Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times
Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times

Author: William V. Harris

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9004379509

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Pain and Pleasure in Classical Times attempts to blaze a trail for the cross-disciplinary humanistic study of pain and pleasure, with literature scholars, historians and philosophers all setting out to understand how the Greeks and Romans experienced, managed and reasoned about the sensations and experiences they felt as painful or pleasurable. The book is intended to provoke discussion of a wide range of problems in the cultural history of antiquity. It addresses both the physicality of erôs and illness, and physiological and philosophical doctrines, especially hedonism and anti-hedonism in their various forms. Fine points of terminology (Greek is predictably rich in this area) receive careful attention. Authors in question run from Homer to (among others) the Hippocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Seneca, Plutarch, Galen and the Aristotle-commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias.

Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy

Author: David Wolfsdorf

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0521761301

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An examination of ancient Greek philosophical conceptions of pleasure, which is the first book to compare them to contemporary conceptions.

Pain Narratives in Greco-Roman Writings
Pain Narratives in Greco-Roman Writings

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-07-03

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9004677461

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why is it so difficult to talk about pain? As we do today, the Greeks and Romans struggled to communicate their pain: this required a rich and subtle vocabulary which had to be developed over time. Pain Narratives traces the development of this language in literary, philosophical, and medical texts from across antiquity: poets, physicians, and philosophers contributed to an ever-growing lexicon to articulate their own and others’ feelings. The essays within this volume uncover the expanding Greco-Roman vocabulary of pain, analyse the medical discussions on pain symptoms, and explore the religious reinterpretations of pain concepts in late antiquity.

Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato
Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato

Author: Rana Saadi Liebert

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-04-07

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1316885615

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.

The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean
The Individual in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean

Author: Jörg Rüpke

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 0191656313

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ancient religions are usually treated as collective and political phenomena and, apart from a few towering figures, the individual religious agent has fallen out of view. Addressing this gap, the essays in this volume focus on the individual and individuality in ancient Mediterranean religion. Even in antiquity, individual religious action was not determined by traditional norms handed down through families and the larger social context, but rather options were open and choices were made. On the part of the individual, this development is reflected in changes in 'individuation', the parallel process of a gradual full integration into society and the development of self-reflection and of a notion of individual identity. These processes are analysed within the Hellenistic and Imperial periods, down to Christian-dominated late antiquity, in both pagan polytheistic as well as Jewish monotheistic settings. The volume focuses on individuation in everyday religious practices in Phoenicia, various Greek cities, and Rome, and as identified in institutional developments and philosophical reflections on the self as exemplified by the Stoic Seneca.

Dire Remedies: A Social History of Healthcare in Classical Antiquity
Dire Remedies: A Social History of Healthcare in Classical Antiquity

Author: William V. Harris

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-10-07

Total Pages: 777

ISBN-13: 3111508323

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dire Remedies: a Social History of Healthcare in Classical Antiquity is the first wide-ranging social history of ancient healthcare. Greek medicine is at the origin of modern medicine, but it was very often ineffective. What did people actually do when faced with pain and illness? Starting with a review of ancient health conditions and a survey of what doctors had to offer, W.V. Harris describes the multifarious practices and diverse kinds of people to whom Greeks and Romans turned for help. Topics include the possible development of analgesics, ancient ideas about contagion, the history of the god Asclepius and more generally the role of religion and magic, opinions about abortion, ancient responses to mental illness, and the invention of the hospital. Taking into account the fill range of textual sources and archaeological material, this book attempts to provide an unprecedentedly realistic – and readable – depiction of the Greek and Roman responses to ill health.

Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture
Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture

Author: SNF-Projekt

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-10-10

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 3110534223

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Homer to Sophocles and Greek Middle Comedy, and from Plato and Protagoras to Ovid, this volume features a panoramic and cross-generic overview of the diverse handling and ad hoc elaboration of the overarching literary notions of "time" and "space". The twenty-one contributions of this volume written by an international group of esteemed scholars provide an equal number of hermeneutic approaches to individual, distinct aspects of Greek and Latin literature. The volume is purposely designed not as a linear display of knowledge, but rather as an anthology of select paradigms that aim to demonstrate the multidimensional function and multifaceted role of the twin notions of "time" and "space" throughout ancient Greek and Latin literary texts. The volume opens with analyses of conspicuous cases from epic poetry, proceeds with examples from drama (tragedy and comedy), and concludes with diverse instances of chronotopes (empirical, imaginary, and even shifting ones), in various literary genres. The volume is of greatest relevance since it meets the cultural and theoretical trends of today’s Classics. It therefore will attract not only the interest of specialised Classicists but it is also intended for a wider general readership.

The Oxford Handbook of Galen
The Oxford Handbook of Galen

Author: Peter N. Singer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 761

ISBN-13: 0190913681

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Oxford Handbook of Galen provides a comprehensive overview of the life, work, and legacy of Galen (129--c. 216 CE), arguably the most important medical figure of the Graeco-Roman world. It contains essays by thirty leading experts on Galen's life and background, his medical theories, his therapeutic and clinical practices, and his philosophical contributions in the areas of logic, epistemology, causation, scientific method, and ethics. The authors also discuss the most important pathways of the transmission of his texts and his intellectual legacy, from late antiquity to early modern times and from western Europe to Tibet and China.

Anti-Epicurean Polemics in the New Testament Writings
Anti-Epicurean Polemics in the New Testament Writings

Author: Stefan Szymik

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2023-10-09

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 3647500224

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Stefan Szymik analyses New Testament texts in terms of polemic and anti-Epicurean rhetoric. To what extent and how did Epicurus and his philosophical thought influence the first Christian Churches? How did Christians react to Epicureanism? Although the New Testament only includes one account of an encounter between the Apostle Paul and the Epicureans (Acts 17:18), the probability of their contacts was high, given the popularity of Epicureanism in the Roman Empire in the first century CE. As a vital component of Hellenistic-Roman culture, Epicureanism should be taken into account in research on the New Testament, becoming a point of reference and part of the content of comparative analyses.