Myths on the Map

Kurze Beschreibung
Myths on the Map brings together contributions from leading scholars of Greek myth, literature, history, and archaeology to explore the intricate ways in which myth interacted with the physical and conceptual landscapes of antiquity. It highlights in particular the plurality and pervasiveness of such interactions.


Lange Beschreibung
Polybius boldly declared that 'now that all places have become accessible by land or sea, it is no longer appropriate to use poets and writers of myth as witnesses of the unknown' (4.40.2). And yet, in reality, the significance of myth did not diminish as the borders of the known world expanded. Storytelling was always an inextricable part of how the ancient Greeks understood their environment; mythic maps existed alongside new, more concrete, methods of charting the contours of the earth. Specific landscape features acted as repositories of myth and spurred their retelling; myths, in turn, shaped and gave sense to natural and built environments, and were crucial to the conceptual resonances of places both unknown and known.

This volume brings together contributions from leading scholars of Greek myth, literature, history, and archaeology to examine the myriad intricate ways in which ancient Greek myth interacted with the physical and conceptual landscapes of antiquity. The diverse range of approaches and topics highlights in particular the plurality and pervasiveness of such interactions. The collection as a whole sheds new light on the central importance of storytelling in Greek conceptions of space.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Frontmatter


• List of Figures


• List of Contributors


• 0: Greta Hawes: Of Myths and Maps


• 1: Katherine Clarke: Walking through History: Unlocking the Mythical Past


• 2: Daniel W. Berman: Cities-Before-Cities: 'Prefoundational' Myth and the Construction of Greek Civic Space


• 3: Richard Buxton: Landscapes of the Cyclopes


• 4: Elizabeth Minchin: Mapping the Hellespont with Leander and Hero: 'The Swimming Lover and the Nightly Bride'


• 5: Emma Aston: Centaurs and Lapiths in the Landscape of Thessaly


• 6: Stephanie Larson: Meddling with Myth in Thebes: A New Vase from the Ismenion Hill (Thebes Museum 49276)


• 7: Jeremy McInerney: Callimachus and the Poetics of the Diaspora


• 8: Julie Baleriaux: Pausanias' Arcadia, Between Conservatism and Innovation


• 9: Christina A. Salowey: Rivers Run Through It: Environmental History in Two Heroic Riverine Battles


• 10: Betsey A. Robinson: Fountains as Reservoirs of Myth and Memory


• 11: Aara Suksi: Scandalous Maps in Aeschylean Tragedy


• 12: Iris Sulimani: Imaginary Islands in the Hellenistic Era: Utopia on the Geographical Map


• 13: Robert L. Fowler: Imaginary Itineraries in the Beyond


• 14: Charles Delattre: Islands of Knowledge: Space and Names in Imperial Mythography


• 15: Richard Hunter: Serpents in the Soul: The 'Libyan Myth' of Dio Chrysostom


• Endmatter


• Bibliography


• Index locorum


• General index

Rezensierung
Overall, the 15 contributions in Myths on the Map add up to something more tan a collection of useful papers... The melding together of archaeology, history, literary analysis, and myth--often in the same paper--is especially rewarding. Bob Trubshaw, Time and Mind