Illustres inconnues : l’anonymat et la mémoire collective chez Polyen (iie siècle ap. J.-C.)

Abstract

As a compiler, the Greek rhetorician Polyaenus, who lived in Rome in the second century A.D., gives us a glimpse into the stories that were circulating around his time. In his most known didactic work, the Strategika, Polyaenus sorted and articulated together anecdotes that he considered befitting exempla, stories which, in his opinion, should be part of a collective memory. A fair number of these war-related stories depicts women playing a more or less determinant part. Among those, there are many anonymous women, which raises questions : what kind of traces can one leave, as a woman, without leaving a name ? What means does Polyaenus use to remember the anonymous women whose tales he chooses to recount ? From the story of the women of Argos, we shall try to bring out the circumstances in which the « nameless women » of Polyaenus deserve to appear in a collection of war stratagems.

Keywords

• Polyaenus
• war stratagems
• women
• anonymity
• collective memory
• Argos