Introduction The Mediterranean Sea connects Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. More properly, the Mediterranean connects people in these regions who are in reasonable proximity to the coast (or have access to it via rivers) and who have the ability to travel by water. As soon as these conditions were met, cultural exchange began. This exchange took numerous forms. Among them were trade, colonization, invasion, and tourism. Read more
1. Early Greek Contact with Africa The earliest known contact between Greece and Africa occurred in the Bronze Age, during the fourteenth century BCE, when the Minoans began to trade with Egypt. The first narratives mentioning Greek contact with Africa are in the Homeric poems, which date to the eighth century BCE. The Homeric poems contain reflections of Bronze Age civilization, although the poems themselves are… Read more
2. Geographers and Ethnographers on Africa Interest in what lay beyond the boundaries of their own society led Greek geographers to conduct systematic explorations and produce maps. Fascination with the peoples who inhabited remote regions spawned the genre of ethnography (literally “writing about tribes”). For these geographers and ethnographers, Africa represented one of the most remote places on earth. 2.1 The Edges of the Earth … Read more
3. Greek Colonization Before Alexander In addition to trade and exploration, the Greeks encountered Africa through colonization. As early as 800 BCE, there were Greek settlements outside Greece. Asia Minor was the focus on the earliest Greek colonization, followed by Sicily and southern Italy. Settlements in northern Africa, beginning in the mid-seventh century BCE, represent a third wave of Greek colonization. 3.1 Naucratis The Egyptian… Read more
4. Imperialism: The Persians and Alexander the Great Alexander the Great was not the first foreign ruler to seize power in Egypt. From 760–656 BCE, Egypt was ruled by the twenty-fifth Dynasty and those kings came from the Kingdom of Kush in Nubia. [1] Although the Kushites imposed their rule on Egypt, the new leadership did not represent a cultural shift for… Read more
5. Imperialism: Rome Rome’s involvement with Africa began with a conflict over power in Sicily. The island lay between Italy and Africa and became the catalyst for Rome’s first conflict with the North African city of Carthage, which was a growing naval power in the third century BCE. In addition to Rome’s attempt to control territory beyond the Italian peninsula, Roman perceptions of Carthaginian culture increased enmity… Read more
6. Isis Africa’s most influential cultural export to the Greco-Roman world was the worship of the goddess Isis. The worship of Isis became very popular with both Greeks and Romans and spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. Isis was assimilated to various Greek and Roman divinities and forms of religious activities (e.g. mystery cults). In the Egyptian pantheon, Isis is the sister and wife of Osiris… Read more
Bibliography Asheri, D., A. Lloyd, and A. Corcella. 2007. A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV. New York. Austin, M. 2008. “The Greeks in Libya” in Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, Volume Two, ed. G. R. Tsetskhladze, 187–217. Mnemosyne, Supplementa 193. Leiden. Bietak, M., and N. Marinatos. 1995. “The Minoan Wall Paintings from… Read more
Preface to the Edition of 1990 This study was written in 1975–76 as my doctoral dissertation. In preparing it for publication 13 years later, I made such revisions as seem to me to render the text clearer and more readable. This new edition does not, however, incorporate recent work on the Homeric poems or new ways of thinking about semantic problems. My object was to… Read more
1. The Problem Homeric Greek nēpios, at first glance, does not present obvious semantic problems. LSJ [1] give as a first meaning “infant, child,” citing νήπιον, οὔ πω εἰδόθ’ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο [2] nēpios, who knew nothing yet of the joining of battle [3] IX 440 [4]… Read more
