Cosmography in the Greco-Roman World

This book offers a rich and wide-ranging account of the development of cosmography in Antiquity, specifically in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Representing the confluence of geography and astronomy, cosmography played a central role in shaping early scientific thought and humanity's understanding of the world. By tracing how the ancients mapped both the Earth and the cosmos, the book explores not only the evolution of scientific knowledge but also its entanglement with politics, culture, and society.Beginning with archaic cosmographic ideas in the works of Homer and Hesiod, the study follows the discipline's transformation through to the Classical and Hellenistic periods, before examining its reception and adaptation in the Roman Empire and its legacy in medieval Europe. It engages closely with the major thinkers and texts of the Mediterranean world, highlighting the dynamic exchanges between competing intellectual traditions and the political and cultural contexts in which they developed. Particular attention is given to cross-cultural influences, including knowledge inherited from Mesopotamia and Egypt. Drawing extensively on primary sources, the book weaves together a diverse range of voices to show how cosmography both shaped—and was shaped by—the shifting fortunes of intellectual traditions, cultures, and empires.