Conveners

Carmen Soares (University of Coimbra, Portugal) [cilsoares@gmail.com]

Steven Brandwood (American School of Classical Studies in Athens and Rutgers University, USA) [steven.m.brandwood@gmail.com]

 

 

While there has been a great amount of commentary on the experience in battle of militarily active males of prime age, there has been less attention to their physical and emotional well-being in war contexts and much less to the experiences, circumstances, and attitudes of non-combatant groups, be they females, boys below the age of service, superannuated men, or even males incapacitated or standing outside regular deployment. Only a narrow spotlight of historical attention has surrounded the plight of women in captured cities as highlighted both by literary documents such as the Troades of Euripides and by various mythological scenarios. Nevertheless, we believe that there is much to be investigated concerning “comfort” levels of both warriors and non-combatants (food, clothes, housing, care, love, etc.), particularly if we adopt more global perspectives which endeavor to integrate all members of polis-societies who do not regularly serve. And it may well be that activating this viewpoint may in turn yield conclusions which themselves must in their turn be conditioned by an understanding that the polis-society is in some sense a totally mobilizable sociopolitical order.

The panel welcomes proposals addressing the topic in different literary genres and authors from antiquity and also in comparative cultural studies.