Il trionfo della non-ragione: la comprensione del male nelle Troiane di Euripide

This paper is an attempt to interpret the peculiarly static and asyndetic structure of Euripides’ Trojan Women, as well as its overtly pessimistic stance, as a reflection of the philosophical crisis undergone by late 5th c. Athenian culture. At the peak of its power, Athenian democracy fails more and more to give birth to political projects that can grant the polis both its growing prosperity and a cultural identity consistent with traditional axiologies. The consequences of war, as they are shown in this text, may be read as a philosophical metaphor: what war destructs are not only human lives and the bonds of families and political communities, but the very possibility of an ethical order whatsoever. Hence Hecuba’s disillusioned, desperate glance on what remains of all forms of symbolic order: military valour, social behaviours, human justice and the ultimately ineffective or irrelevant power of the gods.