Defixio Part 1: The Story Behind the Tablet

This blog post is a creative writing piece about Michael Kowalski's hand made curse tablet. Mike will be writing the formal blog post about my "modernized" curse tablets, while I (Ryan) will write about the curse tablet that HE made and add a little story behind it. This is to show my application of what we learned about the subject.

So without further ado, let us begin, shall we?


Here's the tablet:

(Note: Because the markings on the tablet were difficult to capture on camera, Mike went over it in sharpie, however the writing was actually engraved.)

And here's the translation: "I hereby curse Julius Caesar/Caesar, who murdered my clan, will die/Caesar be slain by his closest friends"

(Nooooo...WHY BRUTUS? WHY? WHY MUST YOU MAKE KITTY CAT SAD? >.<)

Aaand here is the story: 

Enjoy yourselves!

*Takes bow*

Now let's go over this a little bit shall we? I know you all are probably mentally exhausted from reading the story (blame Mike, he's a real slave driver with these stories), but hey, If Mr. Revkin wants more, he'll get more.

(Here's a cat for your struggles.)

So I wanted to write about invasion of Caledonia (England) of the Romans, since the Latin book didn't really go into depth about the subject. I did a little research on the subject (my Works Cited should be on Mike's post) and I found out that almost half of all the Defixio's found were actually British made tablets. Even though the Romans were the ones who brought the tablets to Britain, the British people were very quick to accept the tradition, even despite all the pain that they went through.

(A heavily damaged Curse Tablet)

That's what is amazing about the Romans, despite all the people they slaughtered, and all the families they killed, they still managed to get the British to do what they wanted. Their culture was so strong that even some of their worst enemies were enticed and pulled into the Roman world. The Scottish, the Welsh, and the Caledonians were all victims of the invasion, but they still accepted Roman rule and Roman culture. And that's probably what blows my mind the most. One of the articles that I read was theorizing that the Romans perhaps spread the idea of a curse tablet to the British in order to unify the British people.

Another interesting thing about the story behind the curse tablets is that creating one was almost a capital offense. Because of the superstitious nature of both the Romans and the British, creating a curse tablet was almost like condemning one to death. This is why in the story, Iacob chooses to punish Caesar by writing a curse tablet. The fact that the punishment in the tablet actually comes true just shows how there could possibly be a greater power that influences the outcome of the tablet. 

(This is not a curse tablet. It's just here to confuse everyone)

Typically a Curse tablet consists of three different elements: The punishment, the victim, and the god that brings the punishment. The curser etched their words into a wax or stone tablet and left the tablet in a place of sanctum. For example, in the story that we read, the curse tablet that the thieves found was in a fountain in the temple of Aquae Sulis. 

In the end, Curse tablets are very interesting pieces of history that unified a people that did not want to be unified. They also tell a deep story, with many points open up for interpretation. Using these tablets, people have been able to see into the minds of the ancient Romans and Caledonians for years and years.