Table Of Contenti
The Ancient Emotion of Disgust
ii
Emotions of the Past
Series Editors
Robert A. Kaster | David Konstan
This series investigates the history of the emotions in premodern societies, tak-
ing 1500 ce as the conventional threshold of modernity. In addition to new
work on Greco-R oman and medieval European cultures, the series provides a
home for studies on the emotions in Near Eastern and Asian societies, including
premodern Egypt, India, China, and beyond.
The Elegiac Passion
Jealousy in Roman Love Elegy
Ruth Rothaus Caston
Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens
A Socio- Psychological Approach
Ed Sanders
Hope, Joy, and Affection in the Classical World
Ruth R. Caston and Robert A. Kaster
The Ancient Emotion of Disgust
Donald Lateiner and Dimos Spatharas
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The Ancient Emotion of Disgust
Edited by
Donald Lateiner
and
Dimos Spatharas
1
iv
1
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ISBN 978– 0– 19– 060411– 0
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For my wife, E. Marianne Gabel, uxori patientissimae, and our younger
granddaughter Analucia, nepti callidae and her wonderful mother,
Erika, nurui optimae
For Δανάη
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Contents
Preface ix
Contributors xi
Introduction: Ancient and Modern Modes of Understanding
and Manipulating Disgust 1
Donald Lateiner and Dimos Spatharas
Part I Hellenic
1. Empathy and the Limits of Disgust in the Hippocratic Corpus 45
George Kazantzidis
2. Moral Disgust in Sophocles’ Philoctetes 69
Emily Allen- Hornblower
3. Disgust and Delight: The Polysemous Exclamation αἰβοῖ in Attic Comedy 87
Daniel B. Levine
4. Demosthenes and the Use of Disgust 103
Nick Fisher
5. Sex, Politics, and Disgust in Aeschines’ Against Timarchus 125
Dimos Spatharas
6. Beauty in Suffering: Disgust in Nicander’s Theriaca 141
Floris Overduin
Part II Roman and Greek Imperial
7. Not Tonight, Dear, I’m Feeling a Little pig- 159
Robert A. Kaster
8. Beyond Disgust: The Politics of Fastidium in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita 175
Ayelet Haimson Lushkov
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viii Contents
9. Witches, Disgust, and Anti-Abortion Propaganda in Imperial Rome 189
Debbie Felton
10. Evoking Disgust in the Latin Novels of Petronius and Apuleius 203
Donald Lateiner
11. Obscena Galli Praesentia: Dehumanizing Cybele’s Eunuch-Priests through
Disgust 235
Marika Rauhala
12. Monstrum in Fronte, Monstrum in Animo? Sublate Disgust and Pharmakos
Logic in the Aesopic Vitae 253
Tom Hawkins
13. Smelly Bodies on Stage: Disgusting Actors of the Roman Imperial Period 267
Mali Skotheim
Bibliography 277
Index Rerum et Nominum 301
Index Auctorum Antiquorum et Locorum 305
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Preface
The present volume arose from a panel examining ancient disgust, convened
at the Edinburgh 2014 Celtic Conference in Classics, organized by the editors
at the suggestion of Dimos Spatharas. We invited papers from specialists on all
continents and received many more proposals than we could accommodate. We
heard nineteen analyses. Some of the original contributors at Edinburgh had
to withdraw from this volume, but one scholar attending the panel added his
valuable essay. We wished to explore an important emotion generally slighted
or neglected in both the ancient and modern literatures. Several reasons explain
this lacuna, including disgust’s inherent improprieties, shame attached to deeds,
and words about them. The current climate is more receptive to discussions of
physical repulsion and its expressions. Disgust is a powerful weapon in enforc-
ing class distinctions, as several contributors to this volume demonstrate. All
contemporary psychosociological listings of emotions now include this violent
“feeling,” cognition, and currently common metaphor, for example, “These for-
mulaic academic prefaces disgust me.” There is much more work to be done.
We trust that this collection will interest students of ancient Mediterranean
and contemporary societies. We hope that scholars of medieval, Renaissance,
early modern, and non- Mediterranean cultures can profit as well. The volume
surveys a broad spectrum of ancient sources and theoretical approaches, both
generic and chronological (from Homer to Aesop, from Cicero to Apuleius,
from medical diagnoses to satire, fable, and honorific inscriptions). Our sources
include literary, epigraphical, and other documentary materials. We had hoped
to provide one or more essays on archaeological and art historical materials
depicting or preventing disgust (cautionary Attic sympotic vases and Roman
fish markets and sewers), but the relevant scholarly authorities were unable to
contribute to this event. Our introduction attempts to sketch some further ave-
nues in these and yet other directions.
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