BOUND FOR SUCCESS: CURSING AND COMMERCE IN CLASSICAL ATHENS

Abstract

Commercial curses indicating an occupation, business, profit, workshops or shops, or targeting individuals identified by a trade number about sixty; most come from Greece and date to the fifth to third century bce. That the texts concern rivalries or conflicts between tradesmen has been the prevailing opinion, though ambiguity in curses that include multiple targets (sometimes with different trades) or family members have led some to maintain that competition may not explain commercial curses best, and instead suggest that the tablets reflect attempts to deal with risk or uncertainty arising from a range of social, legal, or political contexts. Though a steady stream of scholarship detailing economic activity, particularly at non-elite levels, has rightly reoriented the debate about the nature and scale of the ancient economy, and the strategies that craftsmen, merchants, and others engaged in commerce employed to mitigate concerns about risk and competition, the contribution of commercial curses, spells, and oracles has not been a part of the conversation. The curse tablets help further refine our understanding of the ancient economy because of what they reveal about concerns related to competitors, profit, and reputation, and the methods the practitioners used to hinder opponents. Rather than being at odds with commercial competition, those methods which target multiple craftsmen, their families, and others besides workshops, skills, and profit align with strategies of collaboration among ancient craftsmen and merchants and their reliance on social capital, described as social networks and notions of trust, reputation, and the shared norms that supported them.