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Chapter 5 - Physis on the Battlefield

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2024

K. Scarlett Kingsley
K. Scarlett Kingsley
Affiliation:
Agnes Scott College, Decatur
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Summary

This chapter explores the Histories’ interest in human nature on the battlefield in terms of valour. It reviews instances in which the historical actors – including Pixodarus, Xerxes, and Themistocles – foreground the strategic importance of "surpassing nature." This is a motif that places the speakers in a network of sophistic and later, Platonic, theories on man’s desire to outstrip his own nature. At stake is a philosophy of "superior nature" that is strongly undercut by the complexity of the action on the battlefield.

Keywords

HerodotusHistoriesnaturephysisbattlefieldGreco-Persian WarslawcustomAirsWatersPlacestranshumanismXerxesDemaratusThemistoclesvalordespotismkosmosrule of the stronger
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Herodotus and the Presocratics
Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
 , pp. 141 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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