Combat Trauma in Athenian Comedy: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

Abstract

This chapter differs from most of the other contributions to this volume¹ in that it deals not with the ways in which the effects of combat trauma are described in ancient Greek literature, but with a branch of ancient Greek literature that seems to go out of its way to avoid describing them. Not only that, but it also, in very large measure, avoids reference to the types of situation likely to cause combat trauma, and to the types of person likely to experience it—and this although in one way or another it very frequently concerns itself with the subject of war and soldiering. The relevance of such avoidance to the theme of the book does not, I hope, require to be argued for: silence, or suppression, can be very eloquent.