The Mythical Landscapers of Augustan Rome

Authors

Lissa Crofton-Sleigh, Santa Clara UniversityFollow

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

1-1-2016

Publisher

Brill

Abstract

The term landscape, according to Denis Cosgrove, denotes ‘the external world mediated through subjective human experience in a way that neither region nor area immediately suggest. Landscape is a construction, a composition of the world we see; in other words it is a way of seeing the world’. Cosgrove argues that, as a social and cultural product, this type of seeing is restrictive, diminish- ing alternative modes of experiencing our relations with nature.¹ And yet this restrictive nature of landscape and viewing landscape can generate meaning unique to a specific group of people, i.e., a shared remembrance or memory. As Susan Alcock observes, people derive identity from this shared memory, which can often be tied to the landscape. Collective identity is constituted in part from a ‘community’s longitudinal relationship to a particular locale ... Stabil- ity in a landscape might enable, if not ensure, the maintenance of memories’.² The Romans in particular saw landscape in this way: the terrain around them was infused not only with memory but also with history. They believed that the gods played a significant role in their history and in the transformation of the landscape. The gods’ role in shaping the Romans’ natural surroundings turns them into ‘landscape agents’.³

Chapter of

Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity

Part of

Mnemosyne, Supplements, Volume: 393

Editor

Jeremy McInerney
Ineke Sluiter

Comments

Copyright © 2016 Brill. Reprinted with permission.

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of a chapter accepted for publication in Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity following peer review. The version of record Crofton-Sleigh, L. (2016). The Mythical Landscapers of Augustan Rome. In J. McInerney and I. Sluiter (eds.), Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination. Brill, 383-407 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004319714_016

Recommended Citation

Crofton-Sleigh, L. (2016). The Mythical Landscapers of Augustan Rome. In J. McInerney and I. Sluiter (eds.), Valuing Landscape in Classical Antiquity: Natural Environment and Cultural Imagination. Brill, 383-407. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004319714_016