Μίμησις διὰ γραφῆς!

Depicting the World:

Sciences in Ancient
Greek Literature
Dr Vasileios Tsiotras, adjunct Lecturer
(University of Thessaloniki, School of Philosophy)

Ariadni Grigoriadou, DEA

DEPICTING THE WORLD: SCIENCES
IN GREEK LITERATURE
Introduction

The main goal of this Seminar is to:

 show how we can teach sciences, e.g.
geography, in a more creative way by using
ancient Greek literature,
 Familiarize participants with Greek literary
and scientific text, which have formed
European literature and science of modern
times.
Homer, epic poet (8th c. BC):
Iliad 18,v.478–608
 The brilliant Greek
bard that authored
the Iliad and the
Odyssey (Western
civilization's first
complete and
excellent poems).
Achilles’ shield

 The “flat Earth”: a literary representation!

 Achilles lends Patroclus his armor in order

to lead the Achaean army into battle.
Ultimately, Patroclus is killed in battle by
Apollo and Hector, and Achilles' armor is
stripped from his body and taken by Hector
as spoils.
Homer, Iliad 18,v.478–608: Achilles’ shield

 The loss of his best friend

prompts Achilles to return
to battle, so his mother
Thetis, a Nereid, a nymph
of the sea, asks the god
Hephaestus to provide
replacement armor for her
son. He obliges, and forges
a shield with spectacular
decorative images.
The workshop of Hephaestus
Homer gives a detailed description of the imagerywhich decorates the new shield. Starting
from the shield's centre and moving outward, circle layer by circle layer, the shield is laid out as
follows:

 The Earth, sky and sea, the sun, the moon

and the constellations
 "Two beautiful cities full of people": in one a
wedding and a law case are taking place;
the other city is besieged by an army:
Hephaestus engrave an ambush and a
battle.
 A field being ploughed by farmers.
 A king's estate where the harvest is being
reaped.
 A vineyard with grape pickers.
 A "herd of straight-horned cattle"; the lead
bull has been attacked by a pair of savage
lions which the herdsmen and their dogs
are trying to beat off .
 A picture of a sheep farm.
 A dancing-floor where young men and
women are dancing under the supervision
of a divine poet.
 The great stream of Ocean is the ultimate
limit and frame of Hephaestus creation .
 The Shield of Achilles can be read as a
microcosm of civilization, in which all
aspects of life are shown.
 The imagery of nature and the universe
also reinforce the belief that the shield is a
microcosm of Greek life, as it can be seen as
a reflection of their perception of the world.
The flat Earth

 Disc cosmography.
 Earth is a large disc (plane/flat)
surrounded by a gigantic body of water.
 Ocean is the greatest of all rivers who
encircles the inhabited world.
 Above all is the dome of Heaven.

 The today’s Flat-Earthers:

Herodotus, historian (5th c. BC)

 Greek historian (c.

484–c. 425 BC),
"The Father of
History"
 The Histories is a
record of his
"inquiry" (ἱστορία
historía) on the
origins of the Greco-
Persian Wars.
Herodotus, Ecumene (οἰκουμένη)

 Herodotus was not only a great writer, but

he was also an adventurous traveler
through most of the known world.
 His geographical descriptions are based on
the observations that he made on this
journey, combined with what he learned
from the people he met.
 He seems to have accepted the old belief of
the world as a flat disc.
 Τhe oikoumene [the known inhabited world] is
divided into three continents, Europe, Libya, and
Asia.
 He rejects the theory that the Ocean surrounds the
contiguous landmasses.
 The Caspian Sea and the Araxes River delimit the
extreme northeast, but east of India there is an
uninhabitable desert whose topography is
unknown.
 Libya is circumnavigable except where it borders
Asia.
 But there is no certain knowledge of bodies of
water delimiting northern Europe.
The spherical Earth/Ecumene on the
north hemisphere
 This conception is
ascribed to Pythagoras or
Parmenides (6th c. BC).
 Aristotle (4th c.), the great
philosopher born in
Macedonia, is known as
the grandfather of
science and having
studied under Plato, but
later he opened his own
school. Aristotle was a
brilliant scholar in
numerous fields:
The Aristotelian universe

 is constructed of concentric spheres

wherein the planets and outer spheres
envelope the earth which occupies the
center.
 This center is also referred to as the
Sublunar Sphere as it is the sphere of space
that is immediately under the Moon's
sphere. This sphere is our home.
 Within the Sublunar Sphere reside the four
elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
 So, Aristotle believes in a geocentric
universe which incorporates a series of
spherical orbits.
 This meant that the Earth would be the
centre of the universe and the planets and
fixed stars revolved around it.
 He believes that as the objects in the
universe are circular, then all orbits must be
circular also.
On the sphere of the Earth

 In one of the first attempts at climate

classification, Aristotle hypothesized that
the earth was divided into three types of
climatic zones, each based on distance from
the equator:
 a) "Torrid Zone” (διακεκαυμένη ζώνη): the
area near the equator is too hot for
habitation, Aristotle dubbed the region
within the two Tropics (north, south).
 b) "Frigid Zone“ (κατεψυγμένη): Aristotle reasoned
that the area north of the Arctic Circle and south of
the Antarctic Circle was permanently frozen. He
called this uninhabitable zone.
 c) "Temperate Zone“ (εὔκρατος): The only area
habitable and capable of allowing human
civilization to flourish. The two Temperate Zones
lie between the Tropics and the Arctic and
Antarctic Circles.
 Aristotle's belief that the Temperate Zone was the
most habitable likely came from the fact that he
lived in that zone.
CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY (2ND c. AD)

 He lived in Alexandria, Egypt

and wrote his scientific texts
in Greek. He was not only a
geographer but also a mathe-
matician, astronomer,
astrologer. He authored
several scientific papers that
have influenced for centuries
many civilizations, Islamic
and European.
 He wrote three works with
historical significance: Alma-
gest (The Great Treatise) on
mathematics; Geographia;
and Tetrabiblos about
astrology.
Geography (Γεωγραφικὴ ὑφήγησις)

 Ptolemy’s Geography is a treatise on

cartography, the only book on that subject
to have survived from classical antiquity.
 The book contains: a topography of Europe,
Africa and Asia that is detailed and extensive,
 coordinate lists for roughly 8000 localities in a
huge catalogue,
 and a well thought out plan for the
constructions of maps.
 The manuscripts of this work contain maps of
two types: world maps, showing the whole of
Ptolemy's oikoumene, and twenty-six regional
maps.
Oikoumene/the inhabited world

 A dense net of parallels (for the latitude)

and meridians (for the longitude) on the
surface of Earth sphere works as a
framework for the depiction of the world.
 The whole of the civilized Oikoumene fits
inside one quarter of this sphere: 180o of
longitude and 63o north and 16o south of
the equator (latitude).
 Oikoumene is divided into three continents,
Europe, Libye, Asia, or eight large districts.
 Europe is the most instantly recognizable
continent on the maps.
 From China and Serike (far East) to Canary
Islands (West), from the unknown Scythians
of the Baltic (North) to the equator.
 The southernmost locality is the island of
Taprovane (Sri Lanca), and Meroe in Africa.
The manuscripts

 There isn’t any manuscript dated in an era

older than 14th c.
 The sack and the brutal plunder of
Constantinople by the Crusaders (1204) was a
catastrophic event for the survival of Greek
literature.
 100 years later a scholar monk Maximos
Planudes (ca 1300) managed to find a very old
copy of the work. All survived manuscripts are
direct or indirect copies of that lost archetype.
 Geography is a highly original work that had
a profound influence on the development of
geographical science and European map-
drawing during the Renaissance and the
New Ages after the Fall of Constantinople
and the Byzantine Empire (1453 AD).