Booktopia has been placed into Voluntary Administration. Orders have been temporarily suspended, whilst the process for the recapitalisation of Booktopia and/or sale of its business is completed, following which services may be re-established. All enquiries from creditors, including customers with outstanding gift cards and orders and placed prior to 3 July 2024, please visit https://www.mcgrathnicol.com/creditors/booktopia-group/

Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice

Name: Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice
Brand: Bloomsbury Publishing
Price: 137.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

By: Joe Whitchurch

Write A Review

eBook | 5 September 2024

At a Glance

Format
ePUB

eBook

RRP $153.01

$137.99

10%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $34.50 with

Available: 5th September 2024

Preorder. Download available after release.

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.