Conceptions of the Watery World in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Irby, Georgia L.

Bloomsbury Academic（2022/12発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 296 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781350239449
• DDC分類 306.450938

Full Description

This book explores ancient efforts to explain the scientific, philosophical, and spiritual aspects of water. From the ancient point of view, we investigate many questions including: How does water help shape the world? What is the nature of the ocean? What causes watery weather, including superstorms and snow? How does water affect health, as a vector of disease or of healing? What is the nature of deep-sea-creatures (including sea monsters)? What spiritual forces can protect those who must travel on water? This first complete study of water in the ancient imagination makes a major contribution to classics, geography, hydrology and the history of science alike.

Water is an essential resource that affects every aspect of human life, and its metamorphic properties gave license to the ancient imagination to perceive watery phenomena as the product of visible and invisible forces. As such, it was a source of great curiosity for the Greeks and Romans who sought to control the natural world by understanding it, and who, despite technological limitations, asked interesting questions about the origins and characteristics of water and its influences on land, weather, and living creatures, both real and imagined.

Contents

List of Illustrations
Abbreviations

Introduction

Interpreting the Watery Framework: Philosophy, Cosmogony, and Physics
1. Water and the Creation of the World
2.Seas and Lakes
3. The Interplay between Water and Land

Explaining Watery Phenomena
4. Watery Weather
5. Paradoxical Waters
6. Water, Health, and Disease

Imagining the Watery World
7. (Biological) Creatures of the Sea
8. (Mythical) Sea Monsters and Sea Gods
9. Water and Ritual
10. Sailor Cults and Cults of Sea Gods

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index