Body Behaviour and Identity Construction in Ancient Greek and Roman Literature

This book offers the first systematic, up-to-date, cross-cultural, and detailed study of -semi-volitional bodily behaviour- (sneezing, spitting, coughing, burping, vomiting, defecating, etc.) in the classical world.

Examining verse and prose texts, fragments, and scholia from the age of Homer to the second century AD, the central argument put forward in this volume is that semi-volitional bodily acts have the potential to betray individual or collective (ethnic/civic and cultural) identities centred on a variety of different themes. Discussions specifically focus on the following five aspects of the interplay between semi-volitional body language and identity construction: sexuality and gender; the link between sexuality and socioeconomic identity of individuals or groups; the embodied markers of civic/ethnic and cultural collectives and the contrast between -we-ness- and -otherness-; ethos and emotions; and how dietary habits and illnesses indica