If you’ve been short-changed at KFC or somebody’s nicked your parking space, then do what the Romans did and write a …
dēfixiō, dēfixiōnis [3/f]: curse tablet, a scroll or an
inscription often made of lead, the wording of which was intended to bring harm
to a specific person
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_tablet
A collection of 130 curse tablets were discovered in the
Romano-British city of Bath; thefts from the bathhouses were common and, apart
from one, all the inscriptions refer to losses of personal property, some of
which name the culprit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_curse_tablets
https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/roman-curse-tablets
Image #1: The example below does refer to a “theft”, but the
“theft” of a person, namely a girl called Vilbia: the curse is written
backwards in order to enhance the effectiveness:
[I]VQ ¦ IHIM ¦ MAIBLIV ¦ TIVALO / [V]NI ¦ CIS ¦ TAVQIL ¦
[ODO]MOC ¦ AVQA
= QV[I] ¦ MIHI ¦ VILBIAM ¦ IN[V]OLAVIT ¦ SIC ¦ LIQVAT ¦
COM[ODO] ¦ AQVA │ May he who carried off Vilbia from me become as liquid as
water.
Below is the rest in its transposed form:
ELL[A]: she, as opposed to Classical Latin illa
M[V]TA: dumb
ELL[A] M[V]TA QVI EAM [VOR]AVIT SI = May she (become) dumb
who devoured* her [*other possibilities are suggested] whether it be …
Image #2: Whoever Vilbia was, several people had their eyes
on her; the image shows the “usual suspects”, Roman style
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