Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition
Visits to the Underworld from Antiquity to Byzantium
Gunnel Ekroth and Ingela Nilsson, Leiden: Brill, 2018
Description
Round Trip to Hades in the Eastern Mediterranean Tradition explores how the theme of visiting the Underworld and returning alive has been treated, transmitted and transformed in the ancient Greek and Byzantine traditions. The journey was usually a descent (katabasis) into a dark and dull place, where forgetfulness and punishment reigned, but since ‘everyone’ was there, it was also a place that offered opportunities to meet people and socialize. Famous Classical round trips to Hades include those undertaken by Odysseus and Aeneas, but this pagan topic also caught the interest of Christian writers. The contributions of the present volume allow the reader to follow the passage from pagan to Christian representations of Hades – a passage that may seem surprisingly effortless.
(Text from the publisher)
Table of Contents
Round Trip to Hades
An Introductory Tour – By: Gunnel Ekroth and Ingela Nilsson
Travels to the Beyond
A Guide – By: Fritz Graf
Hades, Homer and the Hittites
The Cultic-Cultural Context of Odysseus’ ‘Round Trip’ to the Underworld – By: Gunnel Ekroth
Divine Bondage and Katabaseis in Hesiod’s Theogony
By: Ivana Petrovic and Andrej Petrovic
Introducing Oneself in Hades
Two ‘Orphic’ Formulas Reconsidered – By: Scott Scullion
Pathein and Mathein in the Descents to Hades
By: Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui
From Alkestis to Archidike
Thessalian Attitudes to Death and the Afterlife – By: Sofia Kravaritou and Maria Stamatopoulou
Round Trip to Hades
Herakles’ Advice and Directions – By: Annie Verbanck-Piérard
Hades in Hellenistic Philosophy (The Early Academy and Stoicism)
By: Adrian Mihai
Following the Dead to the Underworld
An Archaeological Approach to Graeco-Roman Death Oracles – By: Wiebke Friese
The Sounds of Katabasis
Bellowing, Roaring, and Hissing at the Crossing of Impervious Boundaries – By: Pierre Bonnechere
Down There and Back Again
Variations on the Katabasis Theme in Lucian – By: Heinz-Günther Nesselrath
From Hades to Hell
Christian Visions of the Underworld (2nd–5th centuries ce) – By: Zissis D. Ainalis
The Virgin in Hades
By: Thomas Arentzen
Why did Hades Become Beautiful in Byzantine Art?
By: Henry Maguire
Hades Meets Lazarus
The Literary Katabasis in Twelfth-Century Byzantium – By: Ingela Nilsson
“Heaven for Climate, Hell for Company”
Byzantine Satirical Katabaseis – By: Przemysław Marciniak
Many (Un)Happy Returns
Ancient Greek Concepts of a Return from Death and Their Later Counterparts – By: Sarah Iles Johnston
Epilogue
Below the Tree of Life – By: Eric Cullhed and Sigrid Schottenius Cullhed
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