Suppressing Leaks: Magical Solutions to Gossip and Accusation in the Roman World

This contribution to the second issue of the volume devoted to Witchcraft Narratives examines one aspect of Roman rumor, for present purposes defined loosely as a form of anonymous oral narrative constructed group-wise on the basis of sketchy or supposed knowledge about the behavior of one or more individuals within a given community. Rather than studying how accusations of magic and witchcraft come about, my purpose is to show how the sheer power of rumor in late Republican and early Imperial Rome might provoke efforts to avert, muffle or suppress it by having recourse to malign magic, above all curses.