The Expression and Social Uses of Contempt in Ancient Greece

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses the underexplored emotion of contempt in Greek antiquity by taking into account modern approaches to it. It focuses on the emotion’s “output” aspects and its relationship with disgust. It also explores the uses of contempt in social interactions, with a special emphasis on this emotion’s implications for the construction of social hierarchies. The scripts discussed in this chapter shed light on the importance of contempt for ancient politics, ethics, and, more broadly, interpersonal relationships. The last part of the chapter finds its focus in a passage from Demosthenes’s ferocious attack on Aeschines in the speech On the Crown (Dem. 18). This passage is heuristically useful because it indicates saliently how social status, aesthetic responses, and moral evaluations are enlisted in support of others’ belittlement.