Espaços do Grego e espaços do outro nas Suplicantes de Ésquilo

Abstract

Suppliants, mistakenly taken for a long time as the most ancient Aeschylus’ play preserved, focuses on the Greek/Barbaric dichotomy in light of the genre issue. Throughout the tragedy, several physical spaces, whether being only mentioned or dramatically presented, echo the first stated controversy: from the Nile margins to the Argos’ sanctuary and its statues of gods, and even going through the spaces referred by chorus by narrating its own escape, this communication studies how all these places – not only in a geographical and physical perspective, but also in a cultural and political one – work to draw near both Greek and Oriental civilizations. In fact, these two poles become gradually less different, even equally human, through the supplication, which is made, both legally and culturally, in a Hellenic way. Therefore, Suppliants offers both the reader and modern criticism a useful and fruitful example of how the concept of Otherness is challenged, allowing the identification of the Oriental Other with the Greek Self.