Aquatic instances of defixiones are not restricted to ancient discoveries from the Continent – depositions of curse tablets in watery conduits to the nether regions are also a well-known type of find from Roman Britain. Indeed, Roman Britain has proved an extraordinary source for the discovery of curse tablets since the 1970s, accounting for approximately half of all preserved Latin-language defixiones – and of these a significant proportion are spring or river finds. This epigraphic richness is not limited to linguistically Latin curse inscriptions, however, but also extends to Celtic texts: two more ancient Celtic curses came to light with the publication in the 1980s of many Latin curse tablets from the medicinal cultic spring at Bath. Moreover, this south-western English city is the former site of a much more famous, longer-lasting and better-established healing cult than that at Chamalières, although it also had its origin in pre-Roman times. In fact, the complex that was erected about the spring at Bath in antiquity eventually became so important and large that it now has its own museum, an institution which preserves the most impressive of all Roman remains to be seen in Britain today. Legend records that an early British king called Bladud discovered the hot waters and founded the ancient city of Bath, and the site remained famous for its mineral springs throughout medieval and modern times. Its Roman ruins are not the only feature which keeps the elegant Georgian sandstone city one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United Kingdom.

Bath was known in Latin as Aquae Sulis, the ‘waters of Sulis’, and was named for the Celtic goddess who was especially honoured there in Roman times. Known as Sulis Minerva in the Roman interpretation of her cult, a hot spring has flowed at Bath since the prehistoric period, and the first Roman constructions from the area date from about the time of the Emperor Nero, when Sulis’s spring was surrounded by a stonework reservoir and a large temple to the goddess was erected on a podium nearby. These initial works were extended again and again over the next few centuries until by late Imperial times a great complex of public and religious buildings had been established at Bath, one that dominated the surrounding Romano-British town.