Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond

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 Curvelo Estrela 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

4. Drama and Philosophy

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 numerous 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).