AbstractA contribution to a scholarly controversy that has been on-going for a quarter century now, this article provides a critical review of previous studies on the existence of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) as a consequence of extreme violence in the ancient world. It highlights methodological difficulties in attempting to ‘diagnose’ psychological illnesses across a distance of more than two millennia by means of highly stylized literary texts. Simultaneously, it introduces crucial new evidence in the form of a late antique papyrus originally published in 1924 (P.Oxy. 16/1873), which has hitherto been almost completely ignored by scholarship. The papyrus, a letter written by a man called Martyrios in sixth century Lycopolis and addressed to his father, recounts psychological war trauma as a result of an attack on his hometown. He does so in a first-person perspective, using a highly select and unusual vocabulary to describe his emotional impairment. Because of its syntactical and vocabulary extravagance, this letter is sometimes seen as a fictional literary reflex. The authors argue, on the contrary, that this letter is the only reliable documentary evidence for psychological war trauma from the ancient world known so far.
Resilience in the aftermath of war trauma: a critical review and commentary