Alla periferia del mondo, ai margini dell’umano. Felicità e dolore in Diodoro

Abstract

In the proem of his Bibliotheke, Diodorus Siculus states that a historian should provide knowledge for all mankind. Hence, the value of a historian is not measured by his ability to gather in a single narrative stories of men from all times all over the world. What matters is the way in which the common human nature of all of the actors in history emerges. This contribution focuses on the first part of Book III, in particular on the Ichthyophagoi and Acridophagoi, where the historian’s gaze oscillates between idealisation and compassion towards such primitive peoples. The diodorean ethnographic report has the merit to provide a backdrop to some of the guidelines of the cultural debate in the Hellenistic age. In this framework, even the knowledge of the peripheral world (eschatiai) can provide useful exempla.