Mneme. Temi e direzioni di ricerca nella storia greca degli ultimi decenni

Autore: Leone Porciani
In: Storica. 75 • anno XXV, 2019
doi:10.23744/3457
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Abstract

It is time to reflect on the evolution of Greek history in the five decades that separate us from a famous article by A. Momigliano, Prospettiva 1967 della storia greca. The revision of the Greek archaic colonization, the discussion of the statute of ancient historiography, the notion of «intentional» history can in fact be considered manifestations or extensions of a pervasive paradigm, that of memory as a constructive process. According to this paradgm, invention (which has always been part of game rules of history, and a component, risky as much as virtuous, of the research method) takes the place of the object of research. We no longer study the past, but the invention, or inventions, of the past. An attempt has been made, quite simply, to demolish ancient historical literature, that is, secondary sources on early Greece, from the origins of Greek civilization to the 6th and 5th centuries BC. On the one hand, in doing so, entire sectors of ancient history have been eliminated, with a special focus on the incubation period of the Greek poleis; on the other hand, one of the columns supporting the knowledge of the past has been swept away, putting Herodotus and also Thucydides on a different shelf of the library – that of literature.

Keywords: Ancient historiography: Intentional history; Invention; Memory.