The thesis of this book is easily stated: I argue that the modern concept of forgiveness, in the full or rich sense of the term, did not exist in classical antiquity, that is, in ancient Greece and Rome, or at all events that it played no role whatever in the ethical thinking of those societies. What is more, it is not fully present in the Hebrew Bible, nor again in the New Testament or in the early Jewish and Christian commentaries on the Holy Scriptures; it would still be centuries – many centuries – before the idea of interpersonal forgiveness, and the set of values and attitudes that necessarily accompany and help to define it, would emerge. This is not to say that there were no other ways of achieving reconciliation between wrongdoers and those who are wronged, just that forgiveness in the modern sense was not among them. The absence of forgiveness in these ancient cultures is not merely a matter of terminology or theory, moreover, but involves a sharp distinction in ethical outlook, and may even be said to reflect differences in the ancient and modern conception of the self – a term that is often vague in its reference but in connection with forgiveness has a specific and clear use, and one that helps distinguish modern from classical conceptions of ethical identity.