1st-4th century AD. An unfolded rectangular sheet lead curse tablet, with five lines of mixed Greek and Latin script arranged horizontally. See Gager, J., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, Oxford, 1992, for a discussion on curse tablets in ancient Greece and Rome.48 grams, 74.5mm (3"). Property of a European collector; acquired in 2010; previously in a Dutch private collection formed in the 1970s-1990s. Curse tablets, known in Latin as defixionis, are small sheets of lead, inscribed with messages from individuals seeking to make gods and spirits act on their behalf and influence the behaviour of others against their will. The motives are usually malign and their expression violent, for example to wreck an opponent’s chariot in the circus, to compel a person to submit to sex or to take revenge on a thief. Letters and lines written back to front, magical gibberish and arcane words and symbols often lend the texts additional power to persuade. These bound tablets were usually placed beneath the ground, either buried in graves or tombs, thrown into wells or pools, sequestered in underground sanctuaries, or nailed to the walls of temples. The deities addressed on them are mostly associated with the underworld, such as Persephone, Hades or Hecate, as well as deities of revenge such as the Erinyes or the Furies. They are found across the Graeco-Roman world with over a thousand examples being known and with the greatest concentration of finds being in Greece. South West Britain has also produced a large quantity of them with the sacred spring at the temple of Sulis Minerva in Bath being a notable source, and the temple of Mercury at Uley producing over eighty examples. In the Graeco-Roman world all members of society, regardless of economic or class status, used such magic, as well as protect themselves from its effects by the use of amulets and rings bearing protective intaglios and inscriptions.