Arruolare la natura in Erodoto

Abstract

The study identifies the roles assigned by Herodotus to natural and environmental elements in war events, or in general conflictual events. These elements are considered as cooperators of justice by virtue of law according to which men and the local natural environment constitute a complex of mutually supportive parts and even in a concrete relationship of mutual aid. They also appear as spaces characterized in a merely dimensional sense. Here the Greek «smallness» is functional to the impossibility of containing the number of the Persian army which, therefore, can only be defeated.