Eukrasia and Enkrateia: Greco-Roman Theories of Blending and the Struggle for Virtue

A number of ancient philosophers showed a keen interest in understanding whether moral development and the acquisition of virtue is in any way affected by the material constitution of human bodies. Moral education and socialisation were conceived of as having a significant impact on the resulting behaviours, while individual natures, thanks to their special physiological characteristics, were frequently seen as constantly interacting with acquired traits, eventually determining individual characters. This paper focuses on two key concepts of this wider subject, krasis (blending) and enkrateia (continence), and attempts to trace their philosophical interrelations throughout Greek and Roman Antiquity, especially from the fifth century BCE to the first century CE. An important result of this analysis reveals that during this period, enkrateia is described – often explicitly – as a manifestation of krasis, signifying as it does a well-balanced blending of certain ‘ingredients’.