Ὅρκος

An institution of enigmatic nature and obscure origins, the oath is, for the Greeks, the supreme guarantee that binds men and gods to their word: the foundation of the city, of alliances, and of the cosmic order itself. According to Aristotle, the earliest philosophers placed the Oath (Ὅρκος) among the primary entities of the world, alongside Oceanus and Tethys, to whom it is superior in antiquity and honor. For Hesiod, it is the son of Eris, and its task is to torment perjurers. Whoever swears binds himself to the truth of what he says: sometimes he does so merely by reciting formulas, sometimes by accompanying his words with a gesture of the hand, or by touching a scepter, a horse, a chariot, or the entrails of a sacrificed animal, and often by calling upon the gods as witnesses. And the gods, too, have their own oath: the most inviolable of all, which calls upon the waters of the Styx as witnesses; whoever breaks it is destined to spend a year in a state of unconsciousness and nine years away from the assembly of the gods. The oath can be an art: as it was for Autolycus, the grandfather of Ulysses, highly skilled in the techniques of theft and the oath, which he knew how to manipulate with the finest cunning. Complementary to the oath is the curse (ἀρά), often terrible: it is, for Demosthenes, what, together with the laws, holds the state together.

In this course, which will be conducted entirely in Ancient Greek, we will explore the roots of this mysterious institution, which set the foundations of human society and remained relevant until the very recent past. We will do so bhttps://www.scholahumanistica.com/wordpress/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=scholae_ity reading passages from Homer, Plato, Demosthenes, and Aristotle, and then reflecting upon the role of the oath in Philo of Alexandria and the New Testament. Finally, we will dedicate time to practicing, both orally and in writing, the vocabulary and the formulas of oaths in Ancient Greek.

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Last Day to Register: 22 June, 2026