. In this paper we aim to corroborate or refute the stereotyped image of women as agents of malefic magic, transmitted since ancient times by literary sources, and to see what it obeys. We analyzed the primary sources, curse tablets in Greek and/or Latin, female onomastics among the victims and/or possible perpetrators, in order to verify whether the role of women in this type of magical practices was active, as material or intellectual author or, on the contrary, passive, as victims of the spells. The epigraphic sources seem to contradict the literary ones and the topos of the woman-magician seems to be a construct of an eminently patriarchal society, maintained by inertia by the later tradition.
