Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice - Joe Whitchurch

Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice

By: Joe Whitchurch

Hardcover | 3 October 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $170.00

$125.75

26%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $31.44 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 25 to 30 business days

Anger was the engine of justice in the ancient Greek world. It drove quests for vengeance which resulted in a variety of consequences, often harmful not only for the relevant actors but also for the wider communities in which they lived.

From as early as the seventh century BCE, Greek communities had developed more or less formal means of imposing restrictions on this behaviour in the form of courts. However, this did not necessarily mean a less angry or vengeful society so much as one where anger and revenge were subject to public sanction and sometimes put to public use.

By the fifth and fourth centuries, the Athenian polis had developed a considerably more sophisticated system for the administration of justice, encompassing a variety of laws, courts, and procedures. In essence, the justice it meted out was built on the same emotional foundations as that seen in Homer. Jurors gave licence to or restrained the anger of plaintiffs in private cases, and they punished according to the anger they themselves felt in public ones. The growing state in ancient Greek poleis did not bring about a transition away from angry private revenge to emotionless public punishment. Rather, anger came increasingly to move into the public sphere, the emotional driver of an early state that defended its community, and even itself, through its vengeful acts of punishment.

More in Law & Society

Connecting With Law : 5th Edition - Michelle Sanson

RRP $124.95

$102.90

18%
OFF
First Knowledges Law : The Way of the Ancestors - Marcia Langton
Eichmann in Jerusalem : A Report on the Banality of Evil - Hannah Arendt
The Outback Court Reporter - Jamelle Wells

RRP $34.99

$31.75

Lawyers in Australia : 4th edition - John Littrich

RRP $99.00

$85.75

13%
OFF
Legal Studies for VCE Units 1 & 2 Student Book+obook pro : 15th Edition - Lisa Filippin
Trans : When Ideology Meets Reality - Helen Joyce

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Technology Law : Australian and International Perspectives - Marcus Smith
Black Lives, White Law : Locked Up and Locked Out in Australia - Russell Marks
The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht - Susan Dalgety

RRP $55.00

$50.50

The Architecture of Modern Empire - Arundhati Roy

RRP $24.99

$23.75

Grandparents and the Law : Rights and Relationships - Samantha M Davey