Search results for "storiografia pagana"

Heroic memory and polis: Achilles and Athens in Zosimus’ Historia Nova

2013

At the time when most people believe in the intercession of the holy man to save the city from barbarians or natural disasters, heroic memory still seems to be venerated by the last pagans. Two passages from Zosimus’ Historia Nova (IV 18 and V 6) tell us how Achilles saved Athens.The first time, the city was spared the earthquake that devastated much of Greece during the empire of Valens; the second time, the city was preserved from Alaric’ ravages in 396-397, thanks to the supernatural precence of Athena Promachos too. These events, told only by Zosimus, are of great importance in the historian’ view, according to whom the neglect of Roman ancestral religion brought about the decline of th…