Un sofista in Tracia. Polimestore nell’Ecuba di Euripide

Euripides’ Hecuba is based on a series of oppositions: Thracian host/killer; Asia = freedom vs. Europe = slavery; Trojans barbarians, but ethically superior to the Greeks; Polymestor a Thracian, but with rhetorical competence and political opportunism; Hecuba, a Trojan who questions nobility by birth or education. Comparison with other texts makes it possible, on the one hand, to grasp certain aspects that were considered characteristic of the beginnings of humanity (eating human flesh), and on the other, to focus on the peculiar relationship that the Athenians had with Thrace: a land that was near and familiar, but at the same time characterized by the possibility of experimenting with forms of absolute power that were not permitted in Athens. And it is no chance that Polymestor is credited with a reflection on the actions of the gods and religion that is very close to those of some sophists.