ABSTRACT
Concern for the success and survival of a business, farm or career, is a universal constant. In the fourth century this livelihood anxiety is demonstrated, or epitomised, in the curse tablets and so-called sorcery accusations of the period, the latter having already received considerable attention both from late antique authors and modern scholars. 1 The Palestinian and Syrian evidence for these practices is varied and, while sparse in material such as curse tablets, is comparatively abundant in evidence for accusations in the period. As all these forms of evidence revolve predominantly around people's livelihoods and career concerns, they are all considered within this chapter. However, the evident disparity between the curses and hagiographical accounts on the one hand, and the sorcery accusations on the other, in both form and apparent socio-economic context, lends itself to a natural separation in the consideration of the evidence. Hence the two strands will be considered independently. The extant curse tablets and relevant hagiographical material will be considered in the first part of the chapter, to be followed by a discussion of the trials for high treason which culminated in accusations of yorjrsta.
