Un bambino buttato giù dalle torri. La morte di Astianatte nelle Troiane di Euripide

This article analyses the death of Astyanax in Troades by Euripides, within the wider context of the representation of violence in Attic drama. In her lamentation Andromache presents the killing of the child as barbaric and savage, so much so that she attributes the Greeks with a cannibalistic desire to feed on the meat of Astyanax. While weeping over the body, Hecuba underlines the uselessness of funeral rites, and therefore also what she is doing for the child: in this way the Greeks remain attached to the bestiality of there action for ever without being able to enter into the horizon of civilization of the funeral rite, granted by them to the defeated. The funeral eases the emotional tension of the spectators but does not eliminate the violence. The intention of the article is to demonstrate that with Troades the poet wanted to comment on the boundaries of behaviour that war imposes on human beings.