Cover of Ancient Emotions 1Ancient Emotions I
Edited by: George Kazantzidis and Dimos Spatharas
Volume 63 in the series Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110598254
De Gruyter, 2018
ISBN eBook: 9783110598254, Hardcover: 9783110596878, Paperback: 9783110710137

About this book

Although ancient hope has attracted much scholarly attention in the past, this is the first book-length discussion of the topic. The introduction offers a systematic discussion of the semantics of Greek elpis and Latin spes and addresses the difficult question of whether hope -ancient and modern- is an emotion. On the other hand, the 16 contributions deal with specific aspects of hope in Greek and Latin literature, history and art, including Pindar’s poetry, Greek tragedy, Thucydides, Virgil’s epic and Tacitus’ Historiae. The volume also explores from a historical perspective the hopes of slaves in antiquity, the importance of hope for the enhancement of stereotypes about the barbarians, and the depiction of hope in visual culture, providing thereby a useful tool not only for classicist but also for philosophers, cultural historians and political scientists.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter I

Preface V

Contents VII

Ιntroductory: ‘Hope’, elpis, spes: Affective and Non-affective Expectancy 1

PART I: ELPIS. ‘HOPE’ IN GREEK LITERATURE

“Poet of Hope”: Elpis in Pindar, Alexandre Johnston, 35

Hope and Hopelessness in Euripides, Nick Fisher, 53

Up from Tragicomedy: The Growth of Hope in Greek Comedy, Niall W. Slater, 85

The Politics of Hopelessness: Thucydides and Aristophanes’ Knights, Natalia Tsoumpra, 111

Elpis as Emotion and Reason (Hope and Expectation) in Fifth-century Greek Historians, Donald Lateiner, 131

PART II: SPES. ‘HOPE’ IN LATIN LITERATURE

Deos speravi (Miles 1209): Hope and the Gods in Roman Comedy, Laurel Fulkerson, 153

uestras spes uritis: Hope and Empire in Virgil’s Aeneid, Michael Paschalis, 171

Hope Dies Last at Tomis, Andreas N. Michalopoulos, 183

‘A Historian Utterly Without Hope’: Literary Artistry and Narratives of Decline in Tacitus’ Historiae I, Sophia Papaioannou, 213

PART III: SCRIPTS OF ‘HOPE’ IN HISTORY, ART, AND INSCRIPTIONS

Hope and Slavery, Kostas Vlassopoulos, 235

Velleius Paterculus, the Adoptions of 4 CE, and the Spes Race, Andrew Stiles, 259

Against Hope? The Untimely elpis of Northern Barbarians, Antti Lampinen, 275

The Face of Hope: Isolated Heads in South Italian Visual Culture, Keely Elizabeth Heuer, 297

Hope and the Sub-adult, Olympia Bobou, 329

Elpis in the Greek Epigraphic Evidence, from Rational Expectation to Dependence from Authority, Angelos Chaniotis, 351

List of Contributors, 365

Index Rerum et Nominum, 369

Index Auctorum Antiquorum et Locorum, 373

Epigraphic and papyrological sources, 395