CLASSICS TOPICS
Classics 239 Section 2 (4 units)
MURPHY, T M
The focus of this seminar will be the nature and function of geographic texts in the early Roman empire. We will focus on Pomponius Mela (Chorographia) and Pliny the Elder (Natural History 3-6), drawing also on Strabo and non-literary evidence for comparative material.
Topics to be addressed include:
-how geographic information was collected, circulated, displayed and used in the Principate;
-the management of symbolic space (the City; provinces; the edges of the world).
-the relationship of geographic texts to the Roman triumph; and the role of geographic excurses in poetry and historiography.
Location: 308C DOE LIBRARY
Times: Th 200-500P
