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Black Sea variations: Arrian's Periplus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2012

Tim Rood
Affiliation:
St Hugh's College, Oxford
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Comme tous les Grecs, il n'a pas pu ne pas embellir ce qu'il a touché. On retrouve en lui cet éminent esprit d'une race privilégiée qui dans les sujets les plus arides fait pénétrer l'art et même la poésie. … même en quittant … le Périple d'Arrien, nous pouvons dire comme Fuséli en quittant les marbres du Parthénon: ‘Ah! les Grecs, les Grecs, c'étaient des dieux.’H. Chotard, Le Périple de la Mer Noire par Arrien

Arrian's Periplus maris Euxini (Circumnavigation of the Euxine) is an ambitious and unusual work. Written in the 130s AD in the form of a letter to the emperor Hadrian, who had himself visited the Black Sea a few years earlier, it was a literary complement to a report Arrian made in Latin, as governor of Cappadocia, on Rome's military position in the Black Sea. It is also unusual in its form: unlike most periploi, which are marked by continuity of movement and by a highly repetitive style, it is discontinuous both in its spatial movement and in its narrative style.

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2011