Greek Literary Topographies in the Roman Imperial World - (Ancient Environments) (Paperback)

About the Book

This volume presents new readings of the representation of space in literature of the Roman imperial period, focusing specifically on Greek texts between the first and third centuries CE.

Book Synopsis

Focusing on the Greek world during the high Roman Empire between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, this edited volume examines the representation of space in literary, rhetorical, and mythographic texts of the period. Authors under discussion include major figures such as Dio of Prusa, Aelius Aristides, Arrian, Lucian, and Philostratus. Texts by Apollodorus, Alciphron, Aelian, Artemidorus, and Pausanias also receive attention, along with the Alexander Romance and Egyptian apocalyptic narratives. Attending to the relationship between mobility and cultural rootedness, each chapter examines how Greek writers of the imperial era constructed and represented the multi-temporal landscapes of their contemporary world.

This edited volume contributes to a growing interest in the topographical imagination of the ancient Mediterranean. The Roman Empire was a world of vast trade networks, cosmopolitan culture, and high elite mobility, making geography an essential component of the language of power and culture. Volume contributors present a composite picture of how imperial-era Greek writers constructed and curated topographies of the Greek world - urban, rural, cultic, and monumental - to tell new stories about Hellenic space and its place within the broader empire.

Review Quotes

"This book grabs hold of the 'spatial turn' in classics and makes its mark via the fascinating thematic lens of topographia." --Emma Greensmith, Associate Professor of Classics, University of Oxford, UK

About the Author

Janet Downie is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Anna Peterson is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Penn State University, USA.