The drawing up of all written charms follows the same model. They call for one
(or more) power(s) for winning superiority or victory for the operator’s sake, for
instance in judicial matters: “Holy and strong, mighty and great-powerful Name,
give favor, glory, victory to Proclus whom Salvina bore, before the duxof Bosra in
Arabia, before Pelagius the assessor... in order that he might be justifiably or
unjustifiably victorious in any judgement before any judge.. .” (Kotansky 1991).
Love magic and agonistic defixionesare the most attested to in terms of numbers.
Competition in chariot races was so sharp that a law of 389 condemns to death char-
ioteers who would make use of magical means (CTh9.16.11). A defixion from Carthage
gives a ritual spell able to destroy the adversary’s team: “I call for you, demon who
lives here: I offer you these horses ut deteneas illos et inplicentur nec se mouere pos-
sent” (Audollent 1904: 233, cf. also 247, 286, etc.). A tablet found in Berytus (Syria-
Phoenicia) helps us to visualize the ritual gestures that go with the spell (fig. 20.2).
The first line, “Katochos hippôn kai hènikôn” (“Bound for horses and charioteers”),
sums up the domain within which the rite is efficient and proclaims the ritual mod-
ality, a link (defixio, katadesmosin Greek) which is the core of “magical” practices.
Next, powerful names embrace the picture of a man whose body is wrapped and his
legs crossed. Enclosed thus, he is stuck with pins, according to a common ritual of
correspondences. Then the text gives the expected, paralyzing effect (ll. 15–21): once
retained and bound, thrown into confusion, the Blues’ horses and their charioteers
too will be turned upside down, massacred, and interred. A similar scenario is nar-
rated at a chariot race in Gaza (Syria-Palaestina) in the fourth century ce(hi avolant,
illi praepediuntur; Hieronymus, Life of Hilario11.11); but, in that case, paralysis is
provoked by some water blessed by a holy monk. This last anecdote testifies that
these practices crossed over all religious communities (Meyer and Smith 1999; Sfameni
Gasparro 2002).
These sort of actions, to which a secret ritual attributed a reputation of effective-
ness, could work finally as a way out from dissatisfaction within, or in hopes for, one’s
present life. In the third century, an “emigrant,” probably a slave, made a curse against
the Italian land and Rome’s gates, for he longed to go home to his native country
(Jordan 1985: no. 129). Since hostile forces could operate at every moment of life,
people were accustomed to protect themselves in advance; they wore apotropaic amulets
portraying powerful deities, like the Egyptian ones (Plin. Nat.33.12.41), and writ-
ten phylacteries: “Protect Alexandra... from every demon and every compulsion of
demons and from demonic (forces?) and magical drugs and binding-spells” (Jordan
1991; Gager 1992: 218 – 64).
Conclusion
As far as it is possible to reconstruct Roman religious needs from the remains,
most of them ritualistic, that are left, those needs appear as mainly terrestrial and
pragmatic: health, happiness, success, whatever might be the ways to get them.
Assistance called from the gods, either by a contract with them or in summoning
up supernatural beings reputed to be powerful, was rooted in the belief in theirReligious Actors in Daily Life 289