Research Catalog
Roman geographies of the Nile : from the late Republic to the early Empire
- Title
- Roman geographies of the Nile : from the late Republic to the early Empire / Andy Merrills (University of Leicester).
- Author
- Merrills, A. H. (Andrew H.), 1975-
- Publication
- Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Items in the Library & Off-site
Filter by
1 Item
Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
Text | Use in library | DT93 .M47 2017 | Off-site |
Details
- Description
- xvi, 338 pages : illustrations; 24 cm
- Summary
- "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."--Provided by publisher.
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 298-332) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: What We Talk about When We Talk about Roman Geography: Roman Geography Triumphant ; Why the Nile? ; The Structure of the Argument -- 1. A World Full of Maps? Public `Chorographies' in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome: The `Chorographies' of Vitruvius ; The Praeneste Nile Mosaic ; A World to Be Gazed upon and Talked About ; Conclusions: Visual Geographies on a Grand Scale -- 2. The Dismembered Nile: The Geography of Triumphs and Monuments:- Triumphs ; Geography in Procession ; Making Sense of Triumphal Geographies ; The Wisdom of Crowds ; Making Maps from Metonyms ; The World in the City ; Conclusions: Fragments and Assemblages -- 3. Gazing on the Nile: The Domestication of the River: The House of the Ephebe and the Praedia of Julia Felix ; Pompeian Aegyptiaca ; Egypt in Context: The House of the Ceii ; Nile Landscapes and Roman Visual Culture in the Private Sphere ; The Development of Roman Nilotica ; Larger Prospects. Gardens and Villas ; Text and Image ; Conclusions: The Power of the Gaze -- 4. Creatio ex Nilo: Metaphysics and the Unknowable River: Lucretius, the Nile and the Nature of Knowledge ; Seneca and the Limits of Knowing ; Seneca's Nile and the Cycles of Cosmic Time ; Egyptian Cosmology and Roman Geography ; Isis, Serapis and the Nile in Pompeii ; Conclusions: Metaphysical Niles -- 5. This River Is a Jumbled Line, Perhaps?: Journeys and Lines: Itineraries: A World Defined by Routes, Nodes and Lines ; The Ethiopian Expedition: To Meroe and Beyond? ; Itineraries in Roman Egypt ; Strabo ; Tacitus on the Ill-Fated Egyptian Journey of Germanicus ; Satire and Parody ; Conclusions: Thinking in Lines: 6. Triumph and Disaster: Rendering the River in Verse: The Politics of Geography in Epic and Elegy ; Lucan ; Conclusions: Poetic Geographies -- Afterword: The Many Niles of the Elder Pliny: Nile Sources ; Multiple Egypts ; The World in Rome ; Conclusions: Kaleidoscopic Geographies.
- ISBN
- 9781107177284
- 1107177286
- OCLC
- ocn958796231
- 958796231
- SCSB-1876873
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library