La nave dello Stato. Storia corsara di una metafora e di alcune parole

The article retraces some exemplary passages of the metaphor of the ship of the State, from the most ancient Greek evidences to some of today's uses. In particular, passages by Alcaeus, Aeschylus and Plato are taken into consideration. Furthermore, the article discusses ancient Greek terminology relating to ships and shows the intense vitality of the Greek language in the reality and imagination of Western culture in this field as in others.