Cosmos in the Ancient World

Traces the concept of kosmos as order, arrangement, and ornament in ancient philosophy, literature, and aesthetics.

Phillip Sidney Horky (Edited by)

9781108423649, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 July 2019

370 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.68 kg

How did the ancient Greeks and Romans conceptualise order? This book answers that question by analysing the formative concept of kosmos ('order', 'arrangement', 'ornament') in ancient literature, philosophy, science, art, and religion. This concept encouraged the Greeks and Romans to develop theories to explain core aspects of human life, including nature, beauty, society, politics, the individual, and what lies beyond human experience. Hence, Greek kosmos, and its Latin correlate mundus, are subjects of profound reflection by a wide range of important ancient figures, including philosophers (Parmenides, Empedocles, the Pythagoreans, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Plotinus), poets and playwrights (Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Marcus Argentarius, Nonnus), intellectuals (Gorgias, Protagoras, Varro), and religious exegetes (Philo, the Gospel Writers, Paul). By revealing kosmos in its many ancient manifestations, this book asks us to rethink our own sense of 'order', and to reflect on our place within a broader cosmic history.

Introduction Phillip Sidney Horky
1. When did Kosmos become the Kosmos? Phillip Sidney Horky
2. Ordering the universe in speech: Kosmos and Diakosmos in Parmenides' poem Arnaud Macé
3. Diakosmêsis Malcolm Schofield
4. Aristotle on Kosmos and Kosmoi Monte Ransome Johnson
5. Order and orderliness: the myth of 'inner beauty' in Plato George Boys-Stones
6. Polis as Kosmos in Plato's laws Luc Brisson
7. Relating to the world, encountering the other: Plotinus on cosmic and human action Pauliina Remes
8. Tradition and innovation in the Kosmos-Polis analogy Carol Atack
9. Cosmic choruses: metaphor and performance Renaud Gagné
10. All the world's a stage: Contemplatio Mundi in Roman theatre Robert Germany
11. The architectural representation of the Kosmos from Varro to Hadrian Gilles Sauron
12. 'The deep-sticking boundary stone': cosmology, sublimity, and knowledge in Lucretius' De rerum natura and Seneca's Naturales quaestiones W. H. Shearin
13. Cosmic spiritualism among the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Jews, and early Christians Phillip Sidney Horky
Afterword Victoria Wohl.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Philosophy [HP]