Crime and Punishment
We might question whether the curses really worked. Surely the thief of Vilbia could not have suddenly transformed into a puddle of liquified human? Well, it is important to realize that these kinds of doubts did not occur to the locals in Roman Britain. They believed that the goddess absolutely had the power to do that. And that is exactly how the curse tablets ‘worked’.
Look at it from the viewpoint of the thief. They knew they had committed a crime, and they also knew that they would be screwed if the goddess got involved. This is where social phenomena like gossip came in. The thief might have heard rumors that they had been cursed. They could then start to experience psychosomatic symptoms, a sudden stomach ache, difficulty breathing, a rash - all out of fear of being cursed. These symptoms would then of course be attributed to the goddess’ punishment, and so the curse had worked.
The cursing practice could also have worked in the sense that it released some of the social tension in the local community. The people who issued the curses were angry that they had been robbed. We need only to quote a few curses to know how angry they were: ‘Let him who has done this spill his own blood into the [stolen] vessel itself’