“Emotion” is a vernacular rather than a scientific concept. The experiences that are called emotions in English are a subset of a wider range of affective experiences. Categories of particular emotions similarly constitute families whose members are by no means homogeneous. As perceptions of the world and of ourselves, emotions are richly permeated by cognition. As syndromes of multiple factors, they have an event-like structure that lends itself to narrative explanation. Historical analysis of emotion(s) thus requires close attention to conceptual history and to contexts, both immediate and cultural/historical. Classicists can explore the historical contingency of “emotion” in Greek and Latin, both in the theories of the major philosophical schools and in a variety of literary texts. But emotion history now uses a much wider range of literary, documentary, visual, and material evidence. Understanding emotion is an essential aspect of many early 21st-century approaches to Classics, especially in ancient history, classical literature and rhetoric, and ancient philosophy, just as the visual and physical remains of the classical world are rich in emotional implications and deeply entwined with the representation, performance, and pragmatics of ancient emotion.
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Douglas Cairns
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Lisa Irene Hau
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Nathan T. Arrington
Art was an essential component of funeral practices in ancient Greece. From inexpensive vases deposited with the dead to monumental statues standing over tombs, graves are one of the most important sources of evidence for Greek material culture. These archaeological contexts provide data on the chronology and regional variation of Greek art. The funeral setting allows scholars to study the relation of art to its social, political, and cultural contexts. Literary sources, such as texts that describe burial rituals or attitudes toward the dead, complement this study. The picture, detailed as it is, remains selective. Some physical materials, such as textiles, do not survive well in the archaeological record, despite their ancient value, and poor or simple graves may remain invisible to excavators. The looting of archaeological sites and the absence of detailed publications from excavated sites preclude scholarly access to the full spectrum of material culture in funeral settings.
