L'Ecuba euripidea: dramma della violenza sugli inermi

This paper focuses on ‘violence on unarmed people’ as the unifying theme that underlies the structure of the tragedy with an anthropopoietic function, what means to build up, by contrast, models of human and humanity.. All the three forms of violence against unarmed people, which can be singled out in the tragedy, are analyzed. The first is the sacred violence of Polyxena’s sacrifice, which is represented as an unnecessary and avoidable killing, due to the excessive power of the winners Greeks on losers barbarians. The second is the criminal violence upon Polydorus, motivated by greed for gold but also due to the impunity in a destructive war. The third is the ‘maenadic’ violence by which Hecuba takes her revenge upon the children of Polymestor. The poet may have represented violence – especially that violence leading to the bestializing process concerning Polymestor and Hecuba’s metamorphosis - as a model in order to show his audience the limits of human conduct and the feral and bestial consequences of these limits being infringed