What is the oath, where did it originate, and what is its purpose? The archaeology of the oath that this book proposes is an attempt to answer these questions. In a first-hand survey of its Greek and Roman sources—which highlights its links with archaic legislation, curses, the names of the Gods and blasphemy—Agamben places the origin of the oath in a new perspective, making it the decisive event of anthropogenesis, in other words in the humanisation of mankind. The oath has succeeded in becoming a “sacrament of power”, because it is first of all a “sacrament of language”, in which man, who has discovered the power of speech, decides to bind his word and entrust to it his very life and destiny. Sold to: Saemulgyul Publishing House (Korea), Stanford University Press (USA), Ptre-Textos (Spain), Vrin (France), Polity (UK), Adriana Hidalgo (Argentina), Suhrkamp (Germany).