PeaceDocs | Texts | Greek and Roman

This page provides links to Greek and Roman sources that reflect the ancient views of peace. Aside from the peace trilogy plays of Aristophanes and large passages of Hesiod, few ancient texts addressed peace and justice in our terms in complete form. Greco-Roman ideas of peace — eirene in Greek and pax or tranquillitas in Latin — must be gleaned from a variety of sources, including studies of the visual arts. These sources, and additional bibliography, will be assembled below, linked to WordCat, or made available on this and other websites, digital archives, or through online bookstores like Amazon.com.
 

Texts on This Website

  1. Musto, Ronald G. Annotated Bibliography of Peacemaking. PeaceDocs website.

  2. —. Greek and Roman Texts.


Texts on Other Websites

  1. Aristophanes, The Acharnians.

  2. —. Lysistrata.

  3. —. Peace.

  4. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities VI.95.1-3.

  5. —. Roman Antiquities IX.59.3-5

  6. Epictetus, The Discourses 3.13.19.

  7. Hesiod, Works and Days, ll. 213-47

  8. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3

  9. Perseus Collection. “Peace.”

  10. Tacitus, Agricola 30.

  11. Valleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History II.126.3-4



Additional Bibliography

  1. Bachteler, Tobias. “Explaining the Democratic Peace: The Evidence from Ancient Greece Reviewed.” Journal of Peace Research 34.3 (Aug. 1997): 315-323.

  2. Castriota, David. The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1995.

  3. Chumbley, Sara Kathryn. “Livia in the Guise of Pax: Augustan Propaganda Through Portraiture and Allusion.” Thesis (M.A.). Florida State University, 2003.

  4. Conlin, Diane Atnally. The Artists of the Ara Pacis and the Process of Hellenization in Roman Relief Sculpture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

  5. Faridzadeh, Mehdi. Philosophies of Peace and Just War in Greek Philosophy and Religions of Abraham Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York, NY: Global Scholarly Publications, 2004.

  6. Heatley, Nathan Rickey. The Cult of Pax and the Templum Pacis. Austin, TX: [s.n.], 1976.

  7. Sorabji, Richard. Emotion and Peace of Mind From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation. The Gifford lectures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

  8. Spiegel, Nathan, and Amiel Aryeh Ungar. War and Peace in Classical Greek Literature. Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Publications, 1990.


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