La justice du sol. Les noms divins dans les malédictions attiques au IVe-IIIe siècle avant notre ère

International audienceCurses carved in Greek on lead lamellae (katadesmoi) and mostly deposited in funerary spots appeal to the action exerted by divinities that we frequently label as infernal or from the underworld. In fact, in the records from Attica in the Classical and early Hellenistic ages, the network of powers that are invoked involves chiefly Hermes, Persephone, the Earth, and different configurations of deities connected to the soil of the grave and a superhuman form of justice. More specifically, the choice of onomastic attributes such as Katochos, Chthonios, or the more poetical Eriounios, for Hermes, ties up a link between the constraints exerted by the god and the location of his power in the necropolis. These divine names, if they rely on a specific field of knowledge, also depend on concrete conditions of rituals, anchored in well-defined places, within the landscape of the city