This book is a comprehensive exploration of curse tablets in the Athenian legal domain. Drawing
on sociological and critical theory Zinon Papakonstantinou outlines a framework for the
interaction between curse tablets and legalities namely in both formal and informal
manifestations of the legal sphere in Classical Athens. By delving into the complex world of
Athenian daily life and disputes Papakonstantinou argues that Athenians involved in litigation
deployed binding curses as polysemic acts of conflict management and information control. They
also used them as transgressive transcripts that went beyond normative or legislative
taxonomies. Further Papakonstantinou demonstrates how Athenians acting in a self-assessing and
long-term agential mode employed curse tablets strategically to advance their individual agenda
and position in Athenian society. As a result Athenian legal curse tablets point to a
conceptually malleable perception of law and litigation driven by utility and self-interest
that clashed with claims to justice the pursuit of the rule of law and attitudes towards
jurors articulated by litigants in Athenian forensic orations.
