Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks

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OUP Oxford, Oct 4, 2007 - History - 534 pages
Esther Eidinow sets the published question tablets from the oracle at Dodona side by side with the binding-curse tablets from across the ancient Greek world, and explores what they can tell us about perceptions of and expressions of risk among ordinary Greek men and women, as well as the insights they afford into civic institutions and activities, and social dynamics. Eidinow follows the anthropologist Mary Douglas in defining `risk' as socially constructed, in contrast to most other ancient historians, who treat risk-management as a way of handling objective external dangers. The book includes a full catalogue of all published texts from Dodona, as well as the 159 curse tablets discussed, together with translations of all texts.

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Contents

Introduction
1
Exploring Uncertainty
10
A Lapse into Unreason
26
Copyright

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About the author (2007)

Esther Eidinow is a Lecturer in Ancient Greek History at the University of Nottingham.

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