La politica del corpo maledetto: per una ricostruzione del significato civico della sepoltura tragica

Abstract

One of the most enlightening situations to recognize the link between the theatre and the πόλις is when the latter decides to accept or expel the remains of a tragic hero who lived his last days as a cursed or persecuted man. For instance, the Theban law which provides the burial of Eteocles’ body, but not of Polinices’ one, derives from the necessity to show that the city treats its friends and enemies differently. Similarly, in the Athenian historical reality of the months following the fall of the Four Hundred, a decree provided that the dead Phrynichus should be tried for treason, and that his bones should be dug up and removed from Attica. However, the tragic Athens appears to be hospitable to contaminated and dangerous beings, even admitting their burial within its own borders. This is the case of the Sophoclean Oedipus, who gives his body to Athens as a gift that brings strength and protection. The miserable body of a cityless man like Oedipus becomes the sacred bulwark of Athens, precisely when Theseus makes his guest a dweller in the city. In the same way, at the end of the Children of Heracles by Euripides, after having been an enemy, Eurystheus has become a saving metic, informing that, if his body is buried at Athena’s shrine, it will be a guarantee of protection of the πόλις. Bearing in mind the textual and contextual peculiarities of the various passages which will be analysed, the purpose of my contribution is to throw more light upon the political and civic significance of the tragic burial.

Alessandro Boschi received a doctoral degree in Greek philology at the University of Pisa. His thesis, entitled Crizia tragico: testo critico, traduzione e commento delle testimonianze e dei frammenti, is a critical edition with a philological commentary of the testimonies and dramatic fragments attributed to Critias. During his doctorate, Alessandro Boschi conducted a six-month research visit at Bordeaux Montaigne University and the Ausonius Institute in Bordeaux. He has also participated in conferences in Pisa, Siena, Roma, Calgary, Warwick, Paris and Lyon. Alessandro Boschi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pisa, where his research deals with the myth of the Atreidae in the fragments of Attic tragedy.

Keywords: tragedy, theatre, πόλις, burial, politics