Curse-tablets as evidence: Identifying the elusive "peiraikoi soldiers"

Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Volumn 144, Issue , 2003, Pages 125-140

  Bayliss, Andrew J ^a  

^a British School   (Greece)

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EID: 61149320286     PISSN: 00845388     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (25)

1. Almost all extant curse-tablets are inscribed on lead or lead alloy, but bronze, tin, potsherds, limestone, gemstones, talc, papyrus and wax were also used. Lead was cheap, flexible, readily available and easy to inscribe with a stylus. It also seems to have been thought to have qualities appropriate for binding spells, since several texts request that the victims be rendered "cold and useless" just like the lead on which the curse was written. Cf. DTA 105-107.
2. Because of this, Faraone, p. 3, suggested that the terms 'katadesmos', 'defixio' and 'binding spell' can be used "interchangeably".
3. Cf. FGrHist. 257a.
4. For examples of the accusative ending -εία cf. Threatte, pp. 152-3.
5. Cf. L. H. Jeffery, Further Comments on Archaic Greek Inscriptions, ABSA, 50 (1955), p. 73. no. 5. This tablet is little more than a list of names. Πίθον is misspelled as "Ιπθ ον, Γοργίαcombining dot belowςas Γορίγαcombining dot belowς, and Πυθόδ〈ο〉 ρο ς as "Υποδρο ς.
6. 2 4256, includes the names of several Athenians, one of whom is called Πειραϊκός.
7. Synesios, Phil. Epist. 56, line 4 (ναυκλη ́ρωcombining ogonek Πειραϊ κωcombining ogonekcombining inverted breve).
8. 2 1953 from 357/6 B.C.
9. 2 1955 from ca.320 B.C.
10. Hesperia 4 (1935), p. 51, no. 13, line 2;
11. Hesperia 16 (1947), p. 67. no. 15, line 2.
12. 2 1 189, line 2; 2970, line 1.
13. 2 1699, frag. b, line 2.
14. 2 1924, line 1; 1925, line 1; 1926, line 2.
15. 2 1257, line 1.
16. 2 1927, lines 63-4.
17. [Aristotle], Athenaion Politeia 61.1.
18. [Aristotle], Athenaion Politeia 42.2-4.
19. Plutarch, Solon 12.
20. For the details see Plutarch, Demetrios 8-10;
21. Cf. Plutarch, Demetrios 23.3.
22. Cf. K. Braun, Der Dipylon-Brunnen B - Die Funde, AM 85 (1970), pp. 129-290;
23. D. R. Jordan, Two Inscribed Lead Tablets from a Well in the Athenian Kerameikos, AM 95 (1980), pp. 225-239.
24. A cavalry monument was built near the Stoa Poikile to commemorate their achievements. Cf. Hesperia 53 (1984), pp. 19-24.
25. Hunt, p. 92, and de Sanctis (a), p. 63, both argued in favour of this sequence of events, de Sanctis restored these lines to read: