Ancient Greek geography as a phenomenon of culture. Several considerations
https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-3-10-26
Abstract
Representatives of Ancient Greek geographical science generated two main types of texts, which may be characterized as, correspondingly, theoretical and descriptive ones. The greatest author former type of texts was the famous scientist Eratosthenes. But works of such a kind contain almost no historical data, and so they are seldom used by antiquity researchers as a source. The author in the framework of this article is interested first of all in monuments, which belong to two genres inseparable from each other: periegesis and periplus. In periegeseis, more attention is paid to events of the past, as they, while describing cities and places, very often deal with monuments of the history and culture; as to periploi, they show much less interest in the past, as they were written mostly for sailors. In modern literature, periegeseis are often labeled as “ancient guides” and periploi – “ancient pilots”. The most important representative of Greek periegesis was Pausanias. But his work has been studied in detail, and so the article deals mainly with much less known authors (chronologically related to the eras from Hellenistic to Late Roman), such as Heraclides Criticus, Pseudo-Scymnus, Dionysius of Byzantium, Hesychius Illustrius.
Keywords
culture,
Ancient Greece,
geography,
history,
periegesis,
periplus,
Pausanias,
Heraclides Criticus,
Pseudo-Scymnus,
Dionysius of Byzantium,
Hesychius Illustrius
Supporting agencies: This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 18-09-00486. The author is thankful to O.L. Gabelko for assistance in the work on the article.
About the Author
I. E. Surikov
Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences; Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Igor E. Surikov, Dr. in Sci. (History), professor
bld. 32a, Leninskiy Av., Moscow, 119334
bld. 6, Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125993
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For citations:
Surikov I.E. Ancient Greek geography as a phenomenon of culture. Several considerations. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin: “Literary Teory. Linguistics. Cultural Studies”, Series. 2020;(3):10-26. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2686-7249-2020-3-10-26
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