Perjury in Classical Antiquity
Abstract
The present analysis surveys the diachronic developments of social attitudes concerning oaths in the ancient Greek context, from as early as in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, passing through Herodotus’s and Thucydides’s accounts, until the period following the Peloponnesian War. Its main focus is settled in a more synchronic analysis of the instable period narrated by Xenophon, mainly in his Hellenica, but also taking into account other sources. The conclusions drawn by this inquiry ought to be understood in the general context of the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth centuries BCE, and help to explain the political uncertainty of this period. The doubts entertained about the capacity of the gods in punishing perjurers (despite Xenophon’s own religious opinions) and, therefore, a questioning of the effectiveness of oaths as an institution coordinating the inter-relations among Greek poleis are not only causes of the instability of this period, but also its results.
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