Lycanthropy and Ephialtes (Incubus) are two illnesses described by medical authors of late antiquity that were to become very important during the early modern period. Sufferers of lycanthropy, a form of melancholy, were said to behave like wolves, while a person afflicted with Ephialtes experienced an intense nightmare accompanied by the sensation of being attacked and suffocated. This thesis seeks to explore the nature of these medical entities at the time they were first described in late antiquity. Their cultural significance during this era differed considerably from that of their later reception during the early modern period ⿿ a topic into which there has still been very little research. the precise relationship between these illnesses and their cultural context in late antiquity will be studied, while keeping in mind the defining impact that the early modern concepts had ⿿ and still have ⿿ on the modern reception of lycanthropy and Ephialtes. The medical authors of late antiquity explicitly stated that Ephialtes was ⿿no demon, but rather a serious illness⿿. However, this study will show that the demon in question was scarcely known by their Greek and Roman contemporaries. The general rejection of a demonic explanation of the disease was nevertheless widely appreciated by physicians, and left its imprint on the medical texts of late antiquity. This thesis will further illustrate that none of the accounts of lycanthropy from late antiquity reveal any evidence that it was conceived in conjunction with a corresponding demonological idea, since no werewolf concept existed in Greek or Roman antiquity. Instead, lycanthropy drew upon the significance of the culturally very important wolf to produce a plausible melancholic disease based on this concept.
...MoreDescription Defense date not indicated; cited by UMI in 2010. Cited in ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing. Proquest Document ID: 899759174.
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