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date: 07 February 2025

Oikoumene/Orbis Terrarumlocked

Oikoumene/Orbis Terrarumlocked

  • Klaus Geus

Extract

Oikoumene (Gr. οἰκουμένη) was not only a political and religious term, but first and foremost a geographical one. The Greek word οἰκουμένη means “inhabited,” a participle to which the noun γῆ, “earth,” is implied.1 Literally, oikoumene is the “inhabited earth.”

We do not know who coined this term. The geographer Agathemeros, writing during the Principate, attributed it to Anaximandros of Miletus (c. 610–547 bce),2 but the context suggests an anachronistic use of the term. Herodotus, whose Historiae were published in the last quarter of the 5th century bce, is our oldest source for the word oikoumene in a geographic context (3.114: χώρη ἐσχάτη τῶν οίκεομένων χωρῶν, “the furthest country of the inhabited countries”). Of course, the scarcity of sources does not allow us to fix a certain date, but the uncommon use of chora instead of ge in Herodotus makes it plausible that oikoumene was not yet a fixed term.

Subjects

  • Ancient Geography

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