| Studies of ancient geographic knowledge have traditionally focused on the scientific achievements of ancient geographers or on the intellectual outlook of a few key authors, especially Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy. This dissertation rather draws on a wide range of sources to ascertain the typical geographical knowledge of the elites of the late Roman empire (250--600 AD), as well as its acquisition in and outside of school.;I use the evidence of papyri and school manuals to show that Roman students first encountered the world through lists of culturally important locales. I also study the teaching of Roman grammarians, who guided students' readings of canonical texts. Focusing on the Latin grammarian Servius, I show that students were taught to think about places in terms of stories attached to them, to know which literary authorities talked about them, and to use etymological reasoning to discern the origin of their name.;After exploring geographic education, I turn to the geographical knowledge of the fully educated Roman. Looking at available sources of geographical information---maps and handbooks---I conclude that members of the Roman elite had a sustained interest in literary geography as well as outdated scientific geography produced by prestigious authorities of the Hellenistic and early imperial era. This knowledge formed the geographical idiom of the imperial elite, a shared frame of reference and attachment, whose communication was codified by rhetorical conventions learned in schools of rhetoric.;Finally, I consider how late Roman authors adapted their geographical descriptions to the changing geographical reality of the Roman world. I show that the historians Procopius, Agathias and Theophylact were acutely aware of the tension between literary and contemporary geography and used outdated place-names to convey messages to their readership through literary allusions. Looking at the grammarian Priscian's Latin translation of Dionysius of Alexandria's Periegesis, I show the need to adapt literary geography to changing audiences, in this case a Christianized western audience that was losing touch with Greek culture but wished to learn the place-names of classical poetry without the mythical pagan stories associated with them. |
