This chapter focuses on the increasingly ambivalent attitudes towards wonder which arose in Athens in the late fifth and early fourth century BCE. The chapter begins by examining Aristotle’s thoughts about the connections between wonder, language and rhetoric. The perceived power of rhetoric and language to create effects of wonder which destabilise previously clearly drawn boundaries and cultural oppositions is then explored further through examinations of the place of marvels and the marvellous in Aristophanes’ Birds and Thucydides’ History. The association between wonder, Athens and Athenian imperial power in this period is also explored.

This chapter focuses on the increasingly ambivalent attitudes towards wonder which arose in Athens in the late fifth and early fourth century BCE. The chapter begins by examining Aristotle’s thoughts about the connections between wonder, language and rhetoric. The perceived power of rhetoric and language to create effects of wonder which destabilise previously clearly drawn boundaries and cultural oppositions is then explored further through examinations of the place of marvels and the marvellous in Aristophanes’ Birds and Thucydides’ History. The association between wonder, Athens and Athenian imperial power in this period is also explored.