The Oath

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the importance of the oath in ancient Greece and Rome, The importance of oaths in the Classical world cannot be overstated. Kings, citizens, soldiers, litigants all swore oaths, inviting divine retribution if they proved false to their word. Oaths cemented peace treaties, they obliged the Athenian citizenry to protect their democracy, they guaranteed the loyalty of the Roman army to its Emperor and they underpinned the legal systems of Athens and Rome. And in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, it is a broken oath to settle the dispute between Menelaus and Paris that leads the Greeks to storm Troy in pursuit of Helen. But how did the Classical world come to understand the oath? Why did oaths come to occupy such a central place in the political, social and legal life of the Athenian State? And what role did oath-making play in the expanding Roman Empire?

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Alan Sommerstein No other episodes
  Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham
• Paul Cartledge 20 episodes
  Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge
• Mary Beard 11 episodes
  Professor in Classics at the University of Cambridge

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Programme ID: p003wtk7

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003wtk7

Auto-category: 938 (Ancient Greece and Rome)