The paper focuses on the limits imposed to the understanding of alterity in Greek thought by its theory of history and by the opposition between epistème and doxa. The failure to appreciate the particular, the event in its own meaning, also imposed limits to the development of an ethnographic perspective. In this context, the paper examines the meaning of the category "savage" (or wild man) in Greek thought with special reference to the role played by Scytes in Herodotus' History.
savages; Greek thought; history; Scytes; Herodotus; particular; event; mythology; barbarians