Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- PART IV: Roman Period
- 22 Juba II of Mauretania
- 23 Isidoros of Charax
- 24 Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Cosmos (De mundo)
- 25 Pseudo-Arrian, Circumnavigation of the Erythraian Sea
- 26 Pseudo-Plutarch, On the Names of Rivers and Mountains and the Things in them
- 27 Arrian of Nikomedeia, Circumnavigation of the Euxine
- 28 Dionysios Periegetes
- 29 Agathemeros son of Orthon
- 30 Dionysios of Byzantion
- 31 Pseudo-Hippolytos, Stadiasmos (Stade Table or Circumnavigation of the Great Sea)
- PART V: Late Antique Period
- Sources of Extracts (Selected)
- Works Cited
- Concordances
- Selective Index
26 - Pseudo-Plutarch, On the Names of Rivers and Mountains and the Things in them
from PART IV: - Roman Period
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- PART IV: Roman Period
- 22 Juba II of Mauretania
- 23 Isidoros of Charax
- 24 Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Cosmos (De mundo)
- 25 Pseudo-Arrian, Circumnavigation of the Erythraian Sea
- 26 Pseudo-Plutarch, On the Names of Rivers and Mountains and the Things in them
- 27 Arrian of Nikomedeia, Circumnavigation of the Euxine
- 28 Dionysios Periegetes
- 29 Agathemeros son of Orthon
- 30 Dionysios of Byzantion
- 31 Pseudo-Hippolytos, Stadiasmos (Stade Table or Circumnavigation of the Great Sea)
- PART V: Late Antique Period
- Sources of Extracts (Selected)
- Works Cited
- Concordances
- Selective Index
Summary
This chapter presents a new, annotated translation of an unusual treatise, commonly known by the Latin name De fluviis, preserved among the works of Plutarch and probably written between AD 100 and 250. The chapter introduction discusses the work’s date and authorship; notes the author’s preference for stories about Greece and places to the east as far afield as India, as well as his tendency to misidentify his literary sources when he does not actually invent them; and explains the repetitive organization of its 25 sections. These offer mythological explanations (often erotic, homicidal, or suicidal) for changes of names in rivers and mountains, as shaped by the recurrent themes of retribution and vindication of those who suffer injustice. On a factual level, the geography is lamentable, but the author’s examples of stones and plants with miraculous properties—often related to the fates of the individuals in the stories, though sometimes to the intrinsic properties of the rivers they feature—are sometimes confirmed by other sources. Presumably ‘the author knew his audience’.
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- Geographers of the Ancient Greek WorldSelected Texts in Translation, pp. 710 - 739Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024