Dr Charlotte Spence

spence charlotte
Lecturer in Ancient History, St Hilda's College
Merton College
charlotte.spence@merton.ox.ac.uk

Qualifications: BA Ancient History, University of Birmingham, PhD Classics and Ancient History, University of Exeter

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7641-0570

 

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Academic Background

Charlotte Spence joined Oxford as a lecturer in October 2024 and now teaches at Merton College. She completed her PhD at the University of Exeter, which examined the conceptions of the dead and the gods in ancient curse tablets. Before that, Charlotte studied Ancient History at the University of Birmingham.

Charlotte's teaching interests reflect the chronological breadth of her research; she teaches topics from Archaic Greek History through to the reign of Emperor Hadrian. She is a social and cultural historian and is particularly interested in weaving material culture into her teaching.

Charlotte's first monograph was published with Bloomsbury Academic in September 2026 and her primary research continues to be on ancient curse inscriptions. She is currently working on her next monograph, which focuses on the magical symbols in curse tablets.  She is also co-editor of the Lived Realities in Ancient History series at Trivent Publishing (https://trivent-publishing.eu/103-lived-realities-in-ancient-history). 

Research Interests

I am currently working on my next monograph, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press.  This monograph focuses on the use of magical symbols in curse tablets.  Alongside this project, my research interests are focused on the lived realities of people in the ancient world, and I am working on edited volumes on the desert in the ancient world, experimental archaeology and Roman kilns and pottery, and marginality or the supposed marginality of groups in the ancient world.  

Research Keywords

Curse tablets, epigraphy, ancient Greek curses, Latin curses, magic, personal religion, religion, late antiquity, material culture, social history, cultural history.

Teaching

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 
  • Roman History 6: Rome, Italy and Empire from Caesar to Claudius: 46 BC to AD 54
  • Ancient Greek (and Roman) Religion
  • Aristocracy and Democracy in the Greek world, 550 - 450 BC 
  • Greeks and Persians
  • Thucydides and the West
  • The Hellenistic World: Societies and Cultures, c. 300-100 BC
  • Alexander the Great and His Early Successors, 336-302 BC
  • People and Politics in the Roman Republic, 58-52 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). 

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
Publications

Full Publications: Dr Charlotte Spence Publications 2026

Selected Publications:

Spence, C. 2026. Appeals to the Supernatural in Ancient Curse Tablets: The Dead and the Divine. London.

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

Spence, C. 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. 2026. ‘Wrestling with the Supernatural: The Cultural Capital of Defining Reality,’ in R. Denson and C. Spence (eds.) The Christian and the Supernatural in Late Antiquity. Budapest.

Spence, C. 2025. ‘Curse Tablets, Amulets, Spells,’ in J. Kindt (ed.) Personal Religion in the Ancient Greek World. Cambridge.

Spence, C. 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.