Dr Charlotte Spence

I am currently working on my next monograph, for which I have a letter of intention to publish from Brill. The focus of this research is to look at Judeo-Christian inscribed curses from Late Antiquity. I am currently compiling a catalogue of examples from which I seek to analyse how the creation of curse tablets was a malleable ritual into which different religious ideologies could be introduced and the effect these new ideologies and later orthodoxies had upon the ritual itself. 

Curse tablets, epigraphy, ancient Greek curses, Latin curses, magic, personal religion, religion, late antiquity 

At Oxford, I have taught and am currently teaching: 

Greek History 1: Archaic Greek History 750 BC - 479 BC 

Greek History 2: Thucydides and the Greek World 479 BC - 403 BC

Greek History 3: The End of the Peloponnesian War to the Death of Philip II of Macedon: 403 BC to 336 BC 

Roman History 4: Polybius, Rome and the Mediterranean: 241 BC - 146 BC 

Roman History 5: Republic in Crisis 146 BC - 46 BC 
Thucydides and the West 

Roman History 6: Rome, Italy and Empire from Caesar to Claudius: 46 BC to AD 54

Aristocracy and Democracy in the Greek world, 550 - 450 BC 

Thucydides and the West (tutorials and lectures)

Alexander the Great and His Early Successors 336-302 BC

The Hellenistic World: Societies and Cultures, c. 300-100 BC

Politics, Society and Culture from Nero to Hadrian

Historiography from Tacitus to Weber: Tacitus' Agricola and Annals

Texts and Contexts: Ancient Greece - The Persian Wars and Cultural Identities and Dionysus, Drama, and Athens. Ancient Rome: Love and Luxury (Cicero, Catullus, Propertius) and Class (Petronius, Juvenal, Pliny, and Tacitus). 

As well as lectures in Ancient Greek (and Roman) Religion.

I have previously taught the following: 

Ancient Sources (Material Evidence) - Pompeii: Destruction, Discovery and Afterlife

Ancient Sources Material Evidence: Building Communities in Archaic Greece

Ancient Sources Written Evidence: Tyranny 

Greek History: Problems and Sources

Understanding the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds c. 500-1750 CE

Making History

Greek and Roman Narrative

Roman History: Problems and Sources

Full Publications: Dr Charlotte Spence Publications 2025

Selected Publications:

Spence, C. Forthcoming. Appeals to the Supernatural in Ancient Curse Tablets: The Dead and the Divine. London. Submitted on 1st December 2024.

Spence, C. Submitted. ‘Curse Tablets and the Living of Lived Religion,’ Religion in the Roman Empire.

Denson, R. and Spence, C. (eds.) Forthcoming (late 2026). The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity. Budapest.

Spence, C. Forthcoming (late 2026). ‘seu gen(tili)s seu Ch(r)istianus: The Bath Curse Tablets and the Questions of Individual Versus Traditional Practice,’ in R. Denson and C. Spence (eds.) The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity. Budapest.

Spence, C. and Denson R. Forthcoming (late 2026). ‘Introduction: Issues of the Supernatural, the Christian, Magic, and Demons,’ in R. Denson and C. Spence (eds.) The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity. Budapest.

Spence, C. Forthcoming January 2026. ‘Curse Tablets, Amulets, Spells,’ in J. Kindt (ed.) Personal Religion in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge.

Spence, C. Forthcoming November 2025. ‘Communication with the Superhuman through Curse Tablets,’ Reaching the Superhuman (I): Ritual, Communication, and Materiality in the Ancient Mediterranean. Religion in the Roman Empire (2025), 11(3).

Spence, C. 2024. ‘Carthaginian Curse Tablets,’ Roman Carthage: A Reappraisal. Rome. 317- 338.

Spence, C. 2022. ‘Change and Continuity in Curse Tablets from the Roman World,’ in F. Conti and E. Pollard (eds.) Nemo non metuit: Magic in the Roman World. Budapest. 53- 98.