Poliybius as na epistemological model of Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos

Abstract

K. Paparrigopoulos retakes two passages from the Hellenistic historian Polybius of Megalopolis: the first, when he deals with the question of the historian‘s personal skill, question which directs the analysis to the universalizing element as basis of Polybius‘ work; and the second, about the history‘s tragic lesson, centered around death and humane finitude as the proper lessons of history. Both retakings are read in view of the search of elements that make possible a present historiographical-philological thinking able to discuss not only the genre‘s nature today but also the possible meanings of the knowledge of the past. The Paparrigopulian retaking of Polybius shows not only the permanence of similar lectures in different historical contexts, because they are based upon permanent elements as the human condition, despite the chronological distance, but also the same political attitude in the same different contexts, that is, the historiographer‘s insertion in politics when his text galvanizes cultural aspirations of the political dominators.