Combat Trauma

From the 2000 historical blockbuster 'Gladiator' to the Total War series, brutal hand to hand warfare is something we commonly associate with antiquity. But do we have any ancient cases of psychological injury as a direct result of military service? Joining me to discuss this topic, focusing on cases from the Classical Greek Period (c.500 – 323 BC), is Dr Owen Rees. Owen is a historian of ancient warfare and society. He has also written papers about the possibility of an equivalent phenomenon to PTSD in ancient Greek warfare and how that trauma manifested itself differently in ancient Greek culture. In this podcast, we focus on the cases of two specific individuals from the Classical Period: Epizelus the Athenian and Clearchus the Spartan.