RATIONES RERUM 27: Articolo Elena Sofia Capra

Descrizione

Rationes Rerum 27

ELENA SOFIA CAPRA
E poi non rimase nessuno. L’attacco persiano contro Eretria e Atene in Platone

This article explores Plato’s unconventional use of historical material concerning the Persian attack on Eretria in 490 BC. Through an analysis of the Menexenus (240a-d) and the Laws (3, 698c-e), it shows how Plato departs from Herodotus in order to emphasize the psychological impact of the Persian σαγήνεια and of the alarming reports that reached Athens. Whereas Athenian authors generally pass over the fall of Eretria in silence, Plato makes it a key narrative device with which to criticize Greek disunity and the short-sighted cowardice of the πόλεις that failed to send help. The paper argues that Plato’s accounts function less as objective history than as a “history of propaganda”, and that they amount to a reflection on how Athens remembered her past and on the perceived failure of Hellenism during the first Persian invasion of Greece.