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Hello, the importance of oaths in the classical world can't be overstated kings citizens soldiers litigants all swore oaths

Inviting divine retribution if they proved false to their word oath cemented peace treaters

They obliged the Athenian citizenry to protect their democracy

They guaranteed the loyalty of the Roman army to its emperor and they underpinned the legal systems of Athens and Rome and in

Homer's epic poem the Iliad it's a broken oath to settle the dispute between menilayers and Paris that leaves the Greeks to storm Troy in pursuit of Helen

But how did the classical world come to understand the oath?

Why did oaths come to occupy such a central place in the political social and legal life of the Athenian state and what

Rolled oath-making play in the expanding Roman Empire

With me to discuss the oath is Mary Beard professor in classics at the University of Cambridge

Alan Somersdine professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham and Paul Cartelidge professor of Greek history at the University of Cambridge

Alan Somersdine you say that an oath can best be understood as a conditional self curse. Could you develop that?

Yes, it's really if you'll pick it apart

Consists of three things firstly. There's a declaration. You're

asserting that something is the case

Well, that you're telling the truth or you're promising to do something in the future and in the tray

They talk about assertory oaths and promissory oaths

Secondly, you specify the superior powers whom you're invoking as witnesses to punish you with the oath is false

normally gods

But sometimes you'll you'll be swearing by or on sacred or cherished objects and

Thirdly, you you specify the curse that you're calling down on yourself if the oath is violated

...