Przyczynek do „hoplickiego piekła”. Słońce w helleńskiej narracji wojennej
The ‘Hoplite Hell’. The sun in the hellenic battle narration

Summary/Abstract: The Mediterranean sun confronted with a heavily armed warrior is a commonly known paradox in the ancient Greece. The opposition of these two elements forms the main framework of numerous studies and most recently the term ‘the Hoplite hell’ was coined in order to refer to the phenomenon. Contemporary scholars agree that the sun was one of the main obstacles which the ancient Greek warriors had to fight, as it heated the ground up to 32°C in the morning. It might seem surprising however that the ancient Greek literary sources very rarely depict Grecian warriors tormented by the sun rays and the picture is far from being a battlefield topos. In the military context, the distant object on the blue horizon appears to be physically separated from the earth surface and from the fighters; and its role seems to be different from what one could expect. The author of the article tries to present the functions attributed to the sun in the battlefield by the ancient Greeks according to the preserved testimonies.

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