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Eastwards from the potters’ district, Celeus strides along the road that runs alongside the Themistoclean wall. He is entering Scambonidae, a residential area tight-packed with rather dingy houses. Celeus keeps to the wall side of the street to avoid having to leap aside every time someone knocks on a door and it opens outwards.
Athenian street doors usually open to a small courtyard around which the house is built. Even poor families stick to this pattern, although several families may share a single house. The street door is the only access to the premises and, in a largely unpoliced city, this door is as secure as possible. It is not unknown, however, for gangs of thugs to break down a door and loot the premises.
A door that opens into the street is harder to break down than one opening inwards into the courtyard. Consequently, most Athenians opt for safety rather than the convenience of pedestrians on the road outside. It is advisable to knock loudly on the door before leaving a house, since pedestrians tend to take violent umbrage to a door being opened in their faces without warning.
At present, doors are opening rapidly as laggards rush to begin the day. Most people started work an hour ago, since Athenians believe in rising before the sun. As a tavern owner, Celeus is excused neighbourly disapprobation for rising late. No one expects him on the premises for another two hours, when he will kick his surly slaves into preparing lunch.
The tavern of Celeus is not successful. Ask the patrons, and that diminishing tribe will mention cheap, bitter wine and stale bread served by slovenly staff in unhygienic surroundings. Ask Celeus himself, and he will tell you that other tavern owners are conspiring to put him out of business. While his wife was with him, the tavern was a lively, pleasant place – largely because the wife put in a sixteen-hour day while Celeus concentrated on extensively sampling the tavern’s wine.
Now, Celeus is certain that other tavern owners envied his prosperity. They persuaded his wife to quietly decamp one summer night, taking all her savings in a small canvas bag. She now runs a relative’s business supplying ships’ goods in Chalcedon and she is doing rather well. Meanwhile, for Celeus, things have been going downhill.
Today he intends to strike back. He will show his enemies that they cannot sabotage his life with impunity. The address he is seeking took some work to discover. A discreetly offered silver coin persuaded one of his tavern’s shadier patrons to admit that he might know someone who might know someone who might be able to help.
A few nights later, one of his slaves brought him a message – sender unknown. ‘The district of Scambonidae, the street beyond the tomb of Eumolpus. Find the carpenter’s workshop, and go up the stairs at the back. Be there the hour after sunrise.’
Eumolpus was an obscure hero from mythical times, and his ‘tomb’ is a battered and empty sarcophagus at a crossroads. As Celeus approaches, a local dog finishes urinating against the thing and lopes away. The carpenter’s shop is easy to locate, for the carpenter is loudly hammering together a set of benches. As Celeus approaches, the carpenter sums him up with a hostile stare. Then he jerks his head at a set of stairs going up the back wall. With considerable trepidation, the tavernkeeper follows the silent instruction.
The room at the top is shuttered. Herbs have recently been burned, leaving a spicy, heady smell. So dark is the room that it takes Celeus a moment to notice that it is occupied. A shadowy form sits at the table, so heavily veiled that all he can see is a dark mound of cloth. Yet the voice is pleasant and surprisingly educated.
‘Celeus the tavernkeeper. May the goddess Cybele bless you and yours.’
‘You are the sorceress?’
A pointed silence informs the tavern owner that this was the wrong question.
Eventually the woman replies, her voice patient and level. ‘Of course I am not a sorceress. A sorceress would be open to charges of impiety against the gods. The drugs that I might supply would be assumed to be poisons. I would be accused of corrupting young men and suborning slaves. And you, Celeus, would be in trouble simply for visiting me. The authorities would accuse us of performing depraved sexual acts to enable our magical activities.
‘I am a mantis. All that I do is help you understand the will of the gods. Perhaps, under some circumstances, I may suggest actions that might … further the will of the gods. If you have trouble with these actions I may assist you. Is that clear?’
The veiled figure sits silently, watching her confused client grapple with what she has said. To Celeus, the (non-) sorceress seems a mysterious and threatening figure whom he has clumsily angered. She may, at this moment, be preparing a silent curse that will blight his miserable life yet further. He now regrets that he came.
HEKATE, THE TRIPLE GODDESS OF THE CROSSROADS
In actuality, the sorceress is deciding to cut down on the mixture of black henbane seeds and blue lotus flowers. When burned, the concoction makes those who inhale its smoke relaxed, uninhibited and talkative. Regrettably, in the wrong concentration or when the wrong person breathes it, the mixture is fatal. The sorceress is starting to worry about Celeus.
She asks, ‘What do you want the powers of the underworld to do for you? Is there a woman you desire? A woman who will not look at you, or even acknowledge that you exist? Do you want to summon a demon who will pierce her, through the eyes, through the ears, through the stomach, breasts and womanly parts so that she thinks of you and only you? Do you want her to come to you, mad with lust, forgetting husband or other lover, to be yours and yours alone?’
Torment the spirit and the heart of Karosa, child of Thelo, until she leaps up and comes, quickly, quickly to Apalos, son of Theonilla, now, now, filled with lust and love …
Let her forget her husband, her child, but let her come melting with passion, for love and sex, especially sex with Apalos, child of Theonilla, now, now, quickly, quickly.
A ‘LOVE’ SPELL FROM THE FIFTH CENTURY BC, PAPYRI GRAECAE MAGICAE 19A 50-54
The sorceress stops abruptly, realizing that she has inadvertently launched into the lines of a spell and is about to utter the mystic word Ablanathanalba, which compels the demon Abraxas to do just as she has described.
Celeus considers the sorceress’ offer. ‘Is it more expensive if the woman is now living in another city?’ Then, rather regretfully, he shakes his head. ‘No. I seek justice. My enemies cursed me, and I want to curse them back. Can you do that?’
‘I? Of course not. Do you think I am Medea? I didn’t say I can’t help you, but I am a mortal, and my curses have no more power than yours. We need to call upon the right supernatural entities, present your case, and let them smite your enemies. Some of these entities can smite rather inventively.’
Celeus regards her warily. ‘Which … entities did you have in mind?’
‘Hekate, Mormo and Hermes,’ replies the sorceress promptly. She is already running through a mental inventory of what she will need. Most of it is in the cupboard behind her.
‘Mormo,’ says Celeus thoughtfully. ‘My mother used to frighten me with her when I was a child. If I was naughty, or teased my sister, she would tell me that Mormo would come in the night and bite off my nose. I’d get sick with fear.’
‘I need to prepare for the conjuration,’ says the sorceress. ‘Go downstairs and tell the carpenter to fetch a black hen from the coop across the courtyard. And leave one of those silver drachmas you promised on the table. I’ll not have you wasting my time should you decide not to come back.’
Actually, Mormo is quite unnecessary for this curse. Really it will need Hekate, the witch-goddess and patroness of sorceresses, and Hermes, both in his role as god of trade and business and as Hermes Psychopompus, the guide of souls. But the sorceress has recently learned an invocation to Mormo. The ceremony is brief yet impressive, and she wants to try it out.
Spirit of the streets, the shining one who wanders by night
Enemy of light, and friend and consort of shadows
Who revels in the howl of dogs when blood flows red
Who walks among tombs and corpses turned to dust
Who pants for blood, and freezes men with fear
Gorgon and Moon, Mormo of many shapes
Come to this, our sacrificial rite!7
Once the hen has been decapitated, the sorceress turns towards the crude hearth at the back of the room and casts a cupful of boiling water mixed with hen’s blood into the little crucible she has set over the fire. Celeus gives a smothered shriek as the blood flashes into flame and dark, evil-smelling smoke roils across the room, hanging heavy in the shadows.
‘You can feel her, can you not?’ rasps the sorceress. ‘Mormo is here. She listens.’
The sorceress is rasping because she inadvertently inhaled some of the mixture of powdered limestone and sulphur when she added it to the crucible. Like the trembling Celeus, she is very impressed with the resultant chemical reaction. She now intends to buy lots more from her clandestine supplier. The problem is that the drugged air, the solemn sacrifice of the black hen and the sudden appearance of the dreaded Mormo in a pyrotechnic display have all combined to reduce Celeus to incoherent silence.
‘Speak,’ croaks the sorceress, and the terrified Celeus finds his tongue.
‘Curse them! Curse the tavern owners who have cursed me. May Artemis cast her hate upon Phanagora and Demetrios especially and destroy them utterly.’
Celeus has seemingly found an outlet for his pent-up anger and frustration, and now the words come pouring out. ‘Destroy their taverns, no, destroy all their property. Lay waste to everything they own. And that smooth-talking Demetrios, bind him, bind him in such a bind. Make it strong as it can be made. Hammer that tongue silent with a kynotos! Yes, a kynotos!’
A kynotos is the lowest possible throw of the dice. Demetrios could talk the hide off a donkey and Celeus wants him tongue-tied, his words crude, poor and stumbling.
The sorceress stands and utters a dismissive phrase in a foreign tongue. ‘Ananak Arbeoueri, Aeeioyo. Go now lady, to your own throne and protect him, Celeus, from any harm.’8
Then she matter-of-factly stands, crosses the room and unbars the shutter. Both sorceress and client breathe deeply with relief as the smoky foul-smelling air disperses from the room, which in daylight looks remarkably workmanlike and mundane.
The sorceress takes a lead tablet from a drawer beneath the table and, picking up a steel stylus, begins to inscribe it carefully, glancing every now and then at her papyrus notes. Celeus observes that the hand doing the inscribing is pale and dainty, with well-manicured fingernails. He stands in silence, ignored, until the sorceress hands him the completed work.
The awed Celeus turns the little leaf of rolled lead around in his fingers. He has a curse. A genuine, first-rate curse, uttered and sanctified in the presence of Mormo, ready to be delivered to the spirits of the Underworld.
Reading the script, he is briefly baffled by a reference to ‘the four-year cycle’. Then he remembers that every four years, at the festival of the Great Dionysia and the Panhellenic festival, there are great and powerful rituals that cleanse the city of malignant spirits and spells. A spell must be specifically exempted from these ritual purifications, or with the Great Dionysia coming up, the curse would be wiped away before it had taken effect. Celeus is impressed. He would never have thought of that by himself. It’s why you hire a professional if you want the job done properly.
Quickly he approves the wording and gives the sorceress the names of the other tavern owners. She will make a similar curse for each and when Celeus comes back in an hour there will be a quick sealing ritual. The tablets will be folded, and then in hen’s blood and ashes Celeus will hammer a nail through them to bind the spell.
After that, the sorceress will send the spell to the Underworld. She does not like this part. Next time the moon is gone from the sky she must go unseen to the cemetery with her dread message. She will be alone in the dark, or at least she hopes she will be alone. When you invoke spirits, demons and dark goddesses on a weekly basis, you never quite know what might be waiting for you in the haunted dark. That’s the other reason people come to her. If something goes wrong with a spell, it backfires on the caster of that spell, not the person who commissioned it.
There’s a funeral tomorrow. That poor daughter of Alcaeus, who died at just fourteen years. The sorceress will furtively sneak into the enclosure of the girl’s tomb, and there bury the lead tablets beneath the soil. At the dark of the moon, Hermes, who leads the spirits of the dead to the gates of the Underworld, will come for the girl. Drawn by secret sigils on the lead tablets, Hermes will find the message and take it to the addressees, Hekate, Hermes and – since Celeus called upon her in the presence of Mormo – the sorceress has had no choice but to also add Artemis.
Once the tablets are found and the message delivered, the curse is irrevocable. The tavern owners are doomed.
Discovered northeast of the Piraeus in the deme of Xypete in 2003, one of five lead tablets, folded over, with a nail driven through.
Hekate of the Underworld, Hermes of the Underworld, Artemis of the Underworld
Cast your hate at Phanagora and Demetrios, their taverns, their property and all they possess
I, the enemy of Phanagora and Demetrios bind them in blood and ashes with all the dead
The coming four-year cycle will not release you, for I bind you, Demetrios,
In the strongest of bonds, with a kynotos on your tongue.
FOLLOWING TRANS. OF J. L. LAMONT ‘A NEW COMMERCIAL CURSE TABLET FROM CLASSICAL ATHENS’ ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PAPYROLOGIE UND EPIGRAPHIK 196, 159–174 (2015)