TABELLA DEFIXIONIS 1st century BCE
Provenance Amiternum, Italy
Target Rhodine, a freedwoman
Deity invoked Di Manes (gods of the dead)
Gods of the underworld, I commend to you Rhodine of Serius. May you take her food, her health, her life. She has taken what is mine. I deliver her to you.
Archaeological note A short, blunt curse against a freedwoman — likely a social or sexual rival. The simplicity is striking: no list of body parts, no legalistic hedging. Just fury.