1st Edition
Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond
This volume provides, for the first time, a focused study of scare tactics and fearmongering in a broad range of Greek and Roman authors and genres, showing how alarmist tactics were used in both antiquity and today.
Scare tactic rhetoric is a timely topic; fear in current politics can justify actions and decisions and be used to control what is debated in the public arena, with the truth often shaped and even removed from what was being said. The ancient world was no different. In this volume, an international selection of scholars discusses how and why alarmist tactics were used in a variety of genres in Greco-Roman literature, including oratory, historiography, drama, philosophy, and children’s stories, to convey political messages and ideas. They also draw parallels between ancient and contemporary fear.
Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond is suitable for students and scholars in Classics and Ancient History, Rhetoric and Rhetorical Theory, Ancient Societies and Politics, as well as those operating in adjacent fields of study, along with the general reader interested in the ancient world, psychology, politics, and the exploitation of rhetoric.
List of Contributors
Preface
Notes on Style
Abbreviations
General Introduction
Maria Patera
1. Introducing Fear
1. Aristotle on the Nature of Fear and its Persuasive Use
Jamie Dow and Alba Curry
2. Oratory
2. Forensic Fearmongering: Making a Lasting Impression on the Judges
Michael J. Edwards
3. The Scarcity Scare: The Discourse of Limited Resources in Athenian Oratory
Jakub Filonik
4. Fearmongering in Lysias: A Glimpse into his Corpus
Enrico Medda
5. Fearmongering in Isocrates: The Areopagiticus and the Call for a Restored Politeia
Ticiano Estrela Curvelo de Lacerda
6. Dangling Fears: Scare Tactics in the Speeches of Aeschines
Daniel Bajnok
7. Rumour and Scare Tactics in Demosthenes’ Public Speeches
Priscilla Gontijo Leite
8. Marcus Antonius: The Roman Philip? Demosthenes’ Fearful Influence on Cicero
Stephen Clarke
9. Cross-Examination and Scare Tactic Rhetoric in Cicero’s In Vatinium
Gilson Charles dos Santos
10. The Spectrum of Anxiety in Dio Chrysostom
N. Bryant Kirkland
11. Scare Tactics in Pre-Battle Exhortations
Juan Carlos Iglesias Zoido
3. Historiography
12. The Rhetoric of Fear in Herodotus
Vasiliki Zali-Schiel
13. Fear and Deliberation in Thucydides
Sandra Lúcia Rodrigues da Rocha
14. Prudent Alarm and Illustrated Threats: Rhetorical Fear in Xenophon
Richard Fernando Buxton
15. Fear and Loathing in Polybius’ Histories
Craige B. Champion
16. Fearmongering and Performance in Plutarch: Fear as Narrative Technique in the Lives of Solon, Alcibiades, and Phocion
Delfim Leão
17. Fearing the Enemy: Livy’s Description of the Gauls
Priscilla Adriane Ferreira Almeida
18. Prospective Precedent as a Scare Tactic in Athenian Tragedy
Ruth Scodel
19. The Threat of Comedy: Aristophanes, Böhmermann, and the Scare Tactic Game
A.S. Lewis
20. Puppets of Fear on the Stage of the Ideal City: Imbibing Civic Transformation in Plato’s Republic and the Laws
Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides
5. And Beyond
21. The Unchanging Face of Jingoistic Rhetoric?
Ian Worthington
22. Páthei Máthos: Ancient Rhetorical and Poetic Techniques and the Production of Fear in Modern Film
Maria Cecília de Miranda Nogueira Coelho
23. The Rhetorical Use of Fear in Children’s Education
Marina Pelluci Duarte Mortoza
Index
Biography
Priscilla Gontijo Leite is Adjunct Professor of Ancient History at the Department of History at the Federal University of Paraíba (João Pessoa/ Brazil). She has published numeous papers and books, for example Ética e retórica forense asebeia e hybris na caracterização dos adversários em Demóstenes (2013) and Religião e Jogos de Poder: o Contra Mídias de Demóstenes (2017).
Ian Worthington is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has published extensively on Greek History and Greek oratory. His most recent publications are The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age with Major Michael Ferguson (2024) and The Last Kings of Macedonia and the Triumph of Rome (2023).
