“VITA ACTIVA” AND AUGMENTED REALITY. THE CASE STUDY PROVIDED BY AESCHYLUS’ PERSIANS IN 472 BCE

This paper examines how classical tragedy can inform modern pedagogy, guided by Hannah Arendt’s concept of vita activa and the immersive potential of augmented reality. Far from being mere fiction or escapism, theatre is a dynamic space where collective memory and myth confront the present. It reinterprets the past —whether mythic or historical— not to evoke nostalgia but to engage today’s audiences in meaningful reflection. Diverging from the didactic model propounded in antiquity in philosophical and religious milieus, we argue that theatre fosters experiential learning: a space for shared emotion, catharsis, and moral insight. Aeschylus’ Persians illustrates this power vividly. Staged only seven years after Salamis, it centered not on Greek victory but on the Persian enemy’s suffering. The backdrop was a city still marked by war, yet the audience —many of them veterans— was invited to feel compassion for their former foes. This reversal underscores tragedy’s civic function: to unify, humanize, and provoke reflection rather than glorify
conquest. In this sense, tragedy belongs to the vita activa, namely the realm of public life and civic participation. The spectator is not merely a passive observer but an engaged citizen, emotionally and intellectually involved. Tragedy
thus becomes both aesthetic and political: a vital space where the polis imagines itself anew through shared, transformative experience.