Euripide nella preistoria. Ifigenia in Tauride e Ciclope

In the 5th century B.C. the history of human progress was investigated by sophists such as Protagoras and Hippias and by historians such as Thucydides and also by tragic poets, who drew on the only source of information they had on the most remote ages: epic sagas. In particular Euripides is interested in this topic and writes tragedies that are journeys in space (or rather outside the known geographical space) and time. During these journeys the heroes meet peoples who practice uses inconceivable to the Greeks, such as Taurians (Iphigenia in Tauris) and Cyclopes (Cyclops). Different is the case of Helen, which brings the characters into contact with the Egyptians, a barbarian people for the Greeks, but not characterized by the extreme alterity of Taurians and Cyclopes and similar to those Persians with whom the Greeks had constant relations.