Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Blood and Tears (Blood and Tears: The Emotional Experience of Classical Greek Warfare)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-10-01 al 2025-09-30
'Blood and Tears: The Emotional Experience of Classical Greek Warfare' aims to produce the first comprehensive study of the various emotional aspects of Classical Greek military campaigns, from the levy to combat (fifth and fourth centuries, BC).
Modern scholarship has long recognised the importance of emotions in Greek warfare. However, a serious study of this influence on war and its practice is still lacking. How much did emotions impact the field? Can we recognise some common occurrences and practices as expressions of emotional tension? How deeply were emotions and their management embedded in planning and fighting? Can we speak of a proper emotional awareness of Greek commanders? And, if so, how deep was it?
This project seeks to answer these questions by interpreting the sources through the lens of a modern concept: morale. Developed in nineteenth-century France and still widely used today, morale is the collective emotional state of a group concerning the accomplishment and performativity of the tasks assigned to said group. This broad and malleable notion seems the ideal heuristic tool to conceptualise the emotional aspects of Greek warfare. However, in the past, it has been too freely and acritically applied to ancient sources. Indeed, one might ask in what terms and even if the Greeks had a notion similar to modern morale.
In doing so, the idiosyncrasies of Greek cultures are not forgotten. Cultural constructs such as honour and normative masculinity are attentively considered in their interplay with emotional dynamics and their understanding to fully appreciate the phenomenon within its cultural framework. How emotional dynamics were outlined and discussed in different literary genres and, when possible, in specific poleis will be explored to provide the most scientifically accurate and complete picture of emotionality in Classical Greek warfare.
The project has two overarching objectives: to fully understand and outline the complexity of the Greek soldiers’ emotional experiences, which scholars have too often either oversimplified or telescoped into individual dynamics; and to try to highlight how the Greeks perceived these emotional experiences from different points of view and how they represented them. This analysis gives us a glimpse into the psychological mechanisms underlying Greek warfare and leadership without forcing our categories upon ancient contexts; instead, the cultural idiosyncrasies and contexts are, for the first time, fully considered in discussing this crucial aspect of ancient warfare.
The outputs are forecasted in a short monograph, collecting the results of the analysis, and two articles. Furthermore, I plan to disseminate the results of my research at academic conferences and through outreach activities.
Modern scholarship has long recognised the importance of emotions in Greek warfare. However, a serious study of this influence on war and its practice is still lacking. How much did emotions impact the field? Can we recognise some common occurrences and practices as expressions of emotional tension? How deeply were emotions and their management embedded in planning and fighting? Can we speak of a proper emotional awareness of Greek commanders? And, if so, how deep was it?
This project seeks to answer these questions by interpreting the sources through the lens of a modern concept: morale. Developed in nineteenth-century France and still widely used today, morale is the collective emotional state of a group concerning the accomplishment and performativity of the tasks assigned to said group. This broad and malleable notion seems the ideal heuristic tool to conceptualise the emotional aspects of Greek warfare. However, in the past, it has been too freely and acritically applied to ancient sources. Indeed, one might ask in what terms and even if the Greeks had a notion similar to modern morale.
In doing so, the idiosyncrasies of Greek cultures are not forgotten. Cultural constructs such as honour and normative masculinity are attentively considered in their interplay with emotional dynamics and their understanding to fully appreciate the phenomenon within its cultural framework. How emotional dynamics were outlined and discussed in different literary genres and, when possible, in specific poleis will be explored to provide the most scientifically accurate and complete picture of emotionality in Classical Greek warfare.
The project has two overarching objectives: to fully understand and outline the complexity of the Greek soldiers’ emotional experiences, which scholars have too often either oversimplified or telescoped into individual dynamics; and to try to highlight how the Greeks perceived these emotional experiences from different points of view and how they represented them. This analysis gives us a glimpse into the psychological mechanisms underlying Greek warfare and leadership without forcing our categories upon ancient contexts; instead, the cultural idiosyncrasies and contexts are, for the first time, fully considered in discussing this crucial aspect of ancient warfare.
The outputs are forecasted in a short monograph, collecting the results of the analysis, and two articles. Furthermore, I plan to disseminate the results of my research at academic conferences and through outreach activities.
The project has kept steady progress in the twenty-one months of its duration. As planned, the first work-package of the project involved collecting precise data on the recurring emotions in campaign accounts and how ancient commanders and authors used them. Key terms including fear (φόβος), faintheartedness (ἀψυχία), eagerness (προθυμία), and discouragement (ἀθυμία) have been attentively studied, considering variables such as literary genre, recurrence in specific contexts, association with specific behaviour and tropes. The sheer number of recorded instances of these terms has been challenging; we are talking of tens of thousands of passages to read, contextualise and analyse; the data collection took much more time and energy than expected, and the full survey is still under compilation.
The first article focuses on athumia and its usage in military contexts. Athumia denoted a strong feeling of discouragement and sadness, which had a strong relationship with the inability to act or perform satisfactorily on the field. After corroborating this pattern in different literary genres, the article discusses how athumia is presented in discussing emotions and their management in warfare. Not only does the concept (in the noun, adjectival, adverbial and verbal form) recur often in accounts of military campaigns, but it also appears consistently when commanders are shown to be aware of soldiers' emotions and trying to manage them. This trend suggests that athumia might have become a productive concept in emotional management in warfare in the fifth century BCE, when the term appears in tragedy and historiography. The article is now in peer review.
A second article focuses on the importance given to emotional management in fifth and fourth-century leadership. The article is centred around three parts. First, it shows how emotional management was common and embedded in everyday leadership practices. Fifth- and fourth-century leaders are associated with numerous stratagems aiming to consolidate the emotional state of their troops, and there are also several examples of entire strategies devised to take advantage of emotions. The representation of leaders stemming from reported speeches corroborates this notion. Although the speeches in historiographical works are later re-elaborated, there is a clear trend of military leaders displaying their knowledge of emotions and exploiting them. This trend implies that emotional management had become a characterising feature of military leadership in the fifth century BCE. The third part confirms the proposed reading, expanding the field of research to tragedy and epics. The display of knowledge and awareness of the emotive aspects of warfare is attested in tragedy from the 460s BCE but only implied in Homer. Accordingly, it is concluded that this was a novelty of fifth-century leadership, denoting some consideration and development of leadership since the second quarter of the fifth century. The article is now in peer review.
The monograph is progressing, although much slower than initially planned. The work on athumia has shown the limits of adapting the modern notion of morale to Greek warfare. A similarly comprehensive notion did not seem to exist, notwithstanding the similarities with athumia. As such, the examination needed to be enlarged to a wider pool of evidence to allow for a better understanding of how emotional categories, notions, and definitions interacted in Greek warfare. The work is still in progress, and the final results will be published as planned, but the timeframe needs to be shifted.
As planned, I have participated in academic conferences in Spain, Italy, and the UK, presenting my work to colleagues and testing its validity. I organised a panel for the Celtic Conference in Classics 2024, held in Cardiff. With my co-organiser, we are publishing the conference papers as an edited volume.
I have also presented my research to a lay audience at several outreach activities, including participating in éStoria, one of the most important conferences on historical divulgation in Italy.
The first article focuses on athumia and its usage in military contexts. Athumia denoted a strong feeling of discouragement and sadness, which had a strong relationship with the inability to act or perform satisfactorily on the field. After corroborating this pattern in different literary genres, the article discusses how athumia is presented in discussing emotions and their management in warfare. Not only does the concept (in the noun, adjectival, adverbial and verbal form) recur often in accounts of military campaigns, but it also appears consistently when commanders are shown to be aware of soldiers' emotions and trying to manage them. This trend suggests that athumia might have become a productive concept in emotional management in warfare in the fifth century BCE, when the term appears in tragedy and historiography. The article is now in peer review.
A second article focuses on the importance given to emotional management in fifth and fourth-century leadership. The article is centred around three parts. First, it shows how emotional management was common and embedded in everyday leadership practices. Fifth- and fourth-century leaders are associated with numerous stratagems aiming to consolidate the emotional state of their troops, and there are also several examples of entire strategies devised to take advantage of emotions. The representation of leaders stemming from reported speeches corroborates this notion. Although the speeches in historiographical works are later re-elaborated, there is a clear trend of military leaders displaying their knowledge of emotions and exploiting them. This trend implies that emotional management had become a characterising feature of military leadership in the fifth century BCE. The third part confirms the proposed reading, expanding the field of research to tragedy and epics. The display of knowledge and awareness of the emotive aspects of warfare is attested in tragedy from the 460s BCE but only implied in Homer. Accordingly, it is concluded that this was a novelty of fifth-century leadership, denoting some consideration and development of leadership since the second quarter of the fifth century. The article is now in peer review.
The monograph is progressing, although much slower than initially planned. The work on athumia has shown the limits of adapting the modern notion of morale to Greek warfare. A similarly comprehensive notion did not seem to exist, notwithstanding the similarities with athumia. As such, the examination needed to be enlarged to a wider pool of evidence to allow for a better understanding of how emotional categories, notions, and definitions interacted in Greek warfare. The work is still in progress, and the final results will be published as planned, but the timeframe needs to be shifted.
As planned, I have participated in academic conferences in Spain, Italy, and the UK, presenting my work to colleagues and testing its validity. I organised a panel for the Celtic Conference in Classics 2024, held in Cardiff. With my co-organiser, we are publishing the conference papers as an edited volume.
I have also presented my research to a lay audience at several outreach activities, including participating in éStoria, one of the most important conferences on historical divulgation in Italy.
The study of emotions and, especially, emotional management gave a new, more scientific approach to the study of the emotional aspects of Classical Greek warfare. First, the widespread simplification of framing these dynamics in terms of 'morale' is critically reassessed and questioned. If Wheeler already had doubts about relying on morale for ancient Greek contexts, a more nuanced approach is proposed here, analysing the emotional aspects of ancient Greek warfare from a more context-based point of view. This suggests the need to refrain from using morale, focusing more on the various emotional categories, definitions and dynamics proper of Classical Greek culture.
This more comprehensive analysis is still at its beginning, but the results achieved with athumia are noteworthy. Expanding the analysis of Temiolaki and Konstan, the analysis of this emotional phenomenon suggests a deeper awareness and the effort to conceptualise emotional dynamics within the field-specific context of Greek warfare.
This hypothesis is expanded with the analysis of emotional management in the field. Hanson, Lazenby and, to some extent, Wheeler discussed the importance of emotions in Greek warfare, but the awareness and strategies adopted on the field were only vaguely discussed. In my doctoral thesis, I had explored this important part of military leadership inherently to the Athenian army, but there was desperate need to enlarge the focus to other poleis and leaders. The result is a a greater awareness on Greek warfare more in general, as well as builing on my previous work on leadership.
This more comprehensive analysis is still at its beginning, but the results achieved with athumia are noteworthy. Expanding the analysis of Temiolaki and Konstan, the analysis of this emotional phenomenon suggests a deeper awareness and the effort to conceptualise emotional dynamics within the field-specific context of Greek warfare.
This hypothesis is expanded with the analysis of emotional management in the field. Hanson, Lazenby and, to some extent, Wheeler discussed the importance of emotions in Greek warfare, but the awareness and strategies adopted on the field were only vaguely discussed. In my doctoral thesis, I had explored this important part of military leadership inherently to the Athenian army, but there was desperate need to enlarge the focus to other poleis and leaders. The result is a a greater awareness on Greek warfare more in general, as well as builing on my previous work on leadership.