Abstract
The present paper is devoted to the linguistic analysis of the tabellae defixionum, envisaging in particular some syntactic and semantic traits that might be considered as crucial for the analysis and interpretation of the curse tablets. In the first part, a basic description of the tabellae defixionum as to their historical and cultural context is provided; in the second part, cursing is analyzed according to the speech act theory; and in the third part some relevant features of the variety of Latin used are discussed, especially modality – the usage of the subjunctive mood and the semantics of the verb posse. Additional comments are given on the usage of negation, deixis and quantification.
References
Adamik, Béla. 2009. In memoriam József Herman: von der Late Latin database bis zur computerized historical linguistic database of Latin inscriptions of the imperial age. Acta Antiqua Hung 49. 11–22.10.1556/AAnt.49.2009.1.2Search in Google Scholar
Adams, James. 2007. The regional diversification of Latin, 200 BC–600 AD. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511482977Search in Google Scholar
Adams, James N. 2013. Social variation and the Latin language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511843433Search in Google Scholar
Audollent, Auguste. 1904. Defixionum tabellae. Paris: Albert Fontemoing.Search in Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1962. How to do things with words, 2nd rev. edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Bertocchi, Alessandra, Maraldi Mirka & Orlandini Anna. 2010. Quantification. In Ph. Baldi & P. Cuzzolin (eds.), New perspectives on historical Latin syntax 3: Constituent syntax, quantification, numerals, possession, anaphora, 19–174. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110215465.19Search in Google Scholar
Bettarini, Luca. 2005. Corpus delle defixiones di Selinunte. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Search in Google Scholar
Bevilacqua, Gabriele. 2009. Aurora Orchi soror. Parola del passato CCCLXIV. 47–70.Search in Google Scholar
Bevilacqua, Gabrielle & Olimpia Colacicchi. 2009. Una nuova defixio latina dalla via Ostiense. Notizie degli scavi di antichità, Ser. IX – vol. XVII–XVIII, 2006–2007, 303–349. Roma: Bardi editore.Search in Google Scholar
Blänsdorf, Jürgen. 2010. The texts from the Fons Annae Perennae. In Richard L. Gordon & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Magical practice in the Latin West, 215–244. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004179042.i-676.51Search in Google Scholar
Blänsdorf, Jürgen. 2012a. Die defixionum tabellae des Mainzer Isis- und Mater Magna-Heiligtums, Defixionum tabellae Mogontiacenses (DTM) (Mainzer Archäologische Schriften Band 9). Mainz: Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz, Direktion Landesarchäologie Mainz.Search in Google Scholar
Blänsdorf, Jürgen. 2012b. The social background of the Defixio texts of mater magna at Mainz and Anna Perenna at Rome. In Marina Piranomonte & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Contesti magici, 147–160. Roma: Sopraintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma.Search in Google Scholar
Blänsdorf, Jürgen & Marina Piranomonte. 2012. Schede di catalogo IX, 49.3–6, IX, 49.8–28. In Rosanna Friggeri, Maria Grazia Granino Cecere & Gianluca Gregori (eds.), Terme di Diocleziano. La collezione epigrafica, 617–639. Milano: Mondadori Electa.Search in Google Scholar
Bonner, Campbell. 1950. Studies in magical amulets. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Search in Google Scholar
Dreher, Martin. 2012. “Prayers for Justice” and the categorization of curse tablets. In Marina Piranomonte & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Contesti magici, 29–32. Roma: Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma.Search in Google Scholar
Ehmig, Ulrike. 2015. Guter Gott! Bonus Deus in lateinischen Fluchtafeln. Graeco-Latina Brunensia 20(2). 3–9.Search in Google Scholar
Faraone, Christopher A. 1991. The agonistic context of early Greek binding spells. In Christopher A. Faraone & Dirk Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek magic and religion, 3–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Faraone, Christopher A. 1999. Ancient Greek love magic. Harvard: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674036703Search in Google Scholar
Faraone, Christopher A. & Amina Kropp. 2010. Inversion, adversion and perversion as strategies in Latin curse-tablets. In Richard L. Gordon & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Magical practice in the Latin West, 381–398. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004179042.i-676.75Search in Google Scholar
Gager, John. 1992. Curse tablets and binding spells from ancient world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Giacalone Ramat, Anna & Andrea Sansò. 2010. L’emploi indéfini de homo en latin tardif: aux origines d’un « européanisme ». In Michèle Fruyt & Olga Spevak (eds.), La quantification en latin, 93–116. Paris: L’Harmattan.Search in Google Scholar
Haas, Volkert. 2007. Zwei Verfluchungen im Hethitischen Schrifttum und in der Ilias. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 7(1). 1–4.10.1163/156921207781375141Search in Google Scholar
Hassall, Mark W. C. & Roger S. O. Tomlin. 1993. Roman Britain, II. Inscriptions. Britannia 24. 310–314.10.1017/S0068113X00018262Search in Google Scholar
Hassall, Mark W. C. & Roger S. O. Tomlin. 1995. Roman Britain II. Inscriptions. Britannia 26. 376–377.10.1017/S0068113X00006991Search in Google Scholar
Herman, József. 2000 [1967]. Vulgar Latin, Roger Wright (trans.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hofmann, Johann Baptist & Anton Szantyr. 1965. Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik. München: Beck.Search in Google Scholar
Hughes, Geoffrey. 1998. Swearing, a social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English. London: Penguin Books.Search in Google Scholar
Jay, Timothy. 2000. Why we curse, a neuro-psycho-social theory of speech. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/z.91Search in Google Scholar
Jeanneret, Maurice. 1918. La langue des tablettes d’exécrations latines. Revue de Philologie 42. 126–153.Search in Google Scholar
Johnston, Sarah I. 2007. Magic. In Sarah Johnston (ed.), Ancient religions, 139–154. Cambridge, MA & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University.10.4159/9780674039186-015Search in Google Scholar
Jordan, David R. 1985. Survey of Greek defixiones not included in the special corpora. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 26. 151–197.Search in Google Scholar
Jungbluth, Konstanze & Federica Da Milano (eds.). 2015. Manual of deixis in the romance languages. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110317732Search in Google Scholar
Kagarow, Eugen. 1929. Griechische Fluchtafeln (Eos Supplementa 4). Leopolis: Societas Philologa Polonorum.Search in Google Scholar
Kropp, Amina. 2004. “...defigo Eudemum: necetis eum”: Kommunikationsmuster in den Texten antiker Schadenzauberrituale. In Kai Brodersen & Amina Kropp (eds.), Fluchtafeln. Neue Funde und neue Deutungen zum antiken Schadenzauber, 81–97. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Antike.Search in Google Scholar
Kropp, Amina. 2008a. Defixiones. Ein aktuelles Corpus lateinischer Fluchtafeln. Speyer: Kartoffeldruck-Verlag Kai Brodersen.Search in Google Scholar
Kropp, Amina. 2008b. Magische Sprachverwendung in Vulgärlateinischen Fluchtafeln. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Search in Google Scholar
Ljung, Magnus. 2011. Swearing. A cross-cultural linguistic study. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230292376Search in Google Scholar
Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511605789Search in Google Scholar
Magni, Elisabetta. 2010. “Mood and Modality”. In Ph. Baldi and P. Cuzzolin (eds.), New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax. Volume 2. Constituent Syntax: Adverbial Phrases, Adverbs, Moods, Tense, 193–275. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar
Malchukov, Andrej L. & Viktor S. Xrakovskij. 2016. Mood, modality and other categories. In J. Nuyts & J. van der Auwera (eds.), The Oxford handbook of modality and mood, 196–220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Meiser, Gerhard. 1998. Historische Laut- und Formenlehre der lateinischen Sprache. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Search in Google Scholar
Michel, Simone. 2004. Die magischen Gemmen. Zu Bildern und Zauberformeln auf geschnittenen Steinen der Antike und Neuzeit. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.10.1524/9783050050003Search in Google Scholar
Murano, Francesca. 2013. Le tabellae defixionum osche. Pisa & Roma: Fabrizio Serra editore.Search in Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko. 2016. The expression of non-epistemic modal categories. In J. Nuyts & J. van der Auwera (eds.), The Oxford handbook of modality and mood, 89–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ogden, Daniel. 1999. Binding spells: Curse tablets and voodoo dolls in the Greek and Roman worlds. In Bengt Ankarloo & Stuart Clark (eds.), Witchcraft and magic in Europe. Vol. 2: Ancient Greece and Rome, 1–90. London: Athlone Press.Search in Google Scholar
Pieroni, Sivia. 2010. Deixis and anaphora. In Ph. Baldi & P. Cuzzolin (eds.), New perspectives on historical Latin syntax 3: Constituent syntax, quantification, numerals, possession, anaphora, 389–501. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110215465.389Search in Google Scholar
Pinkster, Harm. 2015. The Oxford Latin syntax. Volume I. The simple clause. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199283613.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Piranomonte, Marina. 2010. Religion and magic at Rome: The fountain of Anna Perenna. In Richard L. Gordon & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Magical practice in the Latin West, 191–213. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004179042.i-676.42Search in Google Scholar
Piranomonte, Marina. 2012. Un contesto magico straordinario. In Marina Piranomonte & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Contesti magici, 161–174. Roma: Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma.Search in Google Scholar
Piranomonte, Marina & Francisco Marco Simón. 2010. The daemon and the nymph: Abrasax and Anna Perenna. Bollettino di archeologia 330. 1–16.Search in Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario. 2016. Interaction between modality and other semantic categories. In J. Nuyts & J. van der Auwera (eds.), The Oxford handbook of modality and mood, 50–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Swartz, Michael D. 2005. The aesthetics of blessing and cursing: Literary and iconographic dimensions of Hebrew and Aramaic blessing and curse texts. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 5(1). 187–201.10.1163/156921205776137891Search in Google Scholar
Tomlin, Roger S. O. 1988. The curse tablets. In Barry Cunliffe (ed.), The temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol. 2: The finds from the sacred spring, 59–270. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology.Search in Google Scholar
Tomlin, Roger S. O. 1993. The inscribed lead tablets: An interim report. In Ann Woodward & Peter Leach (eds.), The Uley shrines. Excavation of a ritual complex on West Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire 1977–1979, 112–130. Swindon: English Heritage.Search in Google Scholar
Toporov, Vladimir N. 2006 [1969]. K rekonstrukcii indroevropejskogo rituala i ritual’no-poeticheskikh formul (na materiale zagovorov) [Toward the reconstruction of Indo-European ritual and ritual-poetic formulae (on the basis of incantations)]. Indo-evropeiskie iazyki i indoevropeistika, 405–438. Moscow. [Originally published: Σηµειωτικ Trudy po znakovym sistemam 4 (= Učenye zapiski Tartuskogo gos. universiteta, vyp. 236), 9–43].Search in Google Scholar
Urbanová, Daniela. 2009. [rec.] Kropp, A. Defixiones. Ein aktuelles Corpus lateinischer Fluchtafeln. Speyer: Kartoffeldruck-Verlag Kai Brodersen 2008, 394 S. Alessandria 3. 166–169.Search in Google Scholar
Urbanová, Daniela. 2010. L´elemento coercitivo nelle tabellae defixionum di argomento amoroso – alcuni aspetti testuali. In Peter Anreiter & Manfred Kienpointner (eds.), Latin linguistics today. Akten des 15. Internationalen Kolloquiums zur Lateinischen Linguistik, vol. 137, 639–649. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft.Search in Google Scholar
Urbanová, Daniela. 2014a. Latinské proklínací tabulky na území Římského impéria, Brno: Host.Search in Google Scholar
Urbanová, Daniela. 2014b. Die lateinischen tabellae defixionum, der Usus und die Spezifika am Gebiet des römischen Reiches. In Piera Molinelli, Pierluigi Cuzzolin, Chiara Fedriani, (eds.), Latin vulgaire – Latin tardif X. Actes du Xe colloque international sur le latin vulgaire et tardif, 1047–1098. Tome III, Bergamo University Press: Sestante edizioni.Search in Google Scholar
Väänänen, Veikko. 1982 [1963]. Introduzione al latino vulgare, A. Grandesso Silvestri (trans.). Bologna: Pàtron editore.Search in Google Scholar
Versnel, Henk S. 1991. Beyond cursing: The appeal to justice in judicial prayers. In Christopher A. Faraone & Dirk Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek magic and religion, 60–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Versnel, Henk S. 1998. An essay on anatomical curses. In Fritz Graf (ed.), Ansichten griechischer Rituale. Geburtstags-Symposium für Walter Burkert, Castelen bei Basel, 15.–18. 3, 217–267. Stuttgart & Leipzig: Teubner.Search in Google Scholar
Versnel, Henk S. 2010. Prayers for justice in east and west: Recent finds and publications. In Richard L. Gordon & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Magical practice in the Latin West, 275–356. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/ej.9789004179042.i-676.63Search in Google Scholar
Versnel, Henk S. 2012. Response to a critique. In Marina Piranomonte & Francisco Marco Simón (eds.), Contesti magici. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Contesti magici, 33–46. Roma: Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma.Search in Google Scholar
Watkins, Calvert. 1995. How to kill a dragon, aspects of Indo-European poetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Directives in Latin comedy: Pragmatics, dramatic role and social status
- Quomodo Fredegarius Scholasticus modis et temporibus uerbi temporalis usus sit
- A diachronic semantic map for the Latin preposition secundum
- Stoics on tropes and figures
- Some linguistic and pragmatic remarks on the tabellae defixionum
- Book Reviews
- Cabrillana, Concepción & Christian Lehmann: Acta XIV Colloquii Internationalis Linguisticae Latinae
- Hertzenberg, Mari Johanne Bordal: Third person reference in late Latin. Demonstratives, definite articles and personal pronouns in the Itinerarium
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Directives in Latin comedy: Pragmatics, dramatic role and social status
- Quomodo Fredegarius Scholasticus modis et temporibus uerbi temporalis usus sit
- A diachronic semantic map for the Latin preposition secundum
- Stoics on tropes and figures
- Some linguistic and pragmatic remarks on the tabellae defixionum
- Book Reviews
- Cabrillana, Concepción & Christian Lehmann: Acta XIV Colloquii Internationalis Linguisticae Latinae
- Hertzenberg, Mari Johanne Bordal: Third person reference in late Latin. Demonstratives, definite articles and personal pronouns in the Itinerarium