L’Empereur face aux Anciens. I giorni di Sant’Elena

Abstract

The pages written by the St. Helena memorialists and those dictated by the Emperor are paramount to the understanding of the entangled and agonistic relationship between Napoleon and Antiquity after the end of his struggle for supremacy. This paper discusses in detail some salient leitmotifs of Napoleon’s reflections and views. In the years of the exile, his confrontation with intellectual products and historical figures of the ancient world emerges in all its complexity, not only as a series of comments on literary or military matters, but mainly as a tool to interpret and reflect on the métier d’historien and the course of human history.