Strange creatures: anthropology in antiquityIn ancient Greek and Roman thinking, whether the world is flat or spherical it will have imaginary boundaries and liminal areas where the norms of nature and culture are thought to break down. Analogies are constantly drawn between 'primitive' peoples at the 'edges of the world' and 'primitive' people in prehistory. Distance, both in time and space, leads to difference, and the idea that strange things happen out there or happened back then dominates Greek and Roman thinking on other cultures. This book examines ancient ideas of the creation of the world, the beginnings of life and origin of species, humans and animals, utopias and blessed islands, and 'barbarian' cultures beyond the Mediterranean world, before going on to trace the influence of ancient anthropological and ethnological thought on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We begin with primordial chaos and end with the invention of the Americas, taking in many strange creatures, from the savages of Britain, Gaul and Ireland, to the Man-faced Ox-creatures of Empedocles, the Dog-heads of India, the Amazons, the Centaurs, and the Tupinamba of Brazil. |
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Page 13
Plato's cosmos again also emerges out of chaos: not this time the 'empty' Chaos
of Hesiod's Theogony, but the 'random' chaos of the Presocratics and atomists.
However, unlike in the latter, the bringing of the world from chaos to order - the ...
Plato's cosmos again also emerges out of chaos: not this time the 'empty' Chaos
of Hesiod's Theogony, but the 'random' chaos of the Presocratics and atomists.
However, unlike in the latter, the bringing of the world from chaos to order - the ...
Page 16
see that the world of the Metamorphoses has not really achieved order; indeed
chaos seems to increase as the poem progresses. As Ovid's Pythagoras teaches
us in the final book, all is in flux. Nothing is constant in the whole world.
see that the world of the Metamorphoses has not really achieved order; indeed
chaos seems to increase as the poem progresses. As Ovid's Pythagoras teaches
us in the final book, all is in flux. Nothing is constant in the whole world.
Page 63
But the essential characteristic of Ocean is disorder and flux.4 At the centre we
find normality, order, and stability in both nature and culture, but at the extremes
Ocean is the home of chaos. Chaos, again, may be 'emptiness' or 'nothingness'
as ...
But the essential characteristic of Ocean is disorder and flux.4 At the centre we
find normality, order, and stability in both nature and culture, but at the extremes
Ocean is the home of chaos. Chaos, again, may be 'emptiness' or 'nothingness'
as ...
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Contents
The Origin of Life and the Origin of Species | 17 |
Ancient Theories of Prehistory and the Evolution of Society | 39 |
Blessed Islands and Blessed Lands | 61 |
Copyright | |
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acorns agriculture Anaximander ancient animals anti-primitivist Arcadians Aristotle atomic barbarians barbaric beasts become blessed lands Cambyses cannibalism chaos civilised clearly climate Columbus cosmogony creation creatures culture Darius Democritus described diet Diodorus Siculus divine Dog-heads earth and water east eating elements Empedocles Epicurean Ethiopians ethnocentric ethnographic extremes Fortunate Isles Gauls geographical Germans gods golden age Greece Greek Hartog Herodotus Hesiod Hieros Gamos History human Hyperboreans ideal ideas India Indies inhabitants Isles king Lery Lery's Libya lifestyle living Lucretius luxury moral myth mythological nature noble savage norms Ocean origin of species Ovid Panchaia Paradise Pelasgus perhaps Persians philosopher Plato Pliny prehistory Presocratics primitivist produce Prometheus race rationalisation realm river Roman Romm sacred islands Scythians seafaring seems seen sort status story Strabo technologies Theogony theory things Timaeus tion tradition Trans Tupinamba warfare wild Zeus