tive, both Formalists and Substantivists had entirely missed the point, because all their debates had been about distribution and exchange. To understand a society, they argued, one must first of all understand how it continues to exist—or, as they put it, “reproduces” itself—by endless creative activity. This was quite different from functionalism. Functionalists begin with a notion of “society,” then ask how that society manages to hold itself together. Marxists start by asking how what we call “society” is continually being re-created through various sorts of productive action, and how a society’s most basic forms of exploitation and inequality are thus rooted in the social relations through which people do so. This has obvious advantages. The problem with the whole “mode of production” approach, though, was that it was developed to analyze societies with a state: that is, in which there is a ruling class that maintains an apparatus of coercion to extract a surplus from the people who do most of the productive work. Most of the real triumphs of the MoP approach—I am thinking, for example, of Perry Anderson’s magisterial “Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism” (1974a) and “Lineages of the Absolutist State” (1974b)—deal with outlining the history of different modes of production, many of which can coexist in a given society; the way in which the dominant one provides the basis for a ruling class whose interests are protected by the state; the way that modes of production contain fundamental contradictions that will, at least in most cases, ultimately drive them to turn into something else. Once one turns to societies without a state, it’s not clear how any of these concepts are to be applied. One thing Marxism did introduce was a series of powerful analytical terms—exploitation, fetishism, appropriation, reproduction... —that everyone agreed Marx himself had used brilliantly in his analysis of Capitalism, but that no one was quite sure how to apply outside it. Different scholars would use these terms in very different ways and then would often end up quar-

Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value

The first book to offer an integrated reading of ancient Greek attitudes to laughter. Taking material from various genres and contexts, the book analyses both the theory and the practice of laughter as a revealing expression of Greek values and mentalities. Greek society developed distinctive institutions for the celebration of laughter as a capacity which could bridge the gap between humans and gods; but it also feared laughter for its power to expose individuals and groups to shame and even violence. Caught between ideas of pleasure and pain, friendship and enmity, laughter became a theme of recurrent interest in various contexts. Employing a sophisticated model of cultural history, Stephen Halliwell traces elaborations of the theme in a series of important texts: ranging far beyond modern accounts of 'humour', he shows how perceptions of laughter helped to shape Greek conceptions of the body, the mind and the meaning of life.

Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity

Preface Contributors Introduction: why written texts? Harvey Yunis 1. From letters to literature: reading the 'song culture' of classical Greece Andrew Ford 2. Writing religion: inscribed texts, ritual authority and the religious discourse of the Polis Albert Henrichs 3. Letters of the law: written texts in archaic Greek law Michael Gagarin 4. Writing, law and legal practice in the Athenian courts David Cohen 5. Literacy and the charlatan in ancient Greek medicine Lesley Dean-Jones 6. Literacy in Greek and Chinese science: some comparative issues Geoffrey Lloyd 7. Writing philosophy: prose and poetry from Thales to Plato Charles H. Kahn 8. Prose performance texts: Epideixis and written publication in the late fifth and early fourth centuries Rosalind Thomas 9. Writing for reading: Thucydides, Plato and the emergence of the critical reader Harvey Yunis 10. Reflecting on writing and culture: Theocritus and the style of cultural change Richard Hunter Bibliography Index.

/pdf/written-texts-and-the-rise-of-literate-culture-in-ancient-1e126w50tj.pdf

Written texts and the rise of literate culture in ancient Greece

Violence in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds

The relative sophistication of the three major 'Oriental cults' of the Roman Empire, combining unfamiliar myth with distinctive ritual, enabled them, like Early Christianity, to offer a properly ethical salvation in the Weberian sense.

Romanising oriental Gods

This text aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to ancient magic. It gives direct access to the sources but selects the important, characteristic examples. Ancient Greeks and Romans often turned to magic to achieve personal goals. Magical rites were seen as a route for direct access to the gods, for material gains as well as spiritual satisfaction. In this survey of magical beliefs and practices from the 6th century BC to late antiquity, Fritz Graf attempts to shed light on ancient religion. Evidence of widespread belief in the efficacy of magic is pervasive: the contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle placed voodoo dolls on graves in order to harm business rivals or attract lovers. The Twelve Tables of Roman Law forbids the magical transference of crops from one field to another. Graves, wells, and springs throughout the Mediterranean have yielded vast numbers of Greek and Latin curse tablets. And ancient literature abounds with scenes of magic, from necromancy to love spells. Graf explores the important types of magic in Greco-Roman antiquity, describing rites and explaining the theory behind them. He characterizes the ancient magician: his training and initiation, social status, and presumed connections with the divine world. With analysis of underlying conceptions and accounts of illustrative cases, Graf gives a picture of the practice of magic and its implications. He concludes with an evaluation of the relation of magic to religion. The book offers a look at ancient Greek and Roman thought and an understanding of popular recourse to the supernatural.

Magic in the ancient world

Fascinating texts written on small gold tablets that were deposited in graves provide a unique source of information about what some Greeks and Romans believed regarding the fate that awaited them after death, and how they could influence it.  These texts, dating from the late fifth century BCE to the second century CE, have been part of the scholarly debate on ancient afterlife beliefs since the end of the nineteenth century.  Recent finds and analysis of the texts have reshaped our understanding of their purpose and of the perceived afterlife.  
The tablets belonged to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus Bacchius and relied heavily upon myths narrated in poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus.  After providing the Greek text and a translation of all the available tablets, the authors analyze their role in the mysteries of Dionysus, and present an outline of the myths concerning the origins of humanity and of the sacred texts that the Greeks ascribed to Orpheus.  Related ancient texts are also appended in English translations.  Providing the first book-length edition and discussion of these enigmatic texts in English, and their first English translation, this book is essential to the study of ancient Greek religion.

Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets

Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit

This revised translation of Fritz Graf's highly acclaimed introduction to Greek mythology offers a chronological account of the principal Greek myths that appear in the surviving literary and artistic sources and concurrently documents the history of interpretation of Greek mythology from the 17th century to the present. First surveying the various definitions of myth that have been advanced, Graf proceeds to examine topics such as the relationship between Greek myths and epic poetry, the connection between particular myths and shrines or holy festivals, the use of myth in Greek song and tragedy, and the uses and interpretations of myth by philosophers and allegorists.

Greek Mythology : An Introduction

Part I. Festivals in the Greek East Before Constantine: 1. Greek city festivals in the Imperial age 2. Roman festivals in Eastern cities Part II. Roman Festivals in the Greek East After Constantine: 3. Theodosius' reform of the legal calendar 4. Contested festivals in the fourth century 5. The Lupercalia from Augustus to Constantine Porphyrogennetos 6. John Malalas and ritual aetiology 7. The Brumalia 8. Kalendae Ianuariae again, and again 9. Christian liturgy and the Imperial festival tradition Part III. Christianity and Private Ritual: 10. Christian incubation 11. Magic in a Christian Empire Epilogue. The persistence of festivals and the end of sacrifices.

Fritz Graf

Papers

Magic in the ancient world

Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets

Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit

Greek Mythology : An Introduction

Roman Festivals in the Greek East: From the Early Empire to the Middle Byzantine Era