Laudator Temporis Acti

John Scheid, "Roman Theologies in the Roman Cities of Italy and the Provinces," in Jonathan J. Price et al., edd., Rome: An Empire of Many Nations. New Perspectives on Ethnic Diversity and Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 116-134 (at 132-133):

We now leave Belgica to go first to Raetia, to the city of Cambodunum (Kempten), where a lead curse tablet was found with the following inscription:³⁹ “Silent Mutes! Let Quartus be dumb, or be distraught; he wanders like a fleeing mouse or a bird before a basilisk, let his mouth be mute, Mutes! Let the Mutes be dread! Let the Mutes remain silent! Mutes! Mutes! Let Quartus go mad, let Quartus be brought to the Erinyes and Orcus. Let the Silent Mutes remain silent near the golden doors.” A classic curse tablet, but what is less classic is the invocation made to the Mutae Tacitae. This goddess, in the singular, is set by Ovid in the etiological myth of the Feralia, the festival of the dead at the end of February. This is the story that is connected to the birth of the Lares. A talkative nymph, Lara, from Lala, etymologically the “Talkative one,” revealed to Juno that her husband Jupiter was going to woo the nymph Juturna. She was punished and sent by the all-powerful to the underworld, to silence. It was Mercury who took her. Mercury, who was also the god of thieves and thugs, rapes her on the way. She clearly remained there and gave birth to two boys, who became the Lares. On our fragment of a curse tablet, Ovid’s Tacita Muta has become the Mutae Tacitae, following a relatively conventional practice that will not surprise us. The Eileithyiae, the Furrinae, the Camenae and others attest to this, being sometimes in the plural, sometimes in the singular. What is extraordinary, however, is the fact that Tacita Muta was only known to Ovid.⁴⁰ His etiology is a small masterpiece of the kind, to the extent that he could be considered as having invented everything, including the name of the goddess. In addition, we will note the fate reserved for the brave Quartus, sent to Orcus like Lara, and the role attributed to the mouse that already intervenes in the rite as it is described by Ovid (placing incense in a hole dug by a mouse), as if the author of the curse tablet were winking at the poet with these allusions.

But — and this is what interests us — we see the name Mutae Tacitae show up in Raetia! From two things to one. Either Tacita Muta was a real divine figure, or the author of the curse tablet was literate and had composed his invocation according to Ovid, himself creating a specialized goddess intended to silence a rival or an enemy. Which solution to choose? I am inclined toward the first, for the change from the singular to the plural Tacitae indicates in my opinion a religious practice known for decades. This was also the case for Furrina, found in the singular in the name of her lucus, until the time of Varro, in the middle of the first century BC, and then it appears in the plural on inscriptions from the end of the second and third centuries AD found in this sacred wood.

³⁹ AE 1958, 150 = Chapot and Laurot 2001: n° L 78 (Cambodunum, Kempten, Rhétie): Mutae tacitae! ut mutus sit | Quartus agitatus erret ut mus | fugiens aut avis adversus basyliscum | ut e[i]us os mutu(m) sit, Mutae | Mutae [d]irae sint! Mutae | tacitae sint! Mutae | [Qu]a[rt]us ut insaniat, // Vt Eriniis rutus sit et | Quartus Orco ut Mutae | Tacitae ut mut[ae s]int | ad portas aureas. Cf. Cf. R. Egger 1957.

⁴⁰ Bettini 2006: 149–72.

Because erret is subjunctive, not indicative, instead of "he wanders like a fleeing mouse or a bird before a basilisk" I would translate "let him wander like a fleeing mouse or a bird before a basilisk." I learned about this curse tablet from Paul MacKendrick, Romans on the Rhine: Archaeology in Germany (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1970), p. 85, who retains the force of the subjunctive:

One of the curiosities of the museum is a curse-tablet, inscribed as usual on lead, expressing the pious hope that the object of the curse "may run about frantic like a fleeing mouse" ("agitatus erret ut mus fugiens").

Cf. the translation in Stuart McKie, Living and Cursing in the Roman West: Curse Tablets and Society (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), pp. 197-198:

Silent Mutes, thus Quartus should be mute, he should scurry around like a fleeing mouse or bird in the face of a basilisk, so should his mouth be mute, Mutes. May the Mutes be dreadful, may the Mutae [sic] be silent. May Quartus be driven mad, may Quartus be driven to the Furies and to Orcus. May the Mutae be silent, mute and silent at the golden gates.

On rutus see the Oxford Latin Dictionary s.v. (as a noun), sense 2 ("An act of rushing or hurrying"), citing only this curse tablet.