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

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.

Andy Merrills is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Leicester. He is the author of two books: History and Geography in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2005), and The Vandals (with Richard Miles, 2010). He has held research fellowships at the University of Cambridge, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Sydney.