ABSTRACT

This volume examines emotional trauma in the ancient world, focusing on literary texts from different genres (epic, theatre, lyric poetry, philosophy, historiography) and archaeological evidence. The material covered spans geographically from Greece and Rome to Judaea, with a chronological range from about 8th c. bce to 1st c. ce.

The collection is organized according to broad themes to showcase the wide range of possibilities that trauma theory offers as a theoretical framework for a new analysis of ancient sources. It also demonstrates the various ways in which ancient texts illuminate contemporary problems and debates in trauma studies.

part 1|1 pages

War trauma

part 2|1 pages

Women and trauma

chapter 3|20 pages

Repetition, civic status, and remedy

Women and trauma in New Comedy

part 3|1 pages

Collective trauma

chapter 5|15 pages

The Acropolis burning!

Reactions to collective trauma in the years after 480/79 bce

chapter 6|12 pages

Historiographical trauma

The case of Polybius

part 4|1 pages

Natural disasters, exile, captivity

chapter 7|16 pages

Non est facile inter mala magna consipere

Trauma, earthquakes, and bibliotherapy in Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones

chapter 8|15 pages

Ovid and the trauma of exile

chapter 9|13 pages

Philo’s Flaccus

Trauma, justice, and revenge

part 5|1 pages

Communicating trauma

chapter 10|13 pages

Learning to bear witness

Tragic bystanders in Sophocles’ Trachiniae

chapter 11|14 pages

Oedipus’ lament

Waking and refashioning the traumatic past in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus

chapter 12|15 pages

Troy as trauma

Reflections on intergenerational transmission and the locus of trauma