The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought

Download or read book The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought written by James S. Romm and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Greeks and Romans the earth's farthest perimeter was a realm radically different from what they perceived as central and human. The alien qualities of these "edges of the earth" became the basis of a literary tradition that endured throughout antiquity and into the Renaissance, despite the growing challenges of emerging scientific perspectives. Here James Romm surveys this tradition, revealing that the Greeks, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Romans, saw geography not as a branch of physical science but as an important literary genre.