The Concept of Crisis in Antiquity: Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

The Concept of Crisis in Antiquity Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives Edited by: Melina Tamiolaki and Markus ZimmermannAbout this book This volume deals with the perception and conception of crises in ancient societies from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective, with contributions on Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India and China.The focus is on the extent to which the modern concept of crisis had equivalents in the respective societies and how these crises were conceptually grasped and terminologically described. To achieve this, specialists from various fields have examined written and, in some cases, archaeological sources from the respective societies from the point of view of which developments or events were regarded as crises, how they were dealt with, and with which terms these situations were described.In this way, the similarities and differences in the conception of crises in ancient societies are illustrated, making the volume an important reference for studies on crises in pre-modern societies.Author / Editor information Melina Tamiolaki, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece; Markus Zimmermann, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.Table of contentsFrontmatter IAcknowledgmentsContents VIIList of Figures IXIntroduction 1 Melina Tamiolaki and Markus Zimmermann Part I Theory and Concept of Crisis in Greek AntiquityAnankaios Κairos and the Greeks’ Responses to Crisis 15 Angelos ChaniotisThe Concept of Social Crisis in Ancient Greek History 37 Kostas Vlassopoulos Part II Terms, Narrative and Rhetoric of Crisis in Greek and Roman LiteratureCrisis Awareness and the Peloponnesian War 59 Markus ZimmermannXenophon and the End of the Hellenica: How to Explain What Crisis is in Ancient Times? 79 Pierre PontierNotions of Democracy in the Context of Historical Upheavals and Social Crises: Demosthenes’ Rhetoric in Against Leptines 97 Roberta DainottoCrisis and Constitutional Change in Aristotle and Cicero 125 Georgia TsouniCrisis and Conspiracy in the Antiquitates Romanae of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: The Case of the First Secession of the Plebs 145 Panagiotis AndroulakisCritical and Sub-Critical Days: The Siege of Jerusalem and the Parousia in Mark 13 167 Simon GathercoleAlexander Dealing with Crisis: A Comparative Study of Plutarch, Arrian and Curtius 191 Anna-Maria Miliara Part III The Concept of Crisis in Ancient Civilizations Beyond Greece and RomeConceptualizing and Dealing with Crisis in Ancient Mesopotamia 215 Sebastian FinkExperiencing Crisis in Ancient Egypt: From Reality to Metaphors 233 Elena Panaite“Crisis” and “Opportunity” in the Relations between China and North Asian Nomads (5th–3rd c. BCE) 259 Nicola Di CosmoBetween Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes II: The Achaemenid Empire in Crisis? 273 Hilmar KlinkottWarfare, Droughts, Brahminicides: Crisis and Kingship in South Asian Antiquity 299 Vitus AngermeierList of Contributors 327General Index This book is in the series Volume 202 | Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes