Defixio
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© The Classical Couple. Licensed for single-classroom/purchaser use only — not for resale or redistribution.
A sheet of lead, scratched with dreadful words. A name, an enemy, a grudge. Someone knelt by the sacred spring, prayed to the goddess, and threw a curse into the water — a genuine Roman dēfīxiō. Curses like this one have survived two thousand years, still legible, still waiting to be read.
Seven puzzles stand between you and the curse itself. Solve one, and the tablet comes into focus — until, at the end, one final word reveals what could undo it.
Crossword — the vocabulary of a curse tablet.
Anagrams — unscramble seven words from the ritual.
Cipher — decode a message, then answer the riddle it asks.
Matching — one verb, iactō ("to throw"), active and passive.
Picture Count — reassemble a scattered scene, then count what you see.
Odd One Out — find the mismatched word in each row to reveal what happened, then answer questions about it.
Final Rebus — one clue from every lock. Their first letters, rearranged, spell the final word.
Every answer box checks itself instantly. Spelling and capitalization are forgiving — macrons are never required.
Fifteen words from a curse tablet. Every clue gives the English meaning; you supply the Latin. Fill the grid — every crossing letter must agree both ways. Five cells are marked in red: once the grid is solved, their letters unscramble into one more word.
The grid is correct. Unscramble the five red letters:
Seven words from the curse and its casting. Unscramble each one.
A message has been shifted 3 letters forward through the alphabet. Shift each letter back 3 to decode it — the message speaks for itself. Answer the question it asks, in Latin.
Decode the message — it already asks its own question at the end.
One verb, iactō, iactāre ("to throw") — the curse thrown into the spring — in every tense you know, active and passive. Drag each English meaning onto its matching Latin form.
The picture below has been scattered into 24 pieces — click two to swap them. Each piece locks in place once it's correct. When the whole picture is assembled, five counting questions will appear — in Latin, they ask quot ("how many") of each thing you can find.
Click two pieces to swap them. Correct pieces lock in place — keep going until the whole picture is assembled.
In each row, three tiles belong together and one doesn't. Drag out the odd tile. Find all 15 to learn what happened at the spring.
Now that the story is whole, answer these in Latin:
One clue from every lock you solved. Answer each in Latin — the first letter of each answer will reveal itself, in the order the locks appeared.
You're almost there! Arrange these letters to make a word.
The password was:
testis — "witness." The gods have seen the curse take flight — they will remember who threw it.