Stranieri. Figure dell'Altro nella Grecia antica

The book investigates, in the ancient Greek world, the conceptual division into "We" and "the Others" (and the connected ways of thinking about the foreigner), the relationships between the first group and the second (with particular attention to the experiences of nonviolent management of such relationships), the right of citizenship and, more generally, coexistence in a multicultural society. The first chapter deals with the theme of hospitality: in the Homeric world, welcoming the aristocratic foreigner, but also the beggar, is presented not as an act of individual charity but as a real institution under the aegis of divinity. Later, in the structure of the polis, hospitality becomes, in the form of proxenia, a political and civil practice. The second chapter presents the ideologies of purity that are imposed in Greece from the fifth century. B.C. on. The inferiorization of the Others coagulates around a series of semantic polarities: We Greeks vs. Their Barbarians, We Civilians vs. They Savages, We Citizens vs. Their Subdivisions. At the same time, the great myth of autochthony was born, based on the idea of the mother-earth, which legitimizes the idea of the natural superiority of natives over foreigners. The third chapter analyzes the forms of ancient racism, which is based on an ambiguity: in fact, if on the one hand the dominant ideology requires that the meteco be in its place, on the other, democracy agrees to renounce the principle of founded citizenship. on jus sanguinis whenever Realpolitik's utilitarian considerations impose it. Finally, the fourth chapter shows how the Greeks themselves, in particular the philosophers, had demystified the current ideologies of civic purity and cites examples of peaceful management of ethnic conflicts within poleis, as well as the novelties brought by Christians both in thought (for example , the notion of spiritual citizenship which replaces that of political citizenship) and in practice (an example for all, the invention of the "reception centers" of Basilio di Cesarea). In the new edition, in addition to having been enriched several chapters, the last paragraph concerning the relationship between religions in the Greek world has been added ex novo, at the request of today's interreligious problems.