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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions
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Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks (Paperback)
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Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks (Paperback)
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How did ancient Greek men and women deal with the uncertainty and
risk of everyday life? What did they fear most, and how did they
manage their anxieties? Esther Eidinow sets side-by-side two
collections of material usually studied in isolation: binding curse
tablets from across the ancient world, and the collection of
published private questions from the oracle at Dodona in north-west
Greece. Eidinow uses these texts to explore perceptions of risk and
uncertainty in ancient society, challenging previous explanations.
In these records we hear voices that are rarely, if ever, heard in
literary texts and history books. The questions and curses in these
tablets comprise fervent, sometimes ferocious appeals to the gods.
The stories they tell offer tantalizing glimpses of everyday life,
carrying the reader through the teeming ancient city - both its
physical setting and its social dynamics. Among these tablets we
find prostitutes and publicans, doctors and soldiers, netmakers and
silver-workers, actors and seamstresses. Anxious litigants ask the
gods to silence their opponents. Men inquire about the paternity of
their children. Women beg the gods to help them keep their men.
Business rivals try to corner the market. Slaves plead to escape
their masters. This material takes us beyond the headlines of
ancient history, offering new insights into institutions,
activities, and relationships. Above all, individually and
together, these texts help us to understand some of the ways in
which ancient Greek men and women understood the world. In turn,
the beliefs and activities of an ancient culture may shed light on
modern attitudes to risk.
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