This is a fascinating and engaging collection of essays on the general theme of ‘horror’ in antiquity. It is not entirely a volume of conference proceedings, but it is noted in the acknowledgements that some chapters originated in a conference on the topic. The book benefits from an impressive range of contributors (it comprises thirteen chapters, plus an introduction from the two editors); it includes contributions from well-known scholars in the field as well as from scholars who were studying for a Ph.D. at the time of writing, and from a practising medical doctor and a lecturer in English Literature, providing a welcome range of views and approaches that gives the volume both breadth and depth of study. Editors Kazantzidis and Thumiger provide an effective introduction, clearly setting out the themes of the book and offering the first discussion (of several) of what constitutes ‘horror’ and how, in the absence of a specific horror genre, the concept can effectively be applied to the ancient world.
The issue of what constitutes ‘horror’ in ancient literature and thought, in view of the fact that the specific literary genre of ‘horror’ did not exist in the ancient world, is much discussed. Most authors touch on similar ideas; of ‘horror’ encompassing ‘intensified fear’ (Kazantzidis and Thumiger, p. 2); ‘horror’ as an emotion (K. Cruz, p. 31); ‘horror’ as something dreadful or terrible (G.M. Chesi, p. 47); ‘horror’ as the emotion felt when something terrible has happened (as opposed to ‘fear’, which means fearing that it might happen) (G.W. Most, p. 77), or ‘horror’ as a concept relating to fear and disgust (D. Felton, p. 161). Only one chapter has a slightly different approach to defining horror: S. Coughlin associates it with the supernatural, suggesting we think of ‘horror as a fear that the paranormal can slip into an otherwise predictable world’ (p. 215). This rather contrasts with the treatment of the concept in other chapters, which include studies of non-supernatural horror-related themes including political violence (S.L. Häberle) and serial killing (Felton), but it is a sufficiently logical approach for Coughlin’s study of magical recipes. Cruz’s first chapter, ‘Horror Now and Horror Then: Horror’s Long Reach from Antiquity to Modernity and Back Again’, does a good job of setting out the essential issues surrounding how we understand ‘horror’ as a concept rather than as a genre, a key methodology that drives the rest of the book.
Much of the book comprises detailed analyses of classical literary texts that engage with elements that may be described as ‘horrific’. These are dealt with in roughly chronological order, and several chapters are designed primarily to identify and perform a close textual analysis of examples of ‘horror’ in specific texts. These include Chesi’s chapter on the beheading of Leodes in the Odyssey (‘Horror in the Odyssey: A Few Notes on Leodes’ Beheading’); J. Weiner’s on sexual humour and body horror in Roman comedy, which makes some astute comparisons to films, though it tends to assume quite a wide knowledge of film on the part of readers (‘Fearful Laughter: Bodily Horror in Roman Sexual Humour’); A. Estèves on horror in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which concludes with the perhaps slightly controversial idea that ‘horror in the Metamorphoses seems essentially ornamental’ (p. 139; ‘Cruor in flores mutabitur: Horrific Hybridizations in the Metamorphoses of Ovid’), and S. Martorana’s contribution on Seneca’s Thyestes, which provides a close look at Seneca’s language relating to the setting, in both the house and the natural surroundings in which the action takes place (‘Landscapes and Bodies of Horror in Seneca’s Thyestes’). The last chapter in the book, A. Hegele’s discussion of Sheridan Le Fanu’s use of Romantic medical practices in the short story ‘Green Tea’ (‘Dissecting the Gothic: Horror and the Romantic Body in Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly’), is an effective and interesting analysis and relates closely to C. Bubb’s chapter on dissection in terms of its subject matter, but stands out as being the only chapter with no direct connection to the classical world, being neither about classical reception nor a comparison between modern and classical texts. Among the chapters with a literary or philological focus, E. Sistakou’s analysis of Greek tragedy as horror, including an apt and helpful comparison to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) (‘The Visceral Thrills of Tragedy: Flesh, Blood and Guts Off and On the Tragic Stage’) and Most’s exploration of Sophocles’ use of body horror (‘The Horrific Body in Sophocles’) stand out as especially revealing and convincing analyses.
Two of the chapters on literature deal with texts relating to elements of horror that come from legal processes and more realistic scenarios, rather than from mythological or scatological material. Felton examines a text that relates a fictional scenario for the purposes of training students in rhetoric and is therefore designed to provide an exaggerated version of potential real-world legal cases, Libanius’ Against a Murderer (‘The Vocabulary of Homicidal Horror in Libanius’ Against a Murderer’). To provide context for this fictional case, Felton usefully explores concepts and vocabulary relating to homicide in Greek law going all the way back to classical Athens and even further. Although Felton does not use the phrase ‘serial killer’ in the analysis, the repeated murders carried out by the hypothetical bandit in the text seems to be a classical example of the well-known and popular modern phenomenon of the serial killer as a horror trope, if not as a real-world problem. Häberle’s analysis of Cicero’s Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino (‘Naming the Monster: Forensic Horror and Collective Trauma in Cicero’s Pro Roscio’) is unique among the more philological chapters in focusing primarily on a real-world case and on echoes of real-life horror, offering a fascinating exploration of the relationship between Cicero’s speech and the real-life trauma he and most of his listeners had gone through not long beforehand.
Three chapters towards the end of the book (with only Hegele on Le Fanu following them) switch the focus more fully to the history of horror in real life in antiquity. Bubb’s discussion of Galen’s use of dissection and vivisection (‘At the Borders of Horror and Science: The Social Contexts of Roman Dissection’) effectively introduces this section by considering carefully the blurriness of the line between medicine and witchcraft (framed as ‘science’ and ‘horror’) in the ancient world, and how Galen found ways to walk along that line without crossing it. L.A. Graumann provides a valuable fresh perspective, that of a practising medical doctor, discussing the impact of the real horror medical practitioners are faced with regularly as part of their work on their own mental health, and making the important point that the fact that ancient texts do not discuss or engage with this issue does not mean that ancient medical practitioners did not experience it (only that they did not write about it) (‘Overcoming Horror: “Numbness” and Medical Agents – Some Thoughts on Medical Horror in Antiquity and Today’). Although Coughlin is working with a slightly different definition of ‘horror’ to everyone else, his experiment with recreating an ancient magic potion to find out whether the inclusion of blood makes any noticeable difference to the process is very interesting (‘Recipes for Horror in Graeco-Roman Magic and Medicine’).
Overall, the book is well written and well structured. Inevitably, in an edited collection, there are some differences of style between chapters, which are only occasionally slightly jarring, but these do not significantly impact the reading experience. Most languages other than English, including ancient Greek and Latin, are translated, making the book accessible to anglophone undergraduate students. The conventions for quoting ancient Greek, including whether Greek script is used and whether or not Greek words are transliterated into Latin script, vary between chapters (Chapter 2 underlines Greek text, which none of the others do, and every chapter seems to use a slightly different convention); in cases in which Greek terms are discussed at length but not transliterated, this may be a stumbling block for anglophone undergraduates studying subjects like Classical Civilisations or Ancient History. However, these are all minor points that do not detract from the book’s quality, especially for postgraduate and professional readers.
The collection makes an important contribution to the study of what we might call ‘the horrific’ in the ancient world and especially in classical literature. Much work has been done before on specific tropes, concepts and characters that belong to the modern genre of ‘horror’ in their ancient contexts (ghosts, werewolves, witchcraft) and on some of the ancient genres that incorporate horrific elements (Greek tragedy, Latin literature of the first century ce), but the way in which this volume draws together these various aspects of ‘horror’ across the ancient world, with a wide span both chronologically and geographically, is revealing and offers important new insights in this area. The broad conceptualisation of ‘horror’ as a concept allows the volume to explore a multitude of attitudes towards the horrific across the ancient world, rather than restricting the study to particular areas of literature. Having a contribution from a medical practitioner is revealing, and the exploration of the lines between magic and medicine in the real life of the ancient world is helpful for shedding light on some well-known scenes of horror from literature (and vice versa).
The volume is recommended for anyone working on ‘the horrific’, broadly defined, in the ancient world or on any related topics, including but not limited to ancient witchcraft, ghosts and monsters, Greek tragedy, murder and crime in the ancient world, ancient medicine and the history of the body in the ancient world. It is an important and timely contribution to this emerging area of study.
