Emotion, Restraint, and Community is an essay in cultural psychology. By examining the ways in which emotions, and talk about emotions, reinforce cultural norms, it aims to understand the interplay between the emotions and the ethics of the Roman upper classes in the late Republic and early Empire. How (in the Roman view) is virtuous behavior shaped by the emotions? How in particular do various Roman forms of fear, dismay, indignation, and revulsion support or constrain ethically significant behavior? How do the domains of these emotions--what they are "about"--intersect, overlap, or complement each other? How does their interaction create an economy of displeasure that aims to shape society in constructive ways? And--since the Romans' language of emotions is not our own--how can we answer any of these questions without imposing upon the Romans our own notions of what a given emotion is? In offering answers to all these questions the book casts new light both on the Romans and on cross-cultural understanding of emotions

Robert A. Kaster is Professor of Classics and Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin at Princeton University