Note su amentes e amentia nel mondo tardoantico (tra retorica e storiografia)

Features and ways in which the concept of amentia is used are here observed on the basis of literary and rhetorical production between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Characters or groups to whom it is attributed are considered in order to assess whether stereotypical judgements or political and/or religious prejudices exist on it in pagan historiography and Christian literature. The observations focus on two main themes: representations of amentia that conceptualize not only psychosis and madness, but also punishment (sometimes resulting in brain degeneration), and representations of amentia as a condition of ethnic, social and religious otherness.