1         

domine Neptune. The other three British ‘curse tablets’ addressed to the water god Neptune have also been found in rivers: the Thames at London Bridge (Britannia xviii (1987), 360, No. 1, Metunus), the Little Ouse at Brandon (Britannia xxv (1994), 293, No. 1, domino Neptuno), and the Tas at Caister St Edmund (Britannia xiii (1982), 408, No. 9, Neptu(nu)s).

2         

t(i)b(i) d(o)no. n is written with two vertical strokes but without the linking diagonal, almost as if to supply the missing i i in tibi. This n and the omission of i and o must be errors in transcription, like ide(o) in 5, since dono tibi is correctly transcribed in 8. For dono in the sense of ‘giving’ the thief to a god, i.e. cursing him, see Tab. Sulis, p. 64.

(h)ominem. The author for the sake of rhetorical variation refers to the thief as qui involavit (2-3, 13, 16), qui decepit (6), qui conscius fuerit (11, 14), and the antecedent of qui variously as (h)ominem (2), nomi(n)a (5), sanguem eius (10, 16-17), animus (12), furem (15). The reading of the first two antecedents is not a problem, but their interpretation is. ominem is presumably hominem unaspirated (thus Italian uomo < homo, compare Augustine, Conf. i 29, where (h)omines is a quoted as a solecism), rather than a garbled nomen or omnem, especially since ‘name’ is apparently used in 5 (see below).

3         

(solidum). The letters are undamaged and as drawn in the figure, with a diminutive o, then a figure which resembles t and s combined, but is more like f, or even k (compare Niske in 8); then the sequence ldmu. The context requires that this is the object of theft and, since the text continues et argenti[olo]s sex, a reference to money is very likely, gold before silver. The solidus (a gold piece first struck by Constantine at 72 to the Roman pound) was current at the palaeographical date of this text. Unless the reading incorporates an unknown symbol for solidus, the scribe wrote an anagram for solidum (understand unum), perhaps for secrecy’s sake, but more likely in keeping with his transcription errors in 2 and elsewhere; for comparable anagrams see Tab. Sulis 6.

3-4         

Muconi. In the context this is the owner’s name in the genitive case; its nominative ended in ‑onius. The beginning is uncertain because of the damage to the end of 3: initial M is likely, but the two short parallel strokes after it do not admit e or ec, which excludes the known Celtic name Meconius < Mec(c)o. There is a Thracian name Muc(c)o, but this would be unlikely in a south-British civilian context.

4         

argenti[olo]s. Argentiolus, a ‘small silver coin’, the diminutive of argenteus, occurs twice in the Bath tablets: see Tab. Sulis 8.1-2 (with note) and 54.4. The capital letters of Tab. Sulis 8 cannot be dated, but the Old Roman Cursive of 54  is probably third-century. The New Roman Cursive of the present text belongs to the fourth century; but since fourth-century silver coinage is not common until after c. A.D. 350, and especially in the reigns of Valentinian I and his sons (364-92), this tablet should be dated to the second half of the century. By now the Empire was officially Christian, but for another instance of the cult of Neptune co-existing with Christianity see the Frampton mosaic inscription (RIB II.4, 2448.8).

Tab. Sulis 98, a New Roman Cursive text from Bath which alludes to Christianity, was prompted by the theft of s(e)x argente[o]s, so argenteus and argentiolus were evidently both used of the silver coinage current in the second half of the fourth century. Possibly they served to distinguish the so-called miliarensis from the lighter siliqua (the two terms are modern), but more likely they were both used collectively, and in practice referred to the siliqua, since this was much more common than the miliarensis. The siliqua was struck at 144 to the Roman pound of silver; since a pound of silver was equated with four solidi, six argentioli would have been worth one-sixth of a solidus. This is the third theft of ‘six’ silver coins (the others are Tab. Sulis 8 and 98), but the number is probably a coincidence; there are also two thefts of ‘two’, in Tab. Sulis 54 and in 36 (restoring duo de[narios]).

5         

ide(o). Another transcription error (as in 2), since ideo dono is written correctly in 8; the scribe’s eye slipped from -deo to do-.

nomi(n)a. See note to 2, (h)ominem. The ‘name’ (nomen, nomina) of a thief is often cursed, if his identity is unknown: see Tab. Sulis, pp. 65 and 95. The syntax is faulty here, as in the parallel clauses introduced by animus (12) and furem (15), because the authors of ‘curse tablet’ texts often know the formulas but not how to link them together grammatically.

6         

decepit. The first instance in a British ‘curse tablet’; it is not found in Audollent either. Although a reference to ‘deception’ would be understandable here (it is the verb’s usual meaning, and for fraudem facere see Tab. Sulis, p. 64), the author instead is using decepit as a synonym for involavit (3, 13, 16) and even couples decipias with consumas (17-18, compare 15). So he must understand the verb literally as if de - cepit, ‘took away’. This is not a Classical usage, but in epitaphs decipere is used in the sense of ‘to rob (of one’s hopes)’, i.e. ‘to bereave’; and note Vita Nicetii Lugdunensis episcopi (MGH SS Merov. III, 521-4), 11, omnium membrorum vigore deceptus.

6-7         

si mascel si femina. Variations of this formula are frequent (see Tab. Sulis, pp. 67-8); this one is not found at Bath, but occurs in JRS liii (1963), 122 (Ratcliffe-on-Soar) and Britannia xiii (1982), 408, No. 9 (Caistor St Edmund).

7-8         

si puuer si puuella. This formula is also frequent: see Tab. Sulis, p. 68. The second u is a glide [w] inserted between a back vowel and another vowel in hiatus: compare Tab. Sulis 31.5, suua, with Adams in Britannia xxiii (1992), 10, who cites CIL xi 6289, puuer.

8         

Niske. The surface is undamaged here, and the reading is certain. The fourth letter is differently formed than f in this text, and is a very rare example of k. (There is just one at Bath, in Tab. Sulis 53.(b)1.) Niskus like Neptune is evidently a masculine divinity who can seriously damage the thief’s health, but he is hitherto unattested. He might be the river itself, but there is no suitable candidate in the Ravenna Cosmography’s list (see Rivet and Smith, The Place-names of Roman Britain (1979, 212-3) and one might have expected Moina / Meon (ibid., 419). A more attractive idea is that Niskus is the masculine counterpart of Niska. The lead tablets found in the principal hot spring at Amélie-les-Bains, Pyrénées-Orientales, invoke the Niskas (feminine accusative plural) who are said to be aquiferas and domnas, evidently water-nymphs. (Water-nymphs are addressed in Audollent No. 129, aquae ferventes siv[e v]os Nimfas, and in Habis vi (1975), 125, dom(i)na Fons; compare Tab. Sulis 94.5, ad fontem deae Suli(s).) The Amélie-les-Bains tablets were lost soon after their discovery in 1845, but they were carefully drawn (see Revue Archéologique iv (1847), Pl. 71); they have been republished by J. Coromines, ‘Les Plombs Sorothaptiques d’Arles’, Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie xci (1975), 1-53. Since neska means ‘girl’ in modern Basque, Coromines argues implausibly that the word niska is archaic Indo-European, but he does not discuss the ‘water’ element and in particular the Germanic evidence: although English ‘nixie’ is a modern borrowing from German, as nicker (etc.) the water nymph or demon is found in Anglo-Saxon and other early Teutonic languages. (See The Oxford English Dictionary s.vv. nicker, nix, nixie.) Whether or not this is cognate with niska, it does look as if Niskus was a Celtic water-god, either local, or having a wider jurisdiction which would equate him with the Roman Neptune. Unfortunately there is no evidence from Britain of what Celtic deity was identified with Neptune, and very little elsewhere.

9-10         

vitam, valitudinem, sanguem. This exact combination is new, but similar combinations are found at Uley: Uley-80, sanguem [e]t sanitatem, with note. The contracted Vulgar form sanguem is found there also and in Tab. Sulis 44.5-6.

11-14         

qui conscius fuerit. (fueris in 11 is a transcription error, probably because the preceding word and the next three words all ended in ‑s.) This formula is new, but compare Tab. Sulis 97.7-8, qui medius fuerit, where the same sense of ‘guilty knowledge’ is required. It is not clear that the author distinguished the conscius from the actual thief, but if he did, he cursed him perhaps as an accomplice, certainly for not revealing the thief’s identity.

12         

animus. The syntax of this sentence wavers between animus eius ut decipiatur and animum eius ut decipias, and misses them both; the author intended a curse parallel to that in 15-19: ‘take away the animus of the thief’. A thief’s mentes are cursed in Tab. Sulis 5.5-6, and his anima in 103.2 (with note of other instances).

14-15         

ut eum decipias. ut as often can be taken either as dependent on dono understood, or as the ‘free-standing ut introducing a wish’ noted by Adams in Britannia xxiii (1992), 6. decipias (repeated in 17-18) is chosen because it echoes decepit (6) and deceptionis (12): the thief is repaid in kind. This incidentally confirms that decipere means ‘to take away’ (see note to 6, above).

17         

eiius. The syntax breaks down again as in 15 (eum) with the insertion of a redundant demonstrative pronoun. Since eius is correctly written in 10 and 11, the repeated i may be an oversight here; but the Vulgar eiius, in which the semi-vowel i in hiatus is reinforced by [y], is quite common. (Dessau ILS iii, p. 822 collects examples, to which RIB 601 can be added.)

consumas. Only the second instance from Britain: see Tab. Sulis 54.8-9, sanitatem consumas.

18-19         

domine. The scribe actually wrote an incomplete m followed by i i.