Conversing with Chaos in Graeco-Roman Antiquity - Writing and Reading Environmental Disorder in Ancient Texts

This volume starts from a reconsideration of the idea that ancient perceptions of the non-human world rested on the profound belief in universal order and therefore paid little attention to variety, irregularity, and change. Focusing on the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, this book seeks to present long-term dynamics in environmental interactions. It traces another sense of environmental awareness, one that paid equal attention to chance and chaos, and even reflected on the, at times, fatal consequences of human intervention in nature. Contributor s from across the globe examine the transformation and co-construction of ancient landscapes through natural and human processes. Their essays consider a range of evidence, from myths and philosophical treatises to epigraphic evidence and archaeological remains, but they all reveal the ways in which humankind constructs stories about its environment - and how these stories facilitate the construction of ancient environments as living entities, respondent (maybe even vulnerable) to human actions and decision-making.>

Product details

• Authors: Esther Eidinow, Christopher Schliephake
• Assisted by: Anna Collar (Editor), Esther Eidinow (Editor), Katharina Lorenz (Editor), Christopher Schliephake (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.05.2025
• EAN: 9781350344198
• ISBN: 978-1-350-34419-8
• No. of pages: 232
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 238 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Ancient Environments
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / Ancient / General, Mesopotamia, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Nature, The environment, Classical texts, Ancient World, Ancient Greek religion & mythology, Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Ancient, classical and medieval texts, Environmental archaeology