Books by Richard (University of Exeter) Seaford

Locates the origins and early form of Indian and Greek philosophy, and the striking similarities between them, in their entire societal and religious context. The cities of Greece and northern India were distinctive by virtue of being pervasively monetised, which was a central factor in their metaphysical transformation.

Richard Seaford is one of the most original and provocative classicists of his age. This volume brings together a wide range of papers written with a single focus. Several are pioneering explorations of the tragic evocation and representation of rites of passage: mystic initiation, the wedding, and death ritual. Two papers focus on the shaping power of mystic initiation in two famous passages in the New Testament. The other key factor in the historical context of tragedy is the recent monetisation of Athens. One paper explores the presence of money in Greek tragedy, another the shaping influence of money on Wagner's Ring and on his Aeschylean model. Other papers reveal the influence of ritual and money on representations of the inner self, and on Greek and Indian philosophy. A final piece finds in Greek tragedy horror at the destructive unlimitedness of money that is still central to our postmodern world.

The Greek polis was the first society to be monetised and the first to produce drama. This pioneering book seeks to uncover the relationship between these two momentous inventions by examining the clash between the old world of ritual and the new world of money in the tragedies of Aeschylus.

How were the Greeks of the sixth century BC able to invent philosophy and tragedy? In this book Richard Seaford argues that the answer can be found in another momentous development, the invention and rapid spread of coinage, which produced the first ever thoroughly monetised society.