Human and Animal in Ancient Greece

Human and Animal in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Tua Korhonen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786731193
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Animals were omnipresent in the everyday life and the visual arts of classical Greece. In literature, too, they had significant functions.This book discusses the role of animals - both domestic and wild - and mythological hybrid creatures in ancient Greek literature. Challenging the traditional view of the Greek anthropocentrism, the authors provide a nuanced interpretation of the classical relationship to animals. Through a close textual analysis, they highlight the emergence of the perspective of animals in Greek literature. Central to the book's enquiry is the question of empathy: investigating the ways in which ancient Greek authors invited their readers to empathise with non-human counterparts. The book presents case studies on the animal similes in the Iliad, the addresses to animals and nature in Sophocles' Philoctetes, the human-bird hybrids in The Birds by Aristophanes and the animal protagonists of Anyte's epigrams. Throughout, the authors develop an innovative methodology that combines philological and historical analysis with a philosophy of embodiment, or phenomenology of the body. Shedding new light on how animals were regarded in ancient Greek society, the book will be of interest to classicists, historians, philosophers, literary scholars and all those studying empathy and the human-animal relationship.

Human and Animal in Ancient Greece

Human and Animal in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Tua Korhonen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786731193
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
Animals were omnipresent in the everyday life and the visual arts of classical Greece. In literature, too, they had significant functions.This book discusses the role of animals - both domestic and wild - and mythological hybrid creatures in ancient Greek literature. Challenging the traditional view of the Greek anthropocentrism, the authors provide a nuanced interpretation of the classical relationship to animals. Through a close textual analysis, they highlight the emergence of the perspective of animals in Greek literature. Central to the book's enquiry is the question of empathy: investigating the ways in which ancient Greek authors invited their readers to empathise with non-human counterparts. The book presents case studies on the animal similes in the Iliad, the addresses to animals and nature in Sophocles' Philoctetes, the human-bird hybrids in The Birds by Aristophanes and the animal protagonists of Anyte's epigrams. Throughout, the authors develop an innovative methodology that combines philological and historical analysis with a philosophy of embodiment, or phenomenology of the body. Shedding new light on how animals were regarded in ancient Greek society, the book will be of interest to classicists, historians, philosophers, literary scholars and all those studying empathy and the human-animal relationship.

Animals in Ancient Greek Religion

Animals in Ancient Greek Religion PDF Author: Julia Kindt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429754590
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
This book provides the first systematic study of the role of animals in different areas of the ancient Greek religious experience, including in myth and ritual, the literary and the material evidence, the real and the imaginary. An international team of renowned contributors shows that animals had a sustained presence not only in the traditionally well-researched cultural practice of blood sacrifice but across the full spectrum of ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices. Animals played a role in divination, epiphany, ritual healing, the setting up of dedications, the writing of binding spells, and the instigation of other ‘magical’ means. Taken together, the individual contributions to this book illustrate that ancient Greek religion constituted a triangular symbolic system encompassing not just gods and humans, but also animals as a third player and point of reference. Animals in Ancient Greek Religion will be of interest to students and scholars of Greek religion, Greek myth, and ancient religion more broadly, as well as for anyone interested in human/animal relations in the ancient world.

The Animal and the Human in Ancient and Modern Thought

The Animal and the Human in Ancient and Modern Thought PDF Author: Stephen T. Newmyer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135042845
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Ancient Greeks endeavored to define the human being vis-à-vis other animal species by isolating capacities and endowments which they considered to be unique to humans. This approach toward defining the human being still appears with surprising frequency, in modern philosophical treatises, in modern animal behavioral studies, and in animal rights literature, to argue both for and against the position that human beings are special and unique because of one or another attribute or skill that they are believed to possess. Some of the claims of man’s unique endowments have in recent years become the subject of intensive investigation by cognitive ethologists carried out in non-laboratory contexts. The debate is as lively now as in classical times, and, what is of particular note, the examples and methods of argumentation used to prove one or another position on any issue relating to the unique status of human beings that one encounters in contemporary philosophical or ethological literature frequently recall ancient precedents. This is the first book-length study of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos in classical literature, not restricting its analysis to Greco-Roman claims of man’s intellectual uniqueness, but including classical assertions of man’s physiological and emotional uniqueness. It supplements this analysis of ancient manifestations with an examination of how the commonplace survives and has been restated, transformed, and extended in contemporary ethological literature and in the literature of the animal rights and animal welfare movements. Author Stephen T. Newmyer demonstrates that the anthropocentrism detected in Greek applications of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos is not only alive and well in many facets of the current debate on human-animal relations, but that combating its negative effects is a stated aim of some modern philosophers and activists.

The Culture of Animals in Antiquity

The Culture of Animals in Antiquity PDF Author: Sian Lewis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780367580940
Category : Animal culture
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
The Culture of Animals in Antiquity provides students and researchers with well-chosen and clearly-presented ancient sources in translation, some well-known and others undoubtedly unfamiliar, but all central to the part played by animals in the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean. It covers a broad span of time, from the sacred animals o

Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World

Animals and their Relation to Gods, Humans and Things in the Ancient World PDF Author: Raija Mattila
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3658243880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
While Human-Animal Studies is a rapidly growing field in modern history, studies on this topic that focus on the Ancient World are few. The present volume aims at closing this gap. It investigates the relation between humans, animals, gods, and things with a special focus on the structure of these categories. An improved understanding of the ancient categories themselves is a precondition for any investigation into the relation between them. The focus of the volume lies on the Ancient Near East, but it also provides studies on Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Mesoamerica, the Far East, and Arabia.

Animals in Greek and Roman Thought

Animals in Greek and Roman Thought PDF Author: Stephen T. Newmyer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136882634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Although reasoned discourse on human-animal relations is often considered a late twentieth-century phenomenon, ethical debate over animals and how humans should treat them can be traced back to the philosophers and literati of the classical world. From Stoic assertions that humans owe nothing to animals that are intellectually foreign to them, to Plutarch's impassioned arguments for animals as sentient and rational beings, it is clear that modern debate owes much to Greco-Roman thought. Animals in Greek and Roman Thought brings together new translations of classical passages which contributed to ancient debate on the nature of animals and their relationship to human beings. The selections chosen come primarily from philosophical and natural historical works, as well as religious, poetic and biographical works. The questions discussed include: Do animals differ from humans intellectually? Were animals created for the use of humankind? Should animals be used for food, sport, or sacrifice? Can animals be our friends? The selections are arranged thematically and, within themes, chronologically. A commentary precedes each excerpt, transliterations of Greek and Latin technical terms are provided, and each entry includes bibliographic suggestions for further reading.

Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World

Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World PDF Author: Sarah Hitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110821004X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
This volume brings together studies on Greek animal sacrifice by foremost experts in Greek language, literature and material culture. Readers will benefit from the synthesis of new evidence and approaches with a re-evaluation of twentieth-century theories on sacrifice. The chapters range across the whole of antiquity and go beyond the Greek world to consider possible influences in Hittite Anatolia and Egypt, while an introduction to the burgeoning science of osteo-archaeology is provided. The twentieth-century emphasis on sacrifice as part of the Classical Greek polis system is challenged through consideration of various ancient perspectives on sacrifice as distinct from specific political or even Greek contexts. Many previously unexplored topics are covered, particularly the type of animals sacrificed and the spectrum of sacrificial ritual, from libations to lasting memorials of the ritual in art.

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth

Animals in Greek and Roman Religion and Myth PDF Author: Patricia A. Johnston
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781443894876
Category : Animals
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
This volume brings together a variety of approaches to the different ways in which the role of animals was understood in ancient Greco-Roman myth and religion, across a period of several centuries, from Preclassical Greece to Late Antique Rome. Animals in Greco-Roman antiquity were thought to be intermediaries between men and gods, and they played a pivotal role in sacrificial rituals and divination, the foundations of pagan religion. The studies in the first part of the volume examine the role of the animals in sacrifice and divination. The second part explores the similarities between animals, on the one hand, and men and gods, on the other. Indeed, in antiquity, the behaviour of several animals was perceived to mirror human behaviour, while the selection of the various animals as sacrificial victims to specific deities often was determined on account of some peculiar habit that echoed a special attribute of the particular deity. The last part of this volume is devoted to the study of animal metamorphosis, and to this end a number of myths that associate various animals with transformation are examined from a variety of perspectives.

Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Interactions between Animals and Humans in Graeco-Roman Antiquity PDF Author: Thorsten Fögen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110545624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 506

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Book Description
The seventeen contributions to this volume, written by leading experts, show that animals and humans in Graeco-Roman antiquity are interconnected on a variety of different levels and that their encounters and interactions often result from their belonging to the same structures, ‘networks’ and communities or at least from finding themselves together in a certain setting, context or environment – wittingly or unwittingly. Papers explore the concrete categories of interaction between animals and humans that can be identified, in what contexts they occur, and what types of evidence can be productively used to examine the concept of interactions. Articles in this volume take into account literary, visual, and other types of evidence. A comprehensive research bibliography is also provided.

Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece

Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Dennis D. Hughes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415755276
Category : Greece
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this, the first book length study of the subject for 75 years, the author provides a fascinating examination of archaeological and written evidence for the ritual killing of human beings in ancient Greece.