Roman Geographies of the Nile
From the Late Republic to the Early Empire

This book examines the Romans' many representations of the Nile, and what they tell us about geographical understanding in the ancient world.

Andy Merrills (Author)

9781316628287, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 August 2021

354 pages, 28 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.1 x 2 cm, 0.527 kg

'… Merrills has performed an enormous scholarly service in reconstructing the diversity of the Roman geographical imagination in this stimulating and scholarly volume.' Robert Mayhew, Isis

The River Nile fascinated the Romans and appeared in maps, written descriptions, texts, poems and paintings of the developing empire. Tantalised by the unique status of the river, explorers were sent to find the sources of the Nile, while natural philosophers meditated on its deeper metaphysical significance. Andy Merrills' book, Roman Geographies of the Nile, examines the very different images of the river that emerged from these descriptions - from anthropomorphic figures, brought repeatedly into Rome in military triumphs, through the frequently whimsical landscape vignettes from the houses of Pompeii, to the limitless river that spilled through the pages of Lucan's Civil War, and symbolised a conflict - and an empire - without end. Considering cultural and political contexts alongside the other Niles that flowed through the Roman world in this period, this book provides a wholly original interpretation of the deeper significance of geographical knowledge during the later Roman Republic and early Principate.

Introduction: what we talk about when we talk about Roman geography
1. A world full of maps? Public 'chorographies' in late Republican and early Imperial Rome
2. The dismembered Nile: the geography of triumphs and monuments
3. Gazing on the Nile: the domestication of the river
4. Creatio ex Nilo: metaphysics and the unknowable river
5. This river is a jumbled line, perhaps? (4): journeys and lines
6. Triumph and disaster: rendering the river in verse
Afterword: the many Niles of the Elder Pliny.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History [HB]