Incidenza dell'antico Dialoghi di storia greca

«Trinkets», «knick-knacks», «toys», and «sandcastles» are among the most frequent modern translations of the Greek term athyrma in its Homeric occurrences. The noun, glossed by Greek and Byzantine grammarians as an archaic synonym for paignion («plaything»), has raised significant exegetical questions regarding its semantic value and the connotations it evokes in archaic Greek poetry. This study moves beyond the narrow scope of ‘one-to-one’ lexical equivalences with the term’s (para-)synonyms, offering instead a comprehensive analysis of the contexts in which the noun athyrma is used. In doing so, the study also engages with the etymological reflections provided by ancient Greek lexicographers and commentators on the Homeric text. Spanning a broad range of texts over an extended chronological period, from Sappho to Aelian, this research seeks to highlight a cultural representation of athyrma that departs from the interpretations suggested by modern translations. The analyses presented here suggest that the term athyrma belongs to a cultural and semiotic network more closely aligned with categories such as ‘marvellous artefact’, ‘precious object’, and ‘captivating spectacle’.

Aelian | Agalma | Athyrma | Homer | Play | Precious objects

In the third chapter of his Lakedaimonion Politeia, Xenophon describes the practices that Lycurgus established for the age-grade of the paidiskoi, who were expected to contain their natural exuberance and to display, conversely, a strong sense of modesty and discretion. According to a recent orthodoxy, this age-grade included Spartan adolescents from the age of 14 to reaching adulthood at 20 years old. While the ancient sources mentioning the paidiskoi do not allow for certainty, this paper identifies them as the youth aged between 18 and 20. A suggestion in this direction is given by the hair practices of the Spartans, that required boys to have their heads shaved and adults to wear their hair long. This implies that there should be a group in-between consisting of those who were letting their hair grow: it is argued here that this age-grade lasted two years and consisted of the paidiskoi.

Spartan society | Youth age-grades | Education system | Hair | Xenophon

The contribution aims to analyse all the Greek testimonies about Bacis, one of the best-known chresmologoi mentioned in the sources, starting with the two authors that provide the most significant information on him and report direct quotations from his oracles: Herodotus and Pausanias. The two authors, though at a distance, offer a positive portrait of the diviner, contrasting with a more devaluative idea, which, in the Attic context, is started by both Aristophanes’ invective and judgments of Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, in the wake of a more general hostility towards mantic not related to the Delphic sanctuary.

Bacis | Oracular literature | Herodotus | Pausanias | Divination in the ancient world

Attributed to the Spartan kings Cleomenes I and Leotichidas II, two Apophthegmata Laconica testimony that Sparta had a ban on the consecration of weapons taken from fallen enemies. Another ban, ascribed to Lycurgus and summarized by Aelian, even prohibited the plundering of the adversaries. The present paper aims to focus on the artificial character of this tradition, by demonstrating its historical unreliability through a comparison with the limited archaeological evidence and the main historiographical sources of the fifth century BCE, namely Herodotus and Thucydides. It will be therefore suggested the identification of a terminus post quem, after which it became necessary the invention of tradition about the bans that later contributed to the mirage Spartiate.

Apophthegmata Laconica | Skyla | Spartan traditions | Alexander the Great | Mirage Spartiate

This paper provides an overview of P.Oxy. 5584. The papyrus, published in 2023, contains a series of lives, albeit fragmentary, of some generals and politicians from the Roman Republic: Sulla, Caesar, Curio (trib. pl. 50 BC), Lepidus the Elder (cos. 78 BC), Lepidus the Younger (triumvir) and Appius Claudius Caecus. The text, which can be assigned to the de viris illustribus genre, sheds new light on the features and reception of Strabo’s Ἱστορικὰ ὑπομνήματα, providing a new fragment of this work.

Ancient biography | Roman Republic | De viris illustribus | C. Scribonius Curio | Strabo’s Historika hypomnemata

The very young Giacomo Leopardi in the songs All’Italia and Ad Angelo Mai quand’ebbe trovato i libri di Cicerone della Repubblica refers, respectively, to the screeching of the stars and the sun in «diving» into the Ocean: this image reveals clearly the fact that Leopardi knew the tradition, reported by the Latin poets and, even before that, by the Greek geographers, of the ‘sizzle’ that the sun would produce when setting in the Far Western Ocean. This tradition, perhaps also taken up by Artemidorus of Ephesus, had been widely contested, even on an autopsy basis, by Posidonius of Apamea, yet it had continued to influence, beyond any rational consideration, poets, from the Latin ones up to the young Leopardi, melancholy ruthless revealer of the popular errors of the ancients.

Giacomo Leopardi | Posidonius of Apamea | Artemidorus of Ephesus | Strabo | ‘Sizzle’ of the sun in the Ocean

When Aristotle examines the causes of stasis in cities in his Politics, he makes the feeling of injustice the primary cause of revolutions and establishes that democrats and oligarchs are at odds over the definition of justice in political matters: whereas the formers base justice on the notion of equality, the latters use the recognition of arete as a criterion. The aim of this article is to examine how, from Herodotus with the discourse of the Persian Megabyze to the tyranny of the Thirty, a political discourse is developed that makes ‘virtue’ the measure of oligarchic justice.

Oligarchy | Democracy | Aristocracy | Justice | Virtue

This paper focuses on the role played by discretion in the construction of the public image of politicians in the Greek and Graeco-Macedonian world, between the 5th and 3rd century BC. By discretion, I refer to the deliberate choice by political leaders to avoid or reduce their accessibility in relationships with collaborators, rivals, and more generally with their fellow citizens or subjects. The case studies addressed reveal that the effect of this choice is not univocal: the politician’s decision not to be approachable can be understood as a sign of dignity and solemnity, of philosophically inspired moderation, but it can also be stigmatized as the expression of an aloof and arrogant character, or on the contrary of a fearful one. Ultimately, the reactions that we can trace in the sources vary depending on the contexts, purposes and reference values used to judge the behaviour of the protagonists of the political struggle. These differences allow us to better understand the reactions of different political and cultural systems when faced with the self-promotion strategies of figures invested with strong personal power.

Discretion | Negotiating skills | Pericles | Dio | Hellenistic courts

This paper discusses some of the main ‘vices’ of Bithynian politics as they emerge from Dio Chrysostom’s Bithynian orations. It focuses on the issue of local rivalries between Bithynian poleis, the problematic relations between poleis and Roman authorities and, eventually, the difficult position of Dio in Prusa.

Bithynia | Dio Chrysostom | Rivalry | Competition | Corruption | Homonoia

According to Plato, great natures may develop both great virtues and great vices, but education can help choose the right moral and political behaviour. Vices are soul diseases and they also include anoia. This vice is caused by amathia and can affect a single man and a city too. Plato’s description of the young, rich, and beautiful man refusing philosophy, in the Republic, has been rightly connected to Alcibiades, but also Laws 716a-b might be evoking him. Particularly, this passage seems to have been inspired by Thucydides’ famous portrait of the Athenian politician. The historian depicts him by means of two characteristics also described by the philosopher, youth and anoia. This paper investigates the possible connection between Plato and Thucydides and the relevance of the conceptual pair from a political point of view.

Thucydides | Plato | Alcibiades | Anoia | Democracy

After the contact between Greeks and Scythians on the northern coast of the Black Sea, the Greeks formed an idea of the Scythians that did not entirely correspond to reality. It took a long time to adjust it. Herodotus, who was the first to attempt to systematize Greek knowledge about the Scythians, seems to be aware that the ‘freedom’ of the Scythians was perhaps more a myth than a real fact, but nevertheless, in his account, the idea of a free Scythia constantly emerges, contrasting with Achaemenid Persia where everyone was subject to the Great King.

Scythians | Greeks | Nomadism | Herodotus | Freedom

The presentation of Theseus, the archetypal hero of the Athenians, is subject to various reworkings over time, highlighting his vices and virtues. A privileged point of view is that of the Atthidographers: the authors who preserve the greatest number of fragments about the hero (Hellanicus, Cleidemus, Philochorus) show some peculiarities that deserve to be considered in depth.

Attidography | Hellanicus | Cleidemus | Philochorus | Theseus

This essay approaches the role of cardinal virtues in Xenophon’s Anabasis through three salient passages: Xenophon’s speech to Seuthes in Book VII, the obituary of Menon in Book II, and the obituary of Cyrus in Book I. It shows that these passages are informed by the same rather selective framework of virtues and offers an explanation of the generally low incidence of classic virtue words in Anabasis.

Arete | Truth | Generosity | Justice | Stylistic register