Ancient Anger

Anger is found everywhere in the ancient world, starting with the very first word of the Iliad and continuing through all literary genres and every aspect of public and private life. Yet it is only recently, as a variety of disciplines start to devote attention to the history and nature of the emotions, that Classicists, ancient historians and ancient philosophers have begun to study anger in antiquity with the seriousness and attention it deserves. This volume brings together a number of significant studies by authors from different disciplines and countries, on literary, philosophical, medical and political aspects of ancient anger from Homer until the Roman Imperial Period. It studies some of the most important ancient sources and provides a paradigmatic selection of approaches to them, and should stimulate further research on this important subject in a number of fields.

Dissolving Ancient Anger I am here to dissolve history, releasing my masculine illiteracy. I am liberated from everything. I admire the spree of me, and the light of liberation is my inspirational expression of personal expansiondissolving, releasing, and relieving me of all inner thievery.

The angry emotions, and the problems they presented, were an ancient Greek preoccupation from Homer to late antiquity. From the first lines of the Iliad to the church fathers of the fourth century A.D., the control or elimination of rage was an obsessive concern. From the Greek world it passed to the Romans. Drawing on a wide range of ancient texts, and on recent work in anthropology and psychology, Restraining Rage explains the rise and persistence of this concern. W. V. Harris shows that the discourse of anger-control was of crucial importance in several different spheres, in politics--both republican and monarchical--in the family, and in the slave economy. He suggests that it played a special role in maintaining male domination over women. He explores the working out of these themes in Attic tragedy, in the great Greek historians, in Aristotle and the Hellenistic philosophers, and in many other kinds of texts. From the time of Plato onward, educated Greeks developed a strong conscious interest in their own psychic health. Emotional control was part of this. Harris offers a new theory to explain this interest, and a history of the anger-therapy that derived from it. He ends by suggesting some contemporary lessons that can be drawn from the Greek and Roman experience.

Timeless wisdom on controlling anger in personal life and politics from the Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman Seneca In his essay “On Anger” (De Ira), the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BC–65 AD) argues that anger is the most destructive passion: “No plague has cost the human race more dear.” This was proved by his own life, which he barely preserved under one wrathful emperor, Caligula, and lost under a second, Nero. This splendid new translation of essential selections from “On Anger,” presented with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, offers readers a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger. It vividly illustrates why the emotion is so dangerous and why controlling it would bring vast benefits to individuals and society. Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples (especially from Caligula’s horrific reign), anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity. Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, he paints a grim picture of the moral perils to which anger exposes us, tracing nearly all the world’s evils to this one toxic source. But he then uplifts us with a beatific vision of the alternate path, a path of forgiveness and compassion that resonates with Christian and Buddhist ethics. Seneca’s thoughts on anger have never been more relevant than today, when uncivil discourse has increasingly infected public debate. Whether seeking personal growth or political renewal, readers will find, in Seneca’s wisdom, a valuable antidote to the ills of an angry age.

Anger is a strong emotion, which can feel overwhelming. Anger the Ancient Warrior shows children how to master their anger and stop it causing unnecessary pain. This story and workbook with CBT activities helps children aged 8-12 to understand their anger and teaches them how to live comfortably with it.

In this book, eminent scholars of classical antiquity and ancient and medieval Judaism and Christianity explore the nature and place of forgiveness in the pre-modern Western world. They discuss whether the concept of forgiveness, as it is often understood today, was absent, or at all events more restricted in scope than has been commonly supposed, and what related ideas (such as clemency or reconciliation) may have taken the place of forgiveness. An introductory chapter reviews the conceptual territory of forgiveness and illuminates the potential breadth of the idea, enumerating the important questions a theory of the subject should explore. The following chapters examine forgiveness in the contexts of classical Greece and Rome; the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, and Moses Maimonides; and the New Testament, the Church Fathers, and Thomas Aquinas.

This book discusses anger in psychology, its mechanisms, predisposing factors, precipitating factors, its impacts on brain structure. Anger in psychology is considered from two perspectives – function, and its impacts on physical health. This book is compiled of cutting-edge research, presenting anger in a new, modern and educational way. It presents a mathematical expression for the law of anger, allowing us to understand anger before it truly occurs and to control the anger to prevent its occurrence. The book is highly specialized with anger and considers various perspectives, such as race, historical origin and how these theories align with the modern psychology and neurosciences.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BCE–65 CE) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and adviser to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. Anger, Mercy, Revenge comprises three key writings: the moral essays On Anger and On Clemency—which were penned as advice for the then young emperor, Nero—and the Apocolocyntosis, a brilliant satire lampooning the end of the reign of Claudius. Friend and tutor, as well as philosopher, Seneca welcomed the age of Nero in tones alternately serious, poetic, and comic—making Anger, Mercy, Revenge a work just as complicated, astute, and ambitious as its author.