1         

Biccus: Celtic personal name, already attested in CIL 13 5366a (Vesontio). Probably a variant of Beccus (CIL 12 2514) or Becco (CIL 12 5381, Tolosa), the childhood cognomen of M Antonius Primus of Tolosa, meaning ‘beak’ (Suetonius, Vitellius 18). Beccus (beak) is one of the few Celtic loan-words to be taken into Romance (Elcock 1975, 196).

dat: British inscribed tablets regularly ‘give’ the stolen property or the thief himself to the god, although donare is the usual verb (see Tomlin 1988, 63-4).

2         

quidquid: the object ‘lost’ is often specified (as in Uley 1, Uley-2, and Uley-5), or there may be a reference to property (rem or res). Here it is possible that the scribe was mechanically transcribing a formulary and forgot to specify whatever it was, or that he meant to write quicumque: see below, lines 4-5.

3         

pe(r)d(id)it: an error in transcribing a verb formulaic in British curse tablet texts (see Tomlin 1988, 65), a verb also garbled in Tab Sulis 6, EERIDID (perdidi) and Tab Sulis 103, PEDRE (perdere), and probably here in Uley-2, line 14.

3-4         

si vir si mascel: the scribe has conflated two variants of the ‘whether man or woman’ formula common in British curse tablets (see Tomlin 1988, 67-68), si vir si femina and si mascel si femina

4-5         

ne meiat ne cacet: the anagram MAIET is another transcription error. This is the first occurrence of the formula, but a variant is found in Tab Sulis 41, nec adsellare nec [meiere]. The subject of the verbs (and of ne loquatur, etc) is not explicit, but must be the thief; either this must be understood, or fur, qui involavit (etc) has been omitted in error; alternatively, quidquid (line 2) is an error for quicumque, perdere (cause loss to) being used in the sense of involare (steal) as in Tab Sulis 99.

5-6         

ne loquatur: the first occurrence of this formula in a British curse tablet, but cf Audollent 1904, no 270 (Hadrumetum) non dormiat neque sedeat neque loquatur. Another tablet (RIB 7) from London also silences its victim, but the context is unclear. Since the other formulas in this Uley text fall into contrasting pairs, as usual, it is possible that ne taceat has been lost, perhaps because it was confused with ne cacet.

6-7         

ne dormiat n[e] vigilet: the formula is also found in Uley 75 and Wanborough-1, cf Audollent 1904, no 270. Interdiction of sleep (somnum) and health (sanitatem) is often found in the Bath tablets: see Tomlin 1988, 65-6.

7-8         

nec s[al]utem nec sanitatem: understand habeat, unless this was omitted in error, or the scribe’s mechanical grasp of Latin was so weak that he thought this pair of nouns was another pair of verbs. The two nouns are also coupled in Uley-62 and in Britannia 17 (1986) 431, no 2 (Eccles).

9-10         

ness[i]: the scribe wrote nessa, no doubt by confusion with the initial letters of nec salutem and nec sanitatem just before; the first s seems to be not a corrected c but a confusion between cursive and capital forms; the second s is cursive. For this Vulgar spelling of nisi cf Uley-1, line 10, with note.

9-12         

The thief is to be forced by ill health to return the stolen property, as in Uley-1 and Uley-2. For this common formula, see Tomlin 1988, 65-6. The tense of pertulerit is probably future perfect: see ibid, 69-70.

10-11         

in templo Mercurii: templo alone (dative) would be better, or better still ad templum, but the uncertain use of prepositions, and a preference for simple prepositions like in and de instead of the Classical case-ending, are typical of Vulgar Latin. cf Tab Sulis 97, Basilia donat in templum Martis anilum argenteum. For the formula that stolen property should be returned to the temple, cf Uley-2, line 7, with note.

12-13         

ne co(n)scientiam: perhaps an error by haplography for the less abrupt nec co(n)scientiam. The assimilation of medial ns to s in co[n]scientiam is typical of spoken Latin, and occurred very early. An instance from Britain is probably RIB 876, Co(n)s[tant].

co(n)scientiam: the context demands the sense ‘forgiveness’ or ‘pardon’, which is not found in Latin conscientia, which means variously ‘complicity’, ‘consciousness’, ‘conscience’. The writer may have been groping for the very rare and post-classical ignoscentia (forgiveness), a synonym of the Classical venia or indulgentia (see TLL sv).

13         

de: the noun governed by this preposition, hoc (this), furto ((his) theft) or similar, has been omitted in error. The use of de, instead of the Classical genitive, is typical of Vulgar Latin.

14-16         

ness[i] me intercedente: the context requires the sense ‘unless I intervene’, but the syntax is certainly not Classical, and does not seem to be Vulgar Latin either. It might be saved by supposing the loss of a final verb (eg deus placetur), on the lines of Codex Iustinianus x 34.2 (Krüger, 1963), nisiordinis intercedente decretocausa probetur (unless permission is given by decision of the town council); much more likely, however, the writer did not know how to construct a conditional clause without a formula to guide him, and may indeed have confused nessi (nisi) with sine or even non.

intercedente: the sense of ‘intercede’, although familiar in English, seems to have been introduced by Christian writers (see TLL sv intercedere, 2156, 47ff.); here it is probably being used in a more strictly legal sense, to ‘intervene’ or ‘interpose’. This is the first instance of the verb in a curse tablet text; they often contain quasi-legal language.