Performing interpersonal violence : court, curse, and comedy in fourth-century BCE Athens /
This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Corporate Author: | |
| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Language Notes: | English. |
| Published: |
New York :
De Gruyter,
2012.
|
| Series: | MythosEikonPoiesis ;
Bd. 4. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Performances such as the staging of trials and comedies ritually defined the meaning of violence and its appropriate application. Speeches and curse tablets not only spoke about violence, but also exacted it in a mediated form, deriving its legitimate use from a democratic principle, the communal decision of the human jurors in the first case and the underworld gods in the second. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one's enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens' relative stability. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 479 pages). |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [395]-440) and indexes. |
| ISBN: | 3110245590 3110245604 1280597240 9781280597244 9786613627070 6613627070 9783110245592 9783110245608 |
| ISSN: | 1868-5080 ; |