming). A formal parallel is a Greek curse on a strip of lead from Halai 28 29 30 31 in Attica, containing four names on one side, and five on the other, dated to the early fourth century bce (Eidinow 2007, 353 no. DTA 24; with the image in Martin 2010, 140). Sabaté Vidal (forthcoming). MLH F.21.1. MLH L.17.1. Ferrer i Jané and Garcés Estallo 2013. One other Iberian text on lead may also be mentioned as a possible candidate here, namely the semicircular sheet found in Camp de Morvedre (Saguntum/Sagunto), which apparently contains proper nouns (Silgo Gauche and Tolosa Leal 2000). On the other hand, I would not include the four tablets from El Almarejo (Bonete, Albacete), which were found as part of a ritual deposit and preserve only a single line of text (Velaza 2007, 277; De Hoz 2011, 388). Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 385 known, Sicily was the area in which the genre of the private curse tablet was first developed, specifically in Selinus/Selinunte at the end of the sixth century bce, but shortly afterwards also in Camarina, Akragas/Agrigento, Gela, and Himera. By the end of the fifth century, the practice began to be appropriated into the eastern Mediterranean (and the Black Sea) by Athenians, and, in the fourth, by Oscan communities in the south of Italy who used the Greek alphabet. A similar process of appropriation may have occurred among the Iberian peoples of the Mediterranean coast, who had numerous contacts with Sicily from an early date. Iberian mercenaries fought for the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera in 480 bce (Hdt. 7.165), for example, and participated on their side in the siege of Selinous in 409 (Diod. 13.54.1– 2; 44.5), amongst other cities. A series of coins bearing the legend Hispanorum were minted in Morgantina by Hispanic mercenaries either between 214 and 210 bce (Amela Valverde 2013) or after the pacification of Sicily in 210 (López Sánchez 2014).32 However, given the fact that the content of the Iberian texts I have cited remains unintelligible to us, both suggestions regarding the sources of these possible curse tablets must remain hypothetical, quite apart from the matter of their classification as such. 3 Early Hispanic texts in Latin As I have already pointed out, the earliest Hispanic curse texts in Latin mainly cluster in the area that was, from the early second century bce, increasingly settled by Latin speakers and representatives of other Italic populations, by non-Italic displaced persons, and by slaves who were moved to the area by their owners.33 3.1 Early curse tablets from Hispania Ulterior (later Baetica) The earliest case seems to be a curse found in the Cortijo de Frías (El Portal, Cádiz), which carries the names – both Latin and Greek – of 33 persons, presumably slaves, in three columns of text and without any curse-formula. The inscription is written in double inversion (from right to left and from bottom to top), which requires careful preparation, and is datable from the handwriting, like two others from Corduba cited below, to the second half of the second century or the beginning of the first. This dating makes these 32 Other coins with this legend were minted at Leontini, Syracuse, Messina, and Agrigentum. 33 Cf. González Fernández 2010; Le Roux 2010, 51–82. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 386 Francisco Marco Simón RRE three documents all the more remarkable, as they are some of the very earliest Latin texts of any kind found in the Iberian Peninsula: Col. C ---]tana, Anus, Rustica, Optate, Aucta, Fabulla, Iulia, Celido, Prime, Traxe, Dio. Col. B: ---] Polio, N[i]colaue, Stabilio, Diocare, [T]alame, Sum[.]ni, [---]asia, [---]aris, Sol[---]ce, G[---], Princeps. Col. A: Antronice, Frontaca, Pusellio, Cimisex, Felix, Rustica, Storge, Karis, Philonia, Mena, Helene.34 The first editor of the text suggested that these people were slaves working on a large farm in the area, and that the defigens was likewise engaged there. El Portal (probably the mansio Ad Portum) is located four kilometres from the Castillo de Doña Blanca, the site of an important Phoenician city on the Gulf of Cádiz between the seventh and the second centuries bce. It also stood near the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, upstream of which, in 207 bce, the Romans founded the colony of Italica (Santiponce, near Seville), which owes its name to the dominance of Italic settlers.35 However, the majority of early Hispanic curse texts come from Corduba/ Córdoba, the provincial capital of Hispania Ulterior/Baetica. So far, five tablets have been found there, datable between the second half of the second century bce and the early first century ce. Two of these had been rolled up, one inside the other, and placed inside the small cinerary urn of a young child datable between the second and first centuries bce.36 The best-preserved of the pair is a text directed against a freedman named Priamus, seeking to silence him in a legal case related to an inheritance: Side A: Priamus l(ibertus) mutus sit / omnibus modis (side B) n[e] q<u>is pos<s>it de <he>reditate / sile(a)nt / qu<od=ET> {h}annue verbum / facere omnes o(b)mut[e]s<c=Q>[a]nt. A: May Priamus the freedman hold his tongue / in all circumstances B: Do not allow anyone to utter a word about the inheritance / let them all remain silent / let them shut up!37 The second text is a more or less semi-circular piece of lead, with writing on both sides, albeit very fragmentary and thus only partly intelligible.38 Nevertheless, it is clear that, like the first text, it also demands that the victims should remain silent in relation to a hearing involving a legacy González Fernández 2015, 106 and 114 = AE 2015: 587. Appian Bell. Hisp. 38.1 Both are preserved in the Museo Arqueológico de Córdoba. Díaz Ariño 2008, 220 = CIL 22/7, 251a1. The syntax is difficult. The letters {h}annue, inserted between ll.2 and 3, stand for standard abnue, the imperative of abnuo, i. e., ‘make it impossible, refuse to allow’. The phrase n[e] q<u>is pos<s>it de <he>reditate should logically come after qu<od> {h}annue verbum / facere. 38 Díaz Ariño 2008, 221 = CIL 22/7, 251a2. 34 35 36 37 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 387 (… o<b>m]utes<qu>ant, l.4; an<n>ue hered[--- , l.9). Ventura (1996, 146) has suggested that the gen[ius]/ [… m]alevolus, ‘malignant spirit (?)’, perhaps mentioned in lines 6–7 of the verso may have been the divine entity being petitioned to silence the opponent(s). Both of these texts can thus be classified as judicial curses, belonging to a genre which seems to have been recognised in Hispania as being the most valuable usage of the practice of cursing on lead.39 Three further early tablets were discovered in the course of an excavation undertaken in 1932 in the necropolis of Camino Viejo de Almodóvar.40 The earliest, which has recently been re-read with important improvements, is roughly heart-shaped and dates from between the mid-first century bce and the early first century ce: Dionisia Denatiai / ancilla rogat deibus ego / rogo bono bono / deibus rogo oro bono / einfereis bono Salpina / rogo oro et bonis inferis / ut dioso quod fit deibus / inferabus ut hoc quo(d) sit / causa et ecquod votum / feci ut solva(s) rogo / ut illam ducas rogo / oro. Dionisia, slave of Dentatia, requests the gods: I request a boon, a boon of the gods, I request and beseech a boon of the gods of the underworld for Salpina; I request that she be offered down to the gods of the underworld; she is the reason and for whom I have made this vow – I ask that you fulfil it. I ask and beseech that you take her.41 This item was probably made by hammering several pieces of lead together, which would explain its unusual thickness (6 mm, anomalous for this type of text). The defigens employs the language that was usual for making a vow, which is a clear indication of her own understanding of what she was doing in writing such a text and offering it to the gods of the underworld. Conceivably, the heart shape likewise had some symbolic significance.42 The other two Cordoban examples are simply lists of names. One is more or less circular and was found folded and ritually pierced by a large 20 cm iron nail. It lists eight members of the gens Numisia (and some others), most of whom have Greek names and were therefore probably freedpersons while 39 Silencing the other party in a dispute that has led to some sort of hearing is the usual aim of Greek and Latin judicial curses, and is attested in Oscan too: De Tord 2018, 188: nep fatíum nep deíkum pútians (Murano 2013, 22–23 Def. 1 l.8, cf. p. 26 [Capua]). 40 They were transferred to the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de Madrid in 1955. 41 CIL 22/7, 250 with Sánchez Natalías 2014, 278 = AE 2014: 648. The form Salpina, which looks like a nominative or ablative, is taken as an archaic dative, paralleled in other early Hispanic texts. 42 In one of the defixiones from the joint temple of the Magna Mater and Isis in Mainz (AE 2005: 1125 = DTM no. 4), the target, Tib. Claudius Adiutor, is offered to Magna Mater and Attis as the victim of a sacrifice, and there seems to be a reference to cutting out the victim´s heart and liver (ll.8–9, c(a)edat), the two main internal organs examined for omens in Roman sacrificial ritual (Veale 2017, 288). Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 388 Francisco Marco Simón RRE others are clearly still slaves. Again, the date seems to lie between the middle of the first century bce and the early first century ce.43 The third item in this group from the necropolis, of similar date, bears the names of five men and two women as victims, with the names being inscribed on both faces.44 A text from ‘Los Chorrilos’, Mengíbar (prov. Jaén), shows some similarities to that of Dionisia in Corduba.45 It is written on a strip of lead 30 cm long, with the letters carefully separated by interpuncts, and can again be dated to the second half of the first century bce.46 Dis ·imferis · vos · rogo · uteì · recipiates · nomen / Luxsia · A(uli) · Antesti · filia · caput·· cor · co(n)s[i]lio(m) · valetudine(m) / vita(m) · membra · omnia · accedat · morbo(s) · cotid(i)ea · et / sei · faciatis · votum · quod · faccio · solva(m) · vostris · meritis. To the gods of the underworld: I request that you consent to hear the case against Luxsia, daughter of Aulus Antestius. May illness afflict her head, heart, thoughts, health, vitality, her entire body day after day. And if you attend to the request that I make, I will reward you for your help. The anonymous defigens asks the gods of the underworld to make Luxsia suffer a cruel illness that will lead to her death, and lists, as is typical of some of these texts, the parts of the body and mind to be targeted, summed up by ‘the entire body’. No less significant is the evident familiarity with legal language – nomen recipere is a standard term for a magistrate agreeing to hear a (criminal) case.47 We should also note, as in the case of Dionisia above, the (loose) reference to the procedures involved in the formal utterance of a vow and the repaying of its eventual fulfilment by offering a sacrifice to the gods, a sequence that is usually summarised retrospectively in inscriptions in the abbreviated formula VSLM, votum solvit libens merito, ‘acquits him/ herself (of the vow) gladly and with good reason’. Although the use of facere for the gods’ positive response (sei faciatis votum, ‘if you bring about what I request’) is not technical, the expression di faciant was evidently in common use for wishes.48 It is at any rate clear that the defigens chose to represent his 43 Díaz Ariño 2008, 218 = CIL 22/7, 251. 44 Díaz Ariño 2008, 220 = CIL 22/7, 252. 45 It was originally supposed to have been discovered in 1990 around Carmona/Carmo (Seville), but Stylow (2012, 154) pointed out that it in fact came from 200 km higher up the Guadalquivir river. It is now in a private collection. 46 Díaz Ariño 2008, 213 = AE 1993: 1008. 47 E. g., Cic. Verr. 2.94; Seneca maior, Controv. 3 praef. 17: postulavi ut praetor nomen eius reciperet lege inscripti maleficii; cf. nomen deferre, ‘prosecute’ in Lex repetundarum l.5 [late second century bce] (Crawford 1996, 1: 65 with p. 96). The usual term later was inter reos recipere: e. g., Dig. 48.5.16.7 and 40.2. 48 E. g., Cic. Verr. 3.81: di immortales faxint, ne sit alter!; Propert. 3.16.25: di faciant, mea ne terra locet ossa frequenti …! Another reason for writing faciatis was the writer’s anticipa- Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 389 or her action in writing a curse as part of a votive-sequence that he or she might in due course need to repay.49 Roughly contemporary is a tablet from Peñaflor/Celti (prov. Sevilla), which was found 5 m away from two tile-graves on the site of a large Roman (and early Christian) necropolis: Marcel(l)us Valerius mutus tacitus siet / adversus C. Licinio Gallo. Qu<em>admodum / rana sene (!) lingua muta tacita est, sic Mar/cellus mutus tacitus debilitatus siet / adv<e>rsus L[i]cinio Gallo. May Valerius Marcellus fall silent and unable to speak against C. Licinius Gallus. Just as a frog without a tongue is mute and silent, so may Marcellus be mute, silent, enfeebled against Licinius Gallus.50 The archaic form siet instead of sit is an important detail for dating the text, the palaeography of which in any case points to the second half of the first century bce. The expression mutus tacitus, which expresses the aim of preventing Valerius Marcellus from being able to give evidence or state his case before the judge (‘as a frog without a tongue is silent and mute’),51 recalls two other curse texts that mention the deity Muta Tacita, the goddess of silence and death. These curses were found almost at the other extreme of the Latin-speaking Empire, the first at Cambodunum/Kempten in Raetia/ Allgäu and the second at Siscia/Sisak in Upper Pannonia/Croatia, but are several decades later than our text.52 The connection may, in fact, be merely coincidental, for there are a surprising number of passages in Latin literature in which the two words appear in close combination, which suggests that the usage was something of a catch-phrase if not thoroughly hackneyed.53 49 50 51 52 53 tion of the phrase votum quod facio, which is found already, for example, in Cato Agr. 83: votum pro bubus, uti valeant, ita facito, ‘perform a vow for the health of the oxen as follows’. Maltomini 1995, 298. Stylow 2012, 150 = AE 2012: 740. Note the inversion of the usual order of nomen and cognomen in the case of the victim, whereas Gallus’ own name is in the correct sequence and includes the praenomen. Reversals of this kind are not infrequent, e. g., among the graffiti at Pompeii. Stylow notes that the invocation of a frog in a persuasive analogy in such a context is unique. The unbearable noise made by frogs is a frequent topos in ancient literature (e. g., Martial 3.93.8). As a little boy, Octavian/Augustus is supposed to have told some noisy frogs to stop croaking, which they did (Suet. Aug. 94.7). Kempten: AE 1958: 150 = Pfahl 2012 no. 593 (mid-first century ce); Sisak: AE 2008: 1080 with Marco Simón and Rodà de Llanza 2008, 116–117 (perhaps Trajanic); more fully on Muta Tacita: Marco Simón 2010a. E. g., Plaut. Curc. 20–21; Poen. 876; Ter. Eunuch. 571–572; Lucr. Rer.nat. 2.625; Cic. In Cat. 3.26; Red. in Sen. 6; Propert. 1.16.26; Manil. Astr. 1.251–252; Sen. HF 302–303; Luc. Bell. civ. 1.247, 5.104–107 etc. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 390 Francisco Marco Simón RRE To these examples we may perhaps add a lead sheet found among the grave-goods of a second or first century tomb at Cabeza del Obispo (Alcaudete, prov. Jaén), which was interpreted by the excavators as a possible curse.54 3.2 Emporiae/Ampurias The earliest surviving curse texts in Latin from Ampurias were written some two hundred years later than the second Greek example cited in § 2a above.55 The better preserved example is dated to the middle of the first century bce and evidently relates once again to a court case, since it is directed against several people, both men and women, of different legal statuses and ethnic provenance, all opponents (omnes quei inimeici) of a man named Seneca.56 While the latter name is clearly of Celtic origin, the victims bear Greek and Latin names, such as Philargyrus and Veranio, and there is even an apparently semitic name included, Zodiana (a version of Susanna/ Šošan).57 Such social diversity nicely reflects the cosmopolitanism of the city of Emporion/Emporiae. The second text, unfortunately fragmentary, was discovered in a private house and is a datable to the end of the first century bce or the beginning of the following century. According to the most recent editors, the obverse carries a curse formula consigning the victims to Pluto (… nequ[e---a]beant Plu[tone---], ‘may they not escape Pluto’), while the names of the victims appear on the reverse: Min(icius?) Feli[x] and Itali[cus?].58 At least this text, despite being so badly damaged, shows signs of the existence of what one might call a developed curse culture in the town, most likely sometime around the Augustan period. 3.3 The bilingual text from Barchín del Hoyo (prov. Cuenca) A tablet found at Barchín del Hoyo (fig. 5), which can likewise be dated between the first century bce and the first century ce, is the only bilingual text in Greek and Latin so far found in Hispania. It was written spirally 54 Jiménez Higueras 2005. 55 The important group of three linked curses in reversed writing against the Roman gover- nor and his consilium from the Roman cemetery of Ballesta (Fabre, Mayer and Rodá 1991, 159–160 nos. 172–174 = HEp 4 (1994) no. 446 = AE 2005: 881–883, cf. 2010: 108) are dated to c. 75–78 ce (reign of Vespasian) and cannot be included here. See Marco Simón 2010b. 56 Díaz Ariño 2008, 171–172 = HEp 4 (1994) no. 447. 57 On the onomastics, see Curbera 1996. 58 Fabre, Mayer and Rodà 1991, 165 no. 177 = HEp 4 (1994) no. 448. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 391 Fig. 5: Bilingual text from Barchín del Hoyo, Cuenca (after Curbera, Sierra and Velázquez, 1999). (working from the outer rim) on both faces of a circular lead disk against two persons with Greek names, N(e)ikias and T(e)imē:59 Side A: ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ κα[ὶ] ὑπὲρ τῶν ἐμῶν τοῖς κατὰ ᾍδην δίδω/μι, παραδίδωμι Νεικίαν καὶ Τειμὴν /καὶ τοὺς ἄ[λ̣]λ̣ους οἷς δικ/αίως κατηρασά̣/μην. On behalf of myself and my next of kin, I give, I hand over, to those in the underworld, Nikias and Timē and the others whom I have justly cursed. Side B: pro me pro meis devotos defixos inferis,/devotos defixos inferis, Timen et Nici/ am et ceteros quos merito/devovi supr[a. pro] me,/pro mei[s],/ Timen, /Nician,/Nicia[n]. On behalf of myself, on behalf of my family, those cursed and consigned to the powers below, Timē(s) and Nicias and the others whom I have justly cursed above, on my own behalf, on behalf of my family, Timē(s)! Nicias! Nicias!60 The find spot of this tablet in a rural area of central Hispania can be related to the nearby city of Segobriga (Cabeza del Griego) and local exploitation of seams of mica, i. e., sheet silicate (Latin: lapis specularis).61 As the first editors suggested, the defigens, a native speaker of Greek who was also fairly fluent in Latin, might have chosen that language here so as to communi59 The first editors, and Fraser and Matthews 1997, s. v., take the name to be feminine, Τιμή (Curbera is a specialist in onomastics, cf. n. 57). However, this would be the sole occurrence of the feminine form in Sicily, which is anyway only attested twice elsewhere in the entire Greek-speaking world, whereas the masculine name, Τιμής, is fairly common in the Aegean islands (x28) and on the Asia Minor littoral (x10), with a handful of cases in Attica (x6). Versnel (2010, 291) understands the name to be masculine. 60 Curbera, Sierra and Velázquez 1999, 270–283 (= AE 1999: 954 a, b), tr. of the Greek by Versnel 2010, 290–291. The supr[a in l.4 of the Latin version is a deliberate reference to the Greek on the other face, which was therefore written first (Arbabzadah 2009, 193). 61 Plin. NH 36, 160–162. Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 392 Francisco Marco Simón RRE cate more effectively with the local, implicitly Latin-speaking, forces of the underworld.62 To sum up, the early date (mid- to late-Republican and Augustan) at which curse tablets began to be written in Latin in the Iberian Peninsula is remarkable when compared with the overall chronological distribution of such texts in the long Roman Empire – Italy alone, with 16 Republican/Augustan texts, exceeds the Hispanic total. In Africa, by contrast, just two Punic curse tablets have been dated to this period, with no Latin or Greek texts known to date.63 Such a state of affairs would be in keeping with the recent argument that the emergence of an epigraphic culture in the western Mediterranean, primarily but not exclusively in Latin, was part of a wider phenomenon,64 made possible by the gradual establishment of a multilingual Roman imperium incorporating the entire Mediterranean basin between the end of the first Punic War (241 bce) and the Augustan period (27 bce -14 ce).65 This phenomenon is characterised by an increase in connectivity between its various polities and cultures.66 The relatively early emergence of Hispanic curse texts in Latin can be understood within this framework of globalisation powered by Roman imperialism.67 4 Conclusion The earliest known curse tablets from the Iberian Peninsula are in Greek and – possibly, as I argue here – in Iberian as well. Both Greek texts come from Emporion/Ampurias at the extreme north-western tip of Hispania, and manifest cultural contacts with the Greek colony of Massalia/Marseille. The practice of writing letters and contracts on lead, evidenced in the same area since the Archaic period, suggests that the Iberian practice of writing documents of different kinds on lead-sheet may have been taken over from these Greek colonists of Emporion.68 This, however, does not necessarily Curbera, Sierra and Velázquez 1999, 283. Sánchez Natalías 2020. De Hoz 2006; Prag 2013. Estarán Tolosa 2019. Herring (2007, 17) has argued that this process was inevitably accompanied by the growth of anxieties about threats to cultural integrity and stimulated resort to new forms of documentation, including epigraphic practice. 67 See, e. g., Jennings 2011; Pitts and Versluys 2015; Van Alten 2017. 68 Gaulish curse tablets, which are much later and written in Latin characters, mainly come from outside the territory influenced by the Massalian Greeks (Marco Simón 2013; De Tord 2018, 197). 62 63 64 65 66 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 5 (2019) Early Hispanic Curse Tablets 393 mean that the influence of Emporion/Ampurias is the only contributory factor to be considered in accounting for the emergence of the possible Iberian resort to writing curse tablets. We cannot exclude the possibility of a Sicilian connection as a secondary and alternative influence here, especially with regard to the area of south-eastern Hispania. The earliest Latin curse tablets, on the other hand, notably in the Bay of Cadiz and around Cordoba, appear to be attributable to the influx of Romano-Italic settlers and their slaves in the Guadalquivir valley rather than to a continuous, albeit subterranean, ‘tradition’ transmitted across the centuries. These inferences serve to make the point that awareness of a weakly institutionalised, informal measure, such as private cursing on lead, aiming at individual self-protection or the furtherance of one’s own interests in an extreme situation, might easily be lost within a given community or cultural area as individuals died or circumstances or attitudes changed. The Hispanic curse tablets, if we include, for the sake of argument, the Iberian texts listed here, are important for other reasons as well. First, because the possible transmission to the Iberians suggests the potential for yet another parallel to the Oscan and Etruscan appropriation of private cursing on lead, and, as in those cases, on a very limited scale, which has implications for the type of situations in which the practice was understood in each case to be effective. Secondly, the early date of the Latin texts from the Guadalquivir valley illustrates how the movement of individuals from Italy, with their slaves and hangers-on, gave rise to a social situation in which the local adaptation and appropriation of a genre once again appeared opportune, a genre which anyway now occupied a niche in the ‘Hellenistic koinē’ that spread through the western Mediterranean world thanks to Roman imperialism. Bibliography Amela Valverde, Luis 2013. ‘L’emission “Hispanorum” de Morgantina’, Omni 7. 34–44. 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Francisco Marco Simón Universidad de Zaragoza orcid.org/0000-0001-5191-8573 Digital copy – for author’s private use only – © Mohr Siebeck 2019 Religion in the Roman Empire Volume 5 (2019), No. 3 Editors Jan Dochhorn (Durham), Maren Niehoff (Jerusalem), Rubina Raja (Aarhus), Christoph Riedweg (Zürich), Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt), Christopher Smith (St Andrews), Moulie Vidas (Princeton), Markus Vinzent (London) and Annette Weissenrieder (Halle) Religion in the Roman Empire (RRE) is bold in the sense that it intends to further and document new and integrative perspectives on religion in the Ancient World combining multidisciplinary methodologies. Starting from the notion of ‘lived religion’ it will offer a space to take up recent, but still incipient research to modify and cross the disciplinary boundaries of ‘History of Religion’, ‘Anthropology’, ‘Classics’, ‘Ancient History’, ‘Ancient Judaism’, ‘Early Christianity’, ‘New Testament’, ‘Patristic Studies’, ‘Coptic Studies’, ‘Gnostic and Manichaean Studies’, ‘Archaeology’ and ‘Oriental Languages’. It is the purpose of the journal to stimulate the development of an approach which can comprise the local and global trajectories of the multi-dimensional pluralistic religions of antiquity. Associate Editors Nicole Belayche (Paris), Kimberly Bowes (Rome), John Curran (Belfast), Richard L. Gordon (Erfurt), Gesine Manuwald (London), Volker Menze (Budapest), Blossom Stefaniw (Halle), Greg Woolf (London) Mohr Siebeck RRE- 5 - 2 0 1 9 - 0 3