Secondo Tucidide. La paura non è emozione di donne

Abstract

The study runs along two parallel lines, following the theme of fear and the theme of women in Thucydides’ Histories. Thucydides identifies fear as a key factor in political thought and relations within the polis and between poleis. In a sharp departure from the traditional misogyny of Greek culture, Thucydides never crosses the emotion of fear with the female figures remembered in the Histories by groups or individually. The women of the Histories are not extensions of the frightening female monsters that crowd the myths nor of the murderesses of tragedy. Nor are they the lesser, frail and frightened subjects of the tragic choruses. Surprisingly, Thucydides places the women of the war years in in concrete life settings, now in the role of victims now in the aggressive role of fighters in guerrilla warfare, in which they act in the background, but as rational and aware subjects, never in the grip of emotions.