Panic

Definition: The ancient Greeks attributed the emotion of panic to the Greek god Pan. In The Emotions of the Greeks, David Konstan explains that when people accidentally ran into the wild beast that was the god Pan, he would instill them with terror. Celebration of the god was noisy, leading to an association of panic and commotion. The Greeks understood panic as a collective, irrational fear, that comes on suddenly, and is without visible cause.

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