Roman Geographies of the Nile: From the Late Republic to the Early Empire
Cambridge University Press, 1/5/2017
EAN 9781107177284, ISBN10: 1107177286
Hardcover, 354 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2 cm
Language: English
The River Nile fascinated the Romans and appeared in maps, written descriptions, texts, poems and paintings of the developing empire. Tantalised by the unique status of the river, explorers were sent to find the sources of the Nile, while natural philosophers meditated on its deeper metaphysical significance. Andy Merrills' book, Roman Geographies of the Nile, examines the very different images of the river that emerged from these descriptions - from anthropomorphic figures, brought repeatedly into Rome in military triumphs, through the frequently whimsical landscape vignettes from the houses of Pompeii, to the limitless river that spilled through the pages of Lucan's Civil War, and symbolised a conflict - and an empire - without end. Considering cultural and political contexts alongside the other Niles that flowed through the Roman world in this period, this book provides a wholly original interpretation of the deeper significance of geographical knowledge during the later Roman Republic and early Principate.
Introduction
what we talk about when we talk about Roman geography
1. A world full of maps? Public 'chorographies' in late Republican and early Imperial Rome
2. The dismembered Nile
the geography of triumphs and monuments
3. Gazing on the Nile
the domestication of the river
4. Creatio ex Nilo
metaphysics and the unknowable river
5. This river is a jumbled line, perhaps? (4)
journeys and lines
6. Triumph and disaster
rendering the river in verse
Afterword
the many Niles of the Elder Pliny.