NOT SO UNUSUAL AFTER ALL: REMARKS ON THE LATIN CURSE TABLETS OF THE IMPERIAL AGE

Abstract

This article examines the ritual contexts of two recent discoveries of materia magica in complex and carefully excavated archaeological sites, and situates the prayers found there within the wider range of prayer in traditional Roman religion. Both the texts found in the so-called ‘magician's cellar’ in Chartres and those on the lead tablets found behind the temple of Magna Mater in Mainz date to the first century ce and are thus among the earliest surviving magical texts in the West. Despite the usual assumption that many magical rituals migrated from east to west across the Mediterranean and then up into western Europe, it shows how these two early caches of magical text reflect, in fact, the pattern and style of early Latin votive formulae, as well as traditional Roman prayers, like those of the Arval Brethren, and traditional Roman rituals.