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Article

Artemidorus (2), fl. 104–101 BCE  

Eric Herbert Warmington and Simon Hornblower

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Artemidorus (2) (fl. 104–101 BCE), a Greek of *Ephesus; his name means ‘gift of *Artemis', the city’s most important goddess. He voyaged along Mediterranean shores, outer Spain (and Gaul?), and in *Alexandria (1) wrote eleven geographical books (Περίπλους, Τὰ γεωγραφούμενα, Γεωγραφίας Βιβλία), often quoted. His records, especially of distances in western regions, including (misapplied) use of Roman measurements, were fair, with errors and confusions (K. Miller, Mappaemundi (1898), 6. 127 ff.). For eastern waters and Ethiopia Artemidorus relied on *Agatharchides, adding distances and details as far as Cape Guardafui; for India, on *Alexander (3) the Great's writers and *Megasthenes. He made two calculations of the inhabited world's length and two of its breadth, without determining positions by latitude and longitude. He was an important intermediary source between Agatharchides and *Strabo. A remarkable new papyrus of Artemidorus, including *maps and other drawings, was published in 2008.

Article

Damastes, of Sigeum, Greek geographer and historian, 5th cent. BCE  

Klaus Meister

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature

Damastes of *Sigeum, Greek geographer and historian in the 5th cent. bce, younger contemporary of *Herodotus (1) (FGrH 5 T 1) and pupil of *Hellanicus (1) (T 2). His works comprise Events in Greece; an ethnographical-geographical work based on *Hecataeus (1) (T 4), exact title unknown (On Peoples or Catalogue of Peoples and Cities or Periplus); On Poets and Sophists (Peri poiētōn kai sophistōn): lost, probably the first attempt to write a history of Greek literature; Ancestors of Those who Fought at Troy (T 1): in antiquity frequently ascribed to *Polus of Acragas, the pupil of *Gorgias (1) (FGrH 7), cf. T 3.

Article

Diodorus (3), Diodorus Siculus, author of the Bibliothēkē, before 90 BCE–after 30 BCE  

Mario Baumann

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Diodorus (3) of Agyrium, Sicily (hence “Diodorus Siculus”) is the author of the Bibliothēkē (‘Library’), a universal history whose scope spans (a) the time from the beginning of mankind to Diodorus’ own day and (b) the space of the entire inhabited world. Diodorus worked on the Bibliothēkē from c. 60 to c. 30 bce. His main technique is the compilation of existing historical writings. He compiled existing historical writings and organised the vast material into two narrative structures: a space-centred and a time-centred one. Key topics treated in the Bibliothēkē are paradoxography, great men and women, emotions, and technical achievements. By focussing on these aspects, Diodorus not only captivates and engrosses his readers, but also enables them to learn from his all-encompassing history.There are very few testimonies on Diodorus (3) outside of his Bibliothēkē, and even these external sources derive their information from his work. For that reason, every reconstruction of Diodorus’ biography deals with the text itself, especially with the main proem at the beginning of the .

Article

Isidorus (1), of Charax, Parthian Greek writer  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Isidorus (1) of Charax, a Parthian Greek (Spasinou) Charax is near the mouth of the *Tigris at the head of the Persian Gulf), of the early 1st cent. ce, whose works on the pearl-fisheries of the *Persian Gulf and on the way-stations of the routes across the desert to *Syria were quoted by the elder *Pliny(1).

Article

Mnaseas, Greek traveller of Lycia, 3rd–cent. BCE  

Kenneth S. Sacks

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature

He was probably a student of *Eratosthenes who wrote on the myths and geography, and separate works on the antiquarian details, of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Article

Near Eastern Myths, Sumerian-Akkadian  

J. Cale Johnson

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
27 August 2020
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Near East
Sumerian-Akkadian mythology reaches back to the earliest lists of gods in the third millennium bce and preoccupied the Mesopotamian intellectuals for more than 2000 years. This overview describes four major moments in the earlier phases of that history, each putting in place a different type of cosmic building block: ontologies, infrastructures, genealogies, and interfaces. These four phases stretch from the first mythological narratives in the mid-third millennium down to the late second and first millennium bce, when Mesopotamian materials are reconfigured and adapted for cuneiform scribal traditions in northern Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant. Rather than limiting ourselves to late, somewhat heterodox recompilations such as the Enuma Elish or the Baal Epic, this contribution argues that the most important and long-lived features of the mythological tradition in Mesopotamia came into existence between 2500 and 1500bce.Like the poetry of a particular language or the usual turns of phrase in a family, the mythology embedded in a particular culture or civilization provides decisive clues to the central concerns of that society. These clues are indirect hints at most, constrained by the need to transmit specific textual materials (mythologems, proverbs, or narratives), while at the same time producing the local pragmatic effects that they are thought to achieve. Surprisingly, then, mythological materials are also usually quite susceptible to translation, giving the unknowing reader the impression that things were not so very different four thousand years ago in ancient Iraq. If we adopt a definition of myth that limits our quarry to “stories about deities that describe how the basic structures of reality came into existence,” excluding thereby .

Article

Pausanias (3), Greek travel author, fl. c. 150 CE  

Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Pausanias (3), from *Magnesia (2) ad Sipylum (?) (fl. c.150 ce), wrote an extant Description of Greece (Περιήγησις τῆς Ἑλλάδος), the only major surviving example of ancient travel literature. His (unfinished?) description of ‘all things Greek’ (πάντα τὰ Ἑλληνικά) is limited to southern Greece (*Achaia) with the omission of Aetolia and the islands. Contents: 1. Attica, Megara; 2. Argolis etc. ; 3. Laconia; 4. Messenia; 5–6. Elis, Olympia; 7. Achaea; 8. Arcadia; 9. Boeotia; 10. Phocis, Delphi.His chief concern in his selective account was with the monuments of the Archaic and Classical periods, along with local history, and with the sacred, of which he had such a profound sense that his work has been claimed as a pagan pilgrimage. In concentrating on the poleis and their sanctuaries, he tended to organize his description radially around regional hubs. His concern for objects after 150 bce is slight, although contemporary sights and people attracted his attention.

Article

Polyclitus (1), of Larissa, author of Historiae  

Albert Brian Bosworth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature

Polyclitus (1) of *Larissa, author of Historiae relating to *Alexander (3) ‘the Great’ (FGrH 128), is known primarily as a geographical source for *Strabo.

Article

Strabo, of Amaseia  

Nicholas Purcell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
Strabo, of Amaseia (*Pontus), author of a Geographia in 17 books, by far the most important source for ancient *geography, a priceless document of the Augustan age, and a compendium of important material derived from lost authors.The family was prominent in the politics of Pontus since before the time of *Mithradates VI. Born about 64 bce, he studied grammar under Aristodemus of Nysa, and later at Rome under *Tyrannio (1) of Amisus, and philosophy under Xenarchus of Seleuceia (his teachers were *Peripatetic; his views align him with the Stoics; see stoicism). He knew *Posidonius (2), whose work he used, and from whom he may have drawn his idea of a conjoint interest in history (with its ethical implications) and geography (historical notes (hypomnēmata) in 47 books, 43 after the conclusion of *Polybius (1), were his first work). The empires of Romans and Parthians allowed him to do for the Augustan empire what *Eratosthenes had been able to do in the aftermath of *Alexander (3) the Great (1.

Article

tourism  

Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Greek Material Culture
  4. Roman Material Culture
Well-known Greek tourists include *Solon, said (Hdt. 1. 30) to have visited Egypt and Lydia ‘for the sake of seeing’ (theōria), and *Herodotus (1) himself. Sea-borne *trade and sightseeing were surely companions from an early date, as they still were in the 4th cent. (Isoc. Trapeziticus 17. 4). A genre of Greek periegetic (‘travel’) literature arose by the 3rd cent., from which date fragments survive of a descriptive work, On the Cities in Greece, by Heraclides Criticus (ed. F. Pfister (1951); for partial trans. see Austin83); the only fully preserved work of this type is *Pausanias (3) (see polemon(3)), illustrating the thin line between sightseers and pilgrims. Under Rome ancient sightseeing came into its own. A papyrus (PTeb. 1. 33 = Bagnall and Derow 58) of 112 bce gives instructions to prepare for a Roman senator's visit to the *Fayūm, including titbits for the crocodiles; the colossi of *Memnon and other pharaonic monuments are encrusted with Greek and Latin graffiti.