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  1. Home
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  3. The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination
  • Cited by 2
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2020
Print publication year:
2020
Online ISBN:
9781108685726
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108685726
Subjects:
Classical Studies, History of Ideas, Classical Studies (General), Classical Literature, Politics and International Relations
Series:
Greek Culture in the Roman World
Information

Book description

The Moon exerted a powerful influence on ancient intellectual history, as a playground for the scientific imagination. This book explores the history of the Moon in the Greco-Roman imaginary from Homer to Lucian, with special focus on those accounts of the Moon, its attributes, and its 'inhabitants' given by ancient philosophers, natural scientists and imaginative writers including Pythagoreans, Plato and the Old Academy, Varro, Plutarch and Lucian. ní Mheallaigh shows how the Moon's enigmatic presence made it a key site for thinking about the gaze (erotic, philosophical and scientific) and the relation between appearance and reality. It was also a site for hoax in antiquity as well as today. Central issues explored include the view from elsewhere (selēnoskopia), the relation of science and fiction, the interaction between the beginnings of science in the classical polis and the imperial period, and the limits of knowledge itself.

Reviews

‘The book will interest historians of ideas, scholars of ancient science and philosophy, and anyone engaged with science fiction. Recommended.’

P. Nieto Source: Choice

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