Per una sintassi del sacrificio: Ifigenia al di là del dono e della violenza

This study analyzes Iphigeneia’s sacrifice by showing its various meanings and implications coming out from the ancient Greek literary sources through an anthropological perspective and, in particular, through the reflections about sacrifice made by Valerio Valeri. Valeri’s theory is right for reading sacrifices in their richness and giving some tools for studying them: in the case of Iphigeneia, the ‘inclusive notion’ elaborated by him proves to be better and more complete than the ‘exclusive’ one, by not allowing to belittle sacrifice to a mere gift or violent act – as other important theories did. The analysis of Iphigeneia’s episode will show the necessity to look at sacrifice not as a rigid category, but as part of a multifaceted horizon: in this sense, a key role could be played by Valeri’s family resemblances approach, together with the polythetic classification.