On the back of a shelf, you see a small lead tablet inscribed with a curse by a fanatical racegoer (click here for a translation). Perhaps the demon who was addressed didn't care that the Latin was misspelled and ungrammatical!
The Latin word for a curse tablet is defixio. Many curse tablets were found buried in the areas around circuses; apparently cursing the drivers of factions who opposed your favorite was a popular way to try to influence the outcome of races. One elaborate curse tablet with Greek writing (shown in this drawing), included a horse-headed demon and two charioteers with their arms and legs bound; this curse tablet was found in Rome on the Via Appia, which ended at the Porta Capena near the Circus Maximus. Curse tablets were also thrown into grave sites in order to invoke the power of the dead; this lead curse tablet, which was found in a pot full of bones, has the words scratched into the surface backward to increase the potency of the curse, which was directed against at least a dozen people.