Phd in PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT
WORLD

Thesis title: Tirannide e sacro nella Grecia arcaica. Figure, dinamiche e memoria di esperienze autocratiche

This dissertation examines the relationship between tyranny and the sacred in archaic Greece, investigating how religious dimensions intersected with autocratic power and shaped both historical dynamics and collective memory. While previous scholarship has primarily analyzed tyranny from political and institutional perspectives, this study focuses on the ways in which the sacred sphere – rituals, spaces, and transgressions – interacted with the phenomenon of tyrannis. Through an analysis of literary sources, the research explores the religious implications of tyranny, focusing on cases in which acts of impiety, supplication, and memory erasure reflect the deep tension between individual power and the divine or communal order of the polis. The first chapter examines the violation of the right of supplication in episodes involving figures such as Kylon of Athens, Pausanias of Sparta, Euryleon of Heraclea Minoa and Telys of Sybaris, revealing how the sacrilege associated with their deaths generated lasting pollution for their communities. The second chapter studies the motif of stoning as a form of collective violence and purification, considering the cases of Mennes of Kyme, Kylon of Athens, Phalaris of Akragas and Coes of Mytilene. The third chapter analyzes the annihilation of tyrannical memory through the destruction of houses and tombs, highlighting how the condemnation of tyranny extended beyond death into the religious and civic domain. Methodologically, the thesis integrates literary interpretation with anthropological and sociological perspectives, re-evaluating concepts such as agos and miasma to illuminate how tyranny operated as both a political and a religious transgression. Ultimately, the study demonstrates that the sacred was not a marginal element but a fundamental medium through which Greek communities conceptualized and remembered autocratic power.