Cinzia Bearzot

I saggi raccolti in questo volume studiano la figura del migrante qualificato nel mondo antico. Quali aspettative di integrazione ha questo tipo di migrante? Quali risultati riesce effettivamente a raggiungere?

Se all’interno dell’impero romano i confini erano aboliti e non c’erano barriere, verso l’esterno delimitavano il deserto: al di fuori c’erano i barbari, gli stranieri. Siamo tornati a quei tempi? Un filosofo, una storica e un geografo a confronto.

Ricerche storico-archeologiche condotte in Pakistan da un’équipe dell’Università Cattolica sul delta dell’Indo hanno evidenziato l’esistenza di una grande città. Ed è stato appurato che il sito di Banbhore non è altro che la storica città di Daybul.

Il volume raccoglie una serie di saggi sull’Epitome, opera di Giustino, delle Storie filippiche di Pompeo Trogo, per il periodo da Nino, re degli Assiri, a Filippo II di Macedonia.

La dialettica fra tradizione e innovazione, fra immobilismo e dinamicità, fra conservazione e apertura al nuovo che caratteriz

Il mondo antico ha elaborato idee, concetti, valori e discipline alla base della civiltà occidentale, della sua cultura e del suo stile di vita. Ma un tale patrimonio, oggi emarginato nella società e nel mondo dell’istruzione, rischia di disperdersi.

L’esistenza di ‘partiti’ politici nella polis greca è stata oggetto di un vivace dibattito tra i moderni. La critica si è generalmente espressa in senso scettico sulla possibilità di individuare nell’esperienza politica greca strutture comparabili ai moderni partiti.

This paper aims to identify the main features of Argos’ policy in the fifth century B.C. Modern scholars have underlined neutrality, defence from Spartan hegemony, and alliance with the Arcadians (especially with Mantinea) and with Athens. Friendship with Athens has been particularly discussed since, despite favourable premises, it was not very successful (as for example after 462/1 and between 421 and 418). Consequently, some scholars argue that Argive relations with Athens cannot explain the whole of Argos’ policy in the fifth century. Kelly states that this policy was «essentially pro- Argive». In my opinion, however, Argos often showed too little capacity of initiative and too great internal divisions, that did not permit a consistent ‘nationalistic’ policy. The relations with Athens were no doubt favoured by political affinity (Thuc. V 44, 1). Only a democratic government could, in fact, enable Argos to set herself free from Sparta, join democratic, anti-Spartan states (such as Athens, Arcadia and Elis), and aspire to restore her ancient hegemony on the Peloponnesos. On the contrary, with an oligarchic, pro-Spartan government Argos could only aspire to control Argolid and enforce a local policy. For this reason Argos was influenced by internal stasis. On several occasions (probably in 469-464 and in 451, and certainly in 417), the revival of the oligarchical faction caused a change in Argive foreign policy. Unlike Athens, Argos was a weak and disunited democracy, built from a forced assimilation of people of lower status (perhaps even of different ethnical origin) and often undermined by a strenuous oligarchical faction. Beside fear of isolation and internal divisions, historical events highlight, in my opinion, a strong influence of Corinth on Argos’ policy (perhaps not enough underlined by modern scholarship). We can identify several episodes from the end of the sixth century until 421; but Corinth’s role clearly emerges from the events of the years 421-418. After the conclusion of the alliance between Sparta and Athens in 421, the Corinthians tried to arrange a great Peloponnesian democratic coalition under the leadership of Argos, whose aim was to save the Peloponnesos from subjugation (Thuc. V 27, 2). The Corinthians evidently did not intend to claim Peloponnesian hegemony for themselves: they consciously left this leading role to the Argives, either because Argos had historical traditions that made it the best alternative to Sparta as Peloponnesian leader, or in order not to get too much involved in an uncertain and dangerous project. Furthermore, Argos’ leadership could obtain the approval of Peloponnesian democratic states, that did not trust the oligarchical Corinth, for the Corinthian project. Afterwards, Corinth’s attitude seems to have been fundamental in the crisis of the anti-Spartan coalition. When the Corinthians withdrew from the anti-Spartan front during the year 420, the Argives lost their interest in Peloponnesian hegemony. Being afraid of remaining isolated, they first tried to come to a compromise with the Spartans, and then reapproached the Athenians. In comparison with Corinth, Argive political and diplomatic initiative shows lack of consistency and impressive weakness after 421. Thus, Argos’ policy seems to have often depended on external initiative and to have been conditioned, or inspired, by Corinth. The great influence Corinth had on Argos’ choices also depended on the geopolitical situation of Argos that was under Spartan pressure on the southern side and Corinthian menace in the North. Sometimes Argos tried to extend her influence to the detriment of Corinth; more often she suffered Corinth’s initiative and became an instrument of Corinthian policy. Thus, in the fifth century Argive foreign policy seems to have been a ‘vicarious’ policy, actually led by the Corinthians.

In Lysander’s Life (14, 3) Plutarch mentions Lysander’s attempt to colonize Sestos by installing there his seamen, after taking the town from the Athenians and expelling its inhabitants. His attempt failed for Spartan opposition. According to Plutarch, on this occasion, for the first time Spartan government didn’t support Lysander who was compelled to abandon his plan. Lysander’s project could not invoke a sure precedent in Spartan history. As it seems, it was a new, personal initiative of ‘imperial’ politics, with the purpose of strengthening the relationship between commander and soldiers, and of making Lysander popular among his fleet’s sailors. Had Lysander any model for his colonial initiative in mind? Or was it only connected with the navarch’s powerful, innovating personality? Lysander’s historical experience can conjure up several models, such as Polycrates the tyrant, Brasidas the general, Pausanias the regent. Pausanias, in particular, seems to resemble Lysander as far as personality, ambitions, care of his public image, and way of life are concerned. Lysander’s contemporaries perceived such striking analogy, as attested in a sentence by king Agis II: according to Athenaeus (XII, 543 c), the king used to say that, with Lisander, Sparta bore ‘a second Pausanias’. It has been stressed that Thucydides’ account on Brasidas seems to be influenced by Lysander’s historical experience. In the same way, Diodorus’s account on Pausanias suggests that the image of Lysander influenced the perception of the Spartan regent in the Bibliotheca historica. Diodorus’ main source, Ephorus, seems to blame their analogous intolerance of the limits imposed on individuals by the Spartan tradition, and their refusal of the typical ‘Spartan way of life’. Thus, our sources suggest lively debate on Lysander as a ‘new Pausanias’ which involved historians as Ephorus and Theopompus. According to the fragments, the former probably underlined the similarities between Pausanias and Lysander, as in the contemporary tradition represented by king Agis; the latter denied such similarities by depicting Lysander as indifferent to money and pleasures, and not eager to imitate a foreign way of life. If such debate occurred, then, Lysander’s taking of Sestos to colonize it with his men as a private dominion did probably remind his contemporaries of the shadow of Pausanias’s dominion in Byzantium after the Second Persian War. Lysander did not likely mean to conjure up Pausanias’s alarming precedent; on the contrary, he probably meant to imitate Brasidas who had been Amphipolis’s founder unconditionally trusted by his soldiers, and who, nonetheless, still respected Spartan tradition. However, Lysander’s unconventional behaviour increasingly led to perceiving him as a ‘new Pausanias’, and spread worries about his personal initiatives and their constitutional consequences. Spartan apprehensions are proved by Agis’s sentence and in a similar remark by the Spartan Eteokles who, according to Plutarch (Lys. 19, 5), used to say that «Greece would not have suffered two Lysanders». So, ‘conventional’ Spartans as Agis and Eteokles gave expression to the apprehensions of Spartan conservative political groups about Lysander’s ‘unconventional’ initiatives.

Argo, una delle più importanti ‘terze forze’ del quadro internazionale greco, fu città di solide tradizioni democratiche, ma la sua esperienza fu assai diversa rispetto al modello ateniese, sia sul piano delle forme istituzionali, sia sul piano della convivenza civile.