Conversing with Chaos in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Writing and Reading Environmental Disorder in Ancient Texts
Esther Eidinow · Christopher Schliephake
Nov 2024 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
232
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
How did ancient Greeks and Romans perceive their environments: did they see order or chaos, chance or control? And how do their views compare to modern perceptions? Conversing with Chaos in Graeco-Roman Antiquity challenges prevailing ideas that ancient perceptions of the non-human world rested on a profound belief in universal order, and that the cosmos was harmonious and under human control. Engaging with the concept of chaos in both its ancient and modern meanings, and focusing on the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, this book reveals another sense of environmental awareness, one that paid equal attention to chance and chaos, and the sometimes-fatal consequences of human interventions in nature.
Bringing together a team of international scholars, the volume investigates the experience of the interaction of humans with the environment, as reflected in ancient evidence from myths and philosophical treatises, to epigraphic evidence and archaeological remains. The contributors consider the role of the human in the formation of perspectives about the natural world and explore themes of agency, affordances, ecophobia, gender and temporality. Overall, the volume reveals how, in ancient imaginations, environments were perceived as living entities with their own agency, and respondent (or even vulnerable) to human actions and decision-making. It highlights how modern insights can enrich our understanding of the past, and demonstrates the increasing relevance of ancient historical research for reflecting on current relations to the natural world.
Bringing together a team of international scholars, the volume investigates the experience of the interaction of humans with the environment, as reflected in ancient evidence from myths and philosophical treatises, to epigraphic evidence and archaeological remains. The contributors consider the role of the human in the formation of perspectives about the natural world and explore themes of agency, affordances, ecophobia, gender and temporality. Overall, the volume reveals how, in ancient imaginations, environments were perceived as living entities with their own agency, and respondent (or even vulnerable) to human actions and decision-making. It highlights how modern insights can enrich our understanding of the past, and demonstrates the increasing relevance of ancient historical research for reflecting on current relations to the natural world.
About the author
Esther Eidinow is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bristol, UK. She is a series editor for the Bloomsbury series Ancient Environments, co-editor of Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience (2022) and author of Envy, Poison and Death: Women on Trial in Classical Athens (2016).
Christopher Schliephake is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Augsburg University, Germany. He is author of The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World (2020) and editor of Ecocritisim, Ecology and Cultures in Antiquity (2017).
Christopher Schliephake is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Augsburg University, Germany. He is author of The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World (2020) and editor of Ecocritisim, Ecology and Cultures in Antiquity (2017).
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
