Harmful Interaction between the Living and the Dead in Greek Tragedy

Bridget Martin is an Occasional Lecturer and Tutor in Classics at University College Dublin. She has written several articles on funerary topics and Greek tragedy; this is her first monograph.

Introduction

Chapter 1. A framework: The Homeric and contemporary dead
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Homeric dead
1.3 The contemporary fifth-century dead
1.4 Conclusion

Chapter 2. The tragic dead: The witless and/or the aware
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The scale of awareness
2.2.1 Death is οὐδέν
2.2.2 Egocentric awareness
2.2.3 Family reunion
2.2.4 A (hierarchical) society of the dead
2.2.5 Postmortem rewards and punishments
2.2.6 Prophetic knowledge
2.2.7 The manifest dead
2.3 Conclusion

Chapter 3. The how and the why of interaction: The manifest evidence
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The living interacting with the dead: necromancy
3.2.1 Darius in Aeschylus’ Persians
3.2.2 Teiresias in Aeschylus’ Psychagōgoi
3.2.3 Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Choephori
3.3 The dead interacting with the living: Dreams
3.3.1 Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’ Eumenides
3.3.2 Polydorus in Euripides’ Hecuba
3.4 Spontaneous interaction: Achilles in Euripides’ Hecuba
3.5 Conclusion

Chapter 4. The living harming the dead: Exposure, mutilation and exclusion
4.1 Introduction
4.2 A concern for the living
4.3 Burial and exposure: extent and limitations
4.3.1 Burial
4.3.2 Exposure and mutilation
4.4 Physical harm in the Underworld
4.5 Exposure before enemies: remembering and dismembering
4.6 Exclusion from/within the Underworld
4.7 Conclusion

Chapter 5. The dead harming the living: Autonomy and agents
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Autonomous revenge from the dead
5.3 Olympian agents
5.4 The Erinyes
5.5 Living agents
5.5.1 Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Choephori
5.5.2 Achilles in Euripides’ Hecuba
5.6 Conclusion

Conclusion: The Alcestis Effect