TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Roberto Nicolai, Introduzione

Elenco dei contributori

Abbreviazioni

1. Tradizioni e generi letterari

José María Candau Morón, Literatura de los orígenes y orígenes de la historia

Abstract: The vision of the past prevailing in Greece until Herodotus seems to be focused on the mythical past, oriented to the local history and intended to the defense of identity values. These are the characteristic features of the Cultural Memory. On the other hand, Herodotus and Thucydides pioneer a new history with opposite characters: rejection of the mythical past, universality and a unbiased eyesight.

Francisco Javier Gómez Espelosín, En busca de un género perdido: El relato de viajes en la literatura griega

Abstract: It is very difficult to find examples of Traveler Tales in Greek Literature. The loss of explorations logs, the absorption of these stories in historical works, and the special significance of the Odyssean model have undoubtedly conditioned the development of this genre in Greek Literature.

Francisco J. González Ponce, La periplografía griega vista por los griegos: Marciano de Heraclea

Abstract: This paper aims to establish a comparison between the catalogue of the Greek Periplographic Genre currently established (of which we have enough data to fix its total number, with a criteria of maximum, in 37 works) and its image in antiquity, specifically the one by our oldest late predecessor (ca. 400): the cataloguer Marcian of Heraclea. An exhaustive analysis of the data allows us to assess the discrepancies between the two lists and invites us to justify, as far aspossible, the reasons that may have prompted Marcian to establish such a diverse result. Those reasons are easier to understand if his true selective criteria are rigorously interpreted, in accordance with the keys of the era in which he lived.

Serena Bianchetti, Il ruolo della geografia scientifica nello sviluppo del pensiero geografico antico

Abstract: The activity of geographers-scientists is based on an astronomical conception of the celestial sphere which, in turn, is closely correlated to the terrestrial sphere: the Arctic circle is identified by the scientists —probably by Pytheas— in its absolute value and not in relation to a precise point on earth. The concepts by Eratosthenes, Hipparchus and Ptolemy are all linked to said definition. However, as we can see from Geminus, world maps continued to preserve traces of the most ancient concept of the Arctic circle related to Rhodes. This was due not to any opposition to scientific discoveries —which the geographers accepted— but primarily to be able to read the map of the world in a Mediterranean perspective, one that was traditional and easy for readers who were not scientists.

Francesco Prontera, La geografia a Roma

Abstract: This paper focuses on the historical context under which the geographical knowledge of Roman elites developed. This process of course precedes the emergence of geography in the Latin literature. However, a comparison between Livius and Polybius shows that Latin historiography has paid only a limited attention to the geographical theatre of the Roman expansion.

2. Casi di studio

Virgilio Costa, Le epitomi e la trasmissione della storiografia greca

Abstract: The paper deals with the historical Greek epitomes from the 4th century BC to the end of the ancient world. The decline of this literary typology in the Greek world, after the end of the Roman Republic, is traced back to a number of concomitant factors: the lower artistic quality, in the eyes of the scholars of imperial age, of the contemporary historical writings compared to those of the past; the shift towards the West of the political and cultural structures caused by the growth of Rome; the progressive impoverishment of the historiographical summaries, which forced the scholars of the Late Empire to abandon the form of the epitome to pour what remained of the ancient historical knowledge into encyclopedic lexicons and chronographic repertoires.

Roberto Nicolai, I generi della geografia e della storia: il caso dell’Anabasi

Abstract: The paper addresses the question of literary genres that with their different strategies contribute to the formation of Xenophon’s Anabasis and in particular the geographical and ethnographic sections. If the theme of travel brings with it a Homeric, and in particular Odyssean, memory, this memory is overlapped by the Herodotean model in the description of the customs of non-Greek peoples. Herodotus and Xenophon have different aims and interests and the paradigms they propose are different. The geographical and ethnographic sections can be investigated as examples of descriptions, which should not be considered as digressions, but interact with the narrative with their own strategy and literary code.

Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti, La proyección de la historia sobre el paisaje geográfico: el caso hispano

Abstract: The Roman conquest of Iberia marks a turning point in the geography of the Iberian Peninsula. Historical and geographical sources turn away from a “colonial Geography” in favour of a rhetoric about conquest and Romanization; in the later narrative, Rome will be the active agent in the design of new geo-political spaces and the ethno-geographical realities.

José Vela Tejada, Estrabón: historiador y geógrafo. Algunas reflexiones

Abstract: No doubt the study of Strabo’s Historikà Hypomnémata is a complex task due to the scarcity of fragments transmitted to us. Even his Geography gives us only three short references. However, regardless of the autonomous literary creation in both works, a “unitary” idea can be postulated with regard to intellectual conception. In short, the works of Strabo have to be put in relation to the victory of Octavius in Actium (31 BCE) and his subsequent accession to the imperial throne. Thus, our author is integrated into the group of writers to describe the greatness of the new Mediterranean empire, especially from the Geography. This intellectual and literary impulse coincides with Strabo’s stay in Rome around 20 BCE.

Indici

Indice dei passi citati

Indice dei nomi e delle cose notevoli

Elenco delle illustrazioni e crediti delle immagini