Performing Interpersonal Violence: Court, Curse, and Comedy in Fourth-Century BCE Athens

Werner Riess

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2012

Performing Interpersonal Violence

Court, Curse, and Comedy in Fourth-Century BCE Athens

Werner Riess

Volume 4 in the series MythosEikonPoiesis

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110245608

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Werner Riess, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, U.S.A.

Supplementary Materials

Contents

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	v
Contents Open Access Download PDF	ix
I. Introduction Open Access Download PDF	1
II. Forensic Speeches Open Access Download PDF	22
III. Curse Tablets Open Access Download PDF	164
IV. Old and New Comedy Open Access Download PDF	235
V. Conclusions Open Access Download PDF	379
VI. References Open Access Download PDF	395
Index Locorum Open Access Download PDF	441
General Index Open Access Download PDF	463

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics, Libraries, Institutes
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 479
Illustrations
- Tables: 3
Keywords: Violence; Ritual; Performance; Revenge; Conflict

eBook

Published: January 27, 2012
ISBN: 9783110245608

Hardcover

Published: January 16, 2012
ISBN: 9783110245592