Abstract This paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of the polis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.
{"title":"A Triangle in the Law-court: Speakers-Opponents-Audiences and the Use of the Imperative","authors":"Andreas Af Serafim","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper, focusing on and discussing salient passages from the whole corpus of Attic forensic speeches, examines the use and purposes of imperatives for persuasion. The main argument it puts forward is that imperatives should not be seen as an improper, impolite or abrasive means of communication in the law-court, but rather as a decisive and confident way of sustaining a triangular relation between the speaker, his opponent and the audience. The speaker, through the use of imperatives, talks about, and intermittently to, his opponent and conveys messages to the audience about him. These messages, combined with references to religion, patriotism, ancestral glory and the very existence of the polis, give the potential to orations to influence the verdict of the judges and determine the outcome of trials.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46727096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Publication of two new gold epistomia unearthed during systematic excavations of a cemetery at the site Mnemata (Graves) in Alphá, near Eleutherna. They belong to category B, the so-called Mnemosyne- or Underworld-Topography-texts: the new epistomion B14 from grave 84 was found folded and is identical to that incised on B3–5, B7–8 and the concise B13, except for one minor misspelling; the other epistomion B15 from grave 56 betrays more similarities with the Cretan epistomia B12 and B6 in the recognition dialogue, and is only the second text from Crete which places the spring in the Underworld topography to the left, as B12.
{"title":"New Epistomia from Eleutherna","authors":"E. Tegou, Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Publication of two new gold epistomia unearthed during systematic excavations of a cemetery at the site Mnemata (Graves) in Alphá, near Eleutherna. They belong to category B, the so-called Mnemosyne- or Underworld-Topography-texts: the new epistomion B14 from grave 84 was found folded and is identical to that incised on B3–5, B7–8 and the concise B13, except for one minor misspelling; the other epistomion B15 from grave 56 betrays more similarities with the Cretan epistomia B12 and B6 in the recognition dialogue, and is only the second text from Crete which places the spring in the Underworld topography to the left, as B12.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42810644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives from research on the placebo effect to aid and guide the subsequent articles in their examination of their respective sets of sources, as well as facilitate discussion and comparison across our different materials, and often also differing disciplines.
{"title":"Introduction: Using Placebo Research to Explore Belief and Healing in Late Antiquity","authors":"N. H. Korsvoll","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives from research on the placebo effect to aid and guide the subsequent articles in their examination of their respective sets of sources, as well as facilitate discussion and comparison across our different materials, and often also differing disciplines.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42180873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The present paper focuses on healing rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, where medicine and religion were inextricably linked to each other and further connected to the art of magic. In Pharaonic Egypt, healing magic was especially attributed to the priests who served a fearsome goddess named Sekhmet; although Sekhmet was associated with war and retribution, she was also believed to be able to avert plague and cure disease. It then comes as no surprise that the majority of healing spells or other types of iatromagical papyri dating from the Roman period are written in Demotic, following a long tradition of ancient Egyptian curative magic. The extant healing rituals written in Greek also show substantial Egyptian influence in both methodological structure and motifs, thus confirming the widely accepted assumption that many features of Greco-Egyptian magic were actually inherited from their ancient antecedents. What is particularly interesting about these texts is that, in many cases, they contain magical rites combined with basic elements of real medical treatment. Obviously, magic was not simply expected to serve as a substitute for medical cure, but was rather seen as a complementary treatment in order to balance the effect of fear, on the one hand, and the flame of hope, on the other.
{"title":"Hope for Cure and the Placebo Effect: The Case of the Greco-Egyptian Iatromagical Formularies","authors":"P. Sarischouli","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The present paper focuses on healing rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, where medicine and religion were inextricably linked to each other and further connected to the art of magic. In Pharaonic Egypt, healing magic was especially attributed to the priests who served a fearsome goddess named Sekhmet; although Sekhmet was associated with war and retribution, she was also believed to be able to avert plague and cure disease. It then comes as no surprise that the majority of healing spells or other types of iatromagical papyri dating from the Roman period are written in Demotic, following a long tradition of ancient Egyptian curative magic. The extant healing rituals written in Greek also show substantial Egyptian influence in both methodological structure and motifs, thus confirming the widely accepted assumption that many features of Greco-Egyptian magic were actually inherited from their ancient antecedents. What is particularly interesting about these texts is that, in many cases, they contain magical rites combined with basic elements of real medical treatment. Obviously, magic was not simply expected to serve as a substitute for medical cure, but was rather seen as a complementary treatment in order to balance the effect of fear, on the one hand, and the flame of hope, on the other.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48458755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Asclepius was one of the most popular healing deities in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Patients suffering from various diseases resorted to his sanctuaries, the so-called asclepieia, looking for cure. Many inscriptions preserve stories of supplicants who slept in the abaton of the temples and claimed that they had been healed or received remedies from the god. The historical study may take into consideration modern (neuro)cognitive research on the placebo effects in order to examine the possibilities of actual healing experiences at the asclepeiea. In this paper, I take into account the theoretical premises of the placebo drama theory suggested by Ted Kaptchuk in order to explore the specific factors, including the personality of Asclepius, his patients’ mindsets, the relationship between them, the nature of the supplicants’ impairments, the employed or prescribed treatments and the ritual settings of the cult, which could have mediated health recovery, and contributed to the phenomenal success of the Asclepian therapies via the activation of patients’ placebo responses.
{"title":"The Placebo Drama of the Asclepius Cult","authors":"O. Panagiotidou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Asclepius was one of the most popular healing deities in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Patients suffering from various diseases resorted to his sanctuaries, the so-called asclepieia, looking for cure. Many inscriptions preserve stories of supplicants who slept in the abaton of the temples and claimed that they had been healed or received remedies from the god. The historical study may take into consideration modern (neuro)cognitive research on the placebo effects in order to examine the possibilities of actual healing experiences at the asclepeiea. In this paper, I take into account the theoretical premises of the placebo drama theory suggested by Ted Kaptchuk in order to explore the specific factors, including the personality of Asclepius, his patients’ mindsets, the relationship between them, the nature of the supplicants’ impairments, the employed or prescribed treatments and the ritual settings of the cult, which could have mediated health recovery, and contributed to the phenomenal success of the Asclepian therapies via the activation of patients’ placebo responses.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48724335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article analyses possible placebo effects that Late Antique religious healing might have had. It focuses on healings believed to have been sent in dreams to worshippers, both in pagan and Early Christian tradition. It also investigates how possible placebo effects might have served to propagate and spread the particular cults (be it the cult of Asklepios, or the Early Christian cults of martyrs). The paper seeks to integrate modern placebo research with the ancient accounts of healings, answering the following question: is it possible that the placebo effect (above all relief of pain) was activated in ancient times by the same factors as seen in experiments today (e. g. effect of the healer’s persona, ritualized behaviour, and above all belief in the cure)? The scope of the paper is at the end broadened to touch upon the question to what degree ancient religious healing offered a socially well-established method of handling illnesses psychologically and fill the need to act, even if a cure as such was not a probable result.
{"title":"Placebo factors at healing sanctuaries in pagan and early Christian times","authors":"Hedvig von Ehrenheim","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article analyses possible placebo effects that Late Antique religious healing might have had. It focuses on healings believed to have been sent in dreams to worshippers, both in pagan and Early Christian tradition. It also investigates how possible placebo effects might have served to propagate and spread the particular cults (be it the cult of Asklepios, or the Early Christian cults of martyrs). The paper seeks to integrate modern placebo research with the ancient accounts of healings, answering the following question: is it possible that the placebo effect (above all relief of pain) was activated in ancient times by the same factors as seen in experiments today (e. g. effect of the healer’s persona, ritualized behaviour, and above all belief in the cure)? The scope of the paper is at the end broadened to touch upon the question to what degree ancient religious healing offered a socially well-established method of handling illnesses psychologically and fill the need to act, even if a cure as such was not a probable result.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44414574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Within the ‘market of healing’ of Christian Egypt (here broadly considered as the fourth through twelfth centuries CE), ‘magical’ practitioners represent an elusive yet recurrent category. This article explores the evidence for magical healing from three perspectives – first, literary texts which situate ‘magicians’ in competition with medical and ecclesiastical healing; second, the papyrological evidence of Coptic-language magical texts, which provide evidence for concepts of disease, wellness, and their mediation; and finally confronting the question of how these healing traditions might be understood within the methodologically materialistic framework of academic history, using the concepts of placebo and healing as a performance.
{"title":"Healing Traditions in Coptic Magical Texts","authors":"Korshi Dosoo","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Within the ‘market of healing’ of Christian Egypt (here broadly considered as the fourth through twelfth centuries CE), ‘magical’ practitioners represent an elusive yet recurrent category. This article explores the evidence for magical healing from three perspectives – first, literary texts which situate ‘magicians’ in competition with medical and ecclesiastical healing; second, the papyrological evidence of Coptic-language magical texts, which provide evidence for concepts of disease, wellness, and their mediation; and finally confronting the question of how these healing traditions might be understood within the methodologically materialistic framework of academic history, using the concepts of placebo and healing as a performance.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45151983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Many of the numerous magical recipes and spells from the Greco-Roman world aim to heal or protect the practitioner. The text, however, show great diversity and heterogeneity and many of them seem to be an elaborate amalgam of different religious influences, analogies, and interactions. This variety can, among other things, play into certain aspects of the placebo effect. Here, I present a systematic categorization of Greco-Roman amulets according to physical support, format, chronology, and purpose, which together with a study of their terminology may point towards different placebo effects. Then, I examine their social context and describe the resources and the modus operandi of the magical healing, which will have further strengthened the effect of these amulets. Their reliance on cultural resources and tropes points especially towards conditioning and learned responses.
{"title":"Placebo is Magic or Magic is Placebo? The Greco-Roman Iatromagical Texts","authors":"Eleni Chronopoulou","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many of the numerous magical recipes and spells from the Greco-Roman world aim to heal or protect the practitioner. The text, however, show great diversity and heterogeneity and many of them seem to be an elaborate amalgam of different religious influences, analogies, and interactions. This variety can, among other things, play into certain aspects of the placebo effect. Here, I present a systematic categorization of Greco-Roman amulets according to physical support, format, chronology, and purpose, which together with a study of their terminology may point towards different placebo effects. Then, I examine their social context and describe the resources and the modus operandi of the magical healing, which will have further strengthened the effect of these amulets. Their reliance on cultural resources and tropes points especially towards conditioning and learned responses.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47993682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Coptic pharmacological texts offer a multitude of medical prescriptions concerning various afflictions, such as eye or skin irritations, affections of the viscera, or even psychological complaints. The content of these texts is medical, and in most cases bereft of any magical or religious ideas. They usually compile prescriptions according to symptoms and/or afflictions, without any further organising principle. Only a handful of texts are grouped according to the illness or to the medicinal plants used. Almost every prescription follows a pattern, with four formal elements: 1) the medical indication (or purpose), 2) the (basic) ingredients, 3) the procedure and application, and 4) the effects and/or the effectiveness of a remedy, or further information. In this article, I give an overview of the entire corpus of Coptic medical prescriptions, explore the four main elements, and especially the discussions of efficacy. I also examine the material in light of placebo research, to see whether something like a placebo effect may have influenced how the pharmacological texts were formulated.
{"title":"The Question of the Effectiveness of Coptic Pharmacological Prescriptions","authors":"Anne Grons","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Coptic pharmacological texts offer a multitude of medical prescriptions concerning various afflictions, such as eye or skin irritations, affections of the viscera, or even psychological complaints. The content of these texts is medical, and in most cases bereft of any magical or religious ideas. They usually compile prescriptions according to symptoms and/or afflictions, without any further organising principle. Only a handful of texts are grouped according to the illness or to the medicinal plants used. Almost every prescription follows a pattern, with four formal elements: 1) the medical indication (or purpose), 2) the (basic) ingredients, 3) the procedure and application, and 4) the effects and/or the effectiveness of a remedy, or further information. In this article, I give an overview of the entire corpus of Coptic medical prescriptions, explore the four main elements, and especially the discussions of efficacy. I also examine the material in light of placebo research, to see whether something like a placebo effect may have influenced how the pharmacological texts were formulated.","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46184884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"List of Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/tc-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/tc-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41704,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Classics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1515/tc-2021-0010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48556008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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