The Dark Side of Rome: Curse Tablets and Ancient Magic

0:00 Speaker 1: Dear listener, Imagine you're living in ancient Rome. You've just

0:04 Speaker 1: had your sandals stolen at the bathhouse, your neighbor is

0:07 Speaker 1: loudly existing again, and your romantic situation has taken a

0:11 Speaker 1: turn so tragic it deserves its own Greek play. What

0:15 Speaker 1: do you do? Do you confront them, move on, journal

0:20 Speaker 1: your feelings. No, you write a curse, not metaphorically, not

0:25 Speaker 1: I hope they step on a lego. I mean you

0:28 Speaker 1: physically inscribe their name onto a thin sheet of lead,

0:32 Speaker 1: call upon the gods of the underworld, and ask very

0:35 Speaker 1: specifically for their lives to unravel in deeply inconvenient ways.

0:41 Speaker 1: Welcome to the strange, petty, and surprisingly organized world of

0:45 Speaker 1: Roman cursed tablets. Now, before you picture a bunch of

0:49 Speaker 1: toga wearing sorcerers dramatically waving their arms around, let's ground this.

0:53 Speaker 1: In reality. These tablets, known as defixiones, have been found

0:58 Speaker 1: all across the Roman world world, from Italy to North

1:02 Speaker 1: Africa to Britain, and not in rare isolated cases. We're

1:07 Speaker 1: talking thousands of them. This wasn't fringe behavior, this was

1:12 Speaker 1: disturbingly normal. Most of these tablets were made from lead,

1:16 Speaker 1: cheap durable and interestingly associated with the underworld. In Roman belief,

1:23 Speaker 1: the person writing the curse would scratch text into the metal,

1:27 Speaker 1: often in Latin or Greek, sometimes with symbols or drawings,

1:31 Speaker 1: and then do something very important. They would hide it

1:35 Speaker 1: in graves, wells, temples, bathhouses, places believed to be close

1:39 Speaker 1: to spirits or deities who could carry out the request.

1:42 Speaker 1: Because this wasn't just venting, this was outsourcing revenge. Now

1:48 Speaker 1: let's talk about the people behind these curses, because this

1:51 Speaker 1: is where things get fascinating. These weren't always powerful elites.

1:56 Speaker 1: In fact, many seemed to come from everyday people, workers, merchants, gamblers, lovers,

2:03 Speaker 1: people who didn't have access to legal or social power.

2:07 Speaker 1: If someone wronged you and you couldn't take them to court,

2:10 Speaker 1: couldn't challenge them publicly, you could appeal to something else entirely.

2:15 Speaker 1: You could go supernatural. One of the most famous collections

2:18 Speaker 1: of these tablets was discovered in the Roman baths of

2:21 Speaker 1: Aquasulis modern day Bath, England. And let me tell you,

2:26 Speaker 1: the Romans there were not playing around. These weren't vague curses.

2:31 Speaker 1: These were incredibly specific, borderline passive, aggressive complaints directed at

2:36 Speaker 1: whoever stole their belongings while they were trying to enjoy

2:39 Speaker 1: a relaxing soak. One tablet reads something along the lines

2:43 Speaker 1: of to the Goddess Sulus Minerva, I give the thief

2:47 Speaker 1: who has stolen my cloak, whether man or woman, slave

2:51 Speaker 1: or free, may they not sleep, eat, or have children

2:55 Speaker 1: until it is returned, which is a very intense response

2:58 Speaker 1: to losing a towel. But it tells us something important.

3:02 Speaker 1: These people genuinely believed this would work. They weren't joking,

3:07 Speaker 1: they weren't being theatrical. They were engaging in what they

3:11 Speaker 1: saw as a legitimate form of justice, and justice in

3:15 Speaker 1: ancient Rome wasn't always fair or accessible now. Geographically, the

3:20 Speaker 1: Roman Empire was massive, stretching from Britain to the Middle East,

3:24 Speaker 1: North Africa, to parts of Europe, and everywhere Rome went,

3:29 Speaker 1: these practices followed. That's part of what makes cursed tablets

3:33 Speaker 1: so interesting. They're not tied to one specific culture. They

3:37 Speaker 1: appear across regions, languages, and social classes, adapting slightly depending

3:42 Speaker 1: on local beliefs, but maintaining the same core idea, write

3:46 Speaker 1: it down, call on a deity, and let the unseen

3:49 Speaker 1: world handle it. In Greece, similar practices existed, often invoking

3:55 Speaker 1: chthonic underworld gods like Hades or Persephony. In Roman contexts,

4:01 Speaker 1: you might see appeals to deities like Pluto or local

4:05 Speaker 1: gods associated with the specific site. It's a blending of

4:09 Speaker 1: traditions Roman structure mixed with local spirituality, creating a kind

4:14 Speaker 1: of ancient cross cultural revenge system. And then there's the content,

4:20 Speaker 1: because while some curses are about stolen items or business disputes,

4:24 Speaker 1: others go much deeper into the chaos of human emotion.

4:27 Speaker 1: Love curses, for example, are a whole category. These aren't

4:31 Speaker 1: sweet please make them like me wishes. These are intense,

4:36 Speaker 1: obsessive demands. Bind them to me, prevent them from loving

4:40 Speaker 1: anyone else, make them restless until they come to me,

4:44 Speaker 1: which is less romantic comedy and more ancient psychological thriller.

4:50 Speaker 1: There are also competition curses, especially in places like chariot

4:55 Speaker 1: racing arenas. Imagine being so invested in your favorite team

4:59 Speaker 1: that you can curse the opposing horses, not the drivers,

5:03 Speaker 1: the horses, asking the gods to make them stumble, fail,

5:08 Speaker 1: or just have a very bad day. And here's where

5:11 Speaker 1: it gets even stranger. Many of these tablets were intentionally folded,

5:15 Speaker 1: pierced with nails, or even rolled up tightly before being deposited.

5:20 Speaker 1: This wasn't random. It was symbolic. Binding The tablet meant

5:25 Speaker 1: binding the person piercing it could represent harm or control.

5:29 Speaker 1: Its ritualistic, deliberate, almost procedural, which suggests that this wasn't

5:37 Speaker 1: just emotional outbursts. It was a known practice with shared rules.

5:42 Speaker 1: Now let's zoom out for a moment and look at

5:44 Speaker 1: the bigger picture of Roman life, because this didn't exist

5:48 Speaker 1: in a vacuum. The Roman world was deeply religious, but

5:52 Speaker 1: not in the way we might think today. It wasn't

5:55 Speaker 1: about one central belief system. It was a complex web

5:59 Speaker 1: of God's rituals, superstitions, and local traditions. People believed the

6:05 Speaker 1: world was full of unseen forces, spirits, deities, energies that

6:11 Speaker 1: could influence daily life. So writing a cursed tablet wasn't

6:15 Speaker 1: irrational in that context. It was practical. You couldn't always

6:20 Speaker 1: control what happened around you, but you could try to

6:23 Speaker 1: influence it. You could appeal to powers beyond human systems,

6:28 Speaker 1: and sometimes that meant asking for things to go very

6:32 Speaker 1: poorly for someone else. Now here's the part that might

6:35 Speaker 1: make you glance over your shoulder just a little. Some

6:39 Speaker 1: of these tablets weren't just found in public places. They

6:42 Speaker 1: were buried with the dead, placed in graves, often near

6:46 Speaker 1: individuals who had died young or violently, because it was

6:49 Speaker 1: believed their spirits were more likely to carry out the curse,

6:53 Speaker 1: which means someone at some point thought, you know who

6:56 Speaker 1: would be great for delivering this message that recently deceased

6:59 Speaker 1: per That's a choice. And yet it was common enough

7:05 Speaker 1: that archaeologists now expect to find these tablets in certain

7:09 Speaker 1: types of burials. It's part of the landscape of ancient

7:12 Speaker 1: belief So what happened to all of this well? As

7:16 Speaker 1: the Roman Empire evolved and eventually transitioned into a more

7:19 Speaker 1: Christianized world, practices like cursed tablets were increasingly discouraged, labeled

7:25 Speaker 1: as superstition or even heresy, But they didn't disappear overnight.

7:31 Speaker 1: These beliefs lingered, adapted, and in some ways carried forward

7:35 Speaker 1: into later folk traditions. Because at the core of it,

7:39 Speaker 1: this isn't just about ancient magic. It's about something very human.

7:44 Speaker 1: The need for justice when systems fail, the desire for

7:48 Speaker 1: control in situations where you have none, the urge to

7:52 Speaker 1: respond when you've been wronged, whether that's through law, confrontation

7:57 Speaker 1: or a carefully worded piece of metal asking the universe

8:00 Speaker 1: to intervene. And maybe that's why these tablets feel so

8:04 Speaker 1: strangely familiar, because while we don't typically inscribe curses into

8:08 Speaker 1: lead anymore, we've all had moments where we wished for

8:12 Speaker 1: a little cosmic payback. And now, dear listener, a word

8:15 Speaker 1: from tonight's sponsor.

8:17 Speaker 2: Have you ever wanted to curse someone but felt like

8:19 Speaker 2: writing it down on metal was a bit too permanent,

8:23 Speaker 2: Try mildly inconvenient wishes, the modern solution for ancient frustrations.

8:28 Speaker 2: Just whisper your complaint into our patented, probably not magical

8:32 Speaker 2: jar and will absolutely not guarantee anything happens, but you'll

8:36 Speaker 2: feel way better mildly inconvenient wishes, because sometimes closure is

8:43 Speaker 2: just complaining with confidence.

8:45 Speaker 1: So the next time something goes missing, or someone cuts

8:48 Speaker 1: you off in traffic, or your neighbor decides two am

8:51 Speaker 1: is the perfect time to start a drum solo, remember this.

8:56 Speaker 1: There was a time when people didn't just get mad.

8:59 Speaker 1: They wrote it, town, they buried it, and they trusted

9:02 Speaker 1: something unseen to take care of the rest until next time,

9:06 Speaker 1: Stay curious