Historically speaking, the majority of efforts in the study of ancient Greek physics have traditionally been devoted either to the analysis of the surviving evidence concerning Presocratic philosophers or to the systematic examination of the Platonic and the Aristotelian oeuvre. The aim of this volume is to discuss the notion of space by focusing on the most representative exponents of the Hellenistic schools and to explore the role played by spatial concepts in both coeval and later authors who, without specifically thematising these concepts, made use of them in a theoretically original way. To this purpose, renowned scholars investigate the philosophical and historical significance of the different conceptions of space endorsed by various thinkers ranging from the end of the Classical period to the middle Imperial age. Thus, the volume brings to light the problematical character of the ancient reflection on this topic.

Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics. The book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.

Although Apollonius of Rhodes' extraordinary epic poem on the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece has begun to get the attention it deserves, it still is not well known to many readers and scholars. This book explores the poem's relation to the conditions of its writing in third century BCE Alexandria, where a multicultural environment transformed the Greeks' understanding of themselves and the world. Apollonius uses the resources of the imagination - the myth of the Argonauts' voyage and their encounters with other peoples - to probe the expanded possibilities and the anxieties opened up when definitions of Hellenism and boundaries between Greeks and others were exposed to question. Central to this concern with definitions is the poem's representation of space. Thalmann uses spatial theories from cultural geography and anthropology to argue that the Argo's itinerary defines space from a Greek perspective that is at the same time qualified. Its limits are exposed, and the signs with which the Argonauts mark space by their passage preserve the stories of their complex interactions with non-Greeks. The book closely considers many episodes in the narrative with regard to the Argonauts' redefinition of space and the implications of their actions for the Greeks' situation in Egypt, and it ends by considering Alexandria itself as a space that accommodated both Greek and Egyptian cultures.

This book examines the mutual influence of architecture and human action during a key period of history: the Hellenistic age. During this era, the profound transformations in the Mediterranean's archaeological and historical record are detectable, pointing to a conscious intertwining of the physical (landscape, architecture, bodies) and social (practice) components of built space. Compiling the outcomes of a conference held in Kiel in 2018, the volume assembles contributions focusing on Hellenistic architecture as an action context, perceived in movement through built space. Sanctuaries, as a particularly coherent kind of built space featuring well-defined sets of architecture combined with ritual action, were chosen as the general frame for the analyses. The reciprocity between this sacred architecture and (religious) human action is traced through several layers starting from three specific case studies (Messene, Samothrace, Pella), extending to architectural modules, and finally encompassing overarching principles of design and use. As two additional case studies on caves and agorai show, the far-reaching entanglement of architecture and human action was neither restricted to highly architecturalised nor sacred spaces, but is characteristic of Hellenistic built space in general.

On the Agora traces the evolution of the main public square of the Greek polis for the six centuries from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the height of the Roman Empire and the Herulian invasion of Greece in 267 AD. Drawing on literary, epigraphic and, especially, archaeological evidence, the book takes a comparative approach to consider how the layout and function of agoras in cities throughout Greece changed during centuries that witnessed far reaching transformations in culture, society and political life. The book challenges the popular view of the post-Classical agora as characterised by decline, makes important arguments about how we use evidence to understand ancient public spaces and proposes many new interpretations of individual sites.

In this imaginative and comprehensive study, Edward Casey, one of the most incisive interpreters of the Continental philosophical tradition, offers a philosophical history of the evolving conceptualizations of place and space in Western thought. Not merely a presentation of the ideas of other philosophers, The Fate of Place is acutely sensitive to silences, absences, and missed opportunities in the complex history of philosophical approaches to space and place. A central theme is the increasing neglect of place in favor of space from the seventh century A.D. onward, amounting to the virtual exclusion of place by the end of the eighteenth century. Casey begins with mythological and religious creation stories and the theories of Plato and Aristotle and then explores the heritage of Neoplatonic, medieval, and Renaissance speculations about space. He presents an impressive history of the birth of modern spatial conceptions in the writings of Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant and delineates the evolution of twentieth-century phenomenological approaches in the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard, and Heidegger. In the book's final section, Casey explores the postmodern theories of Foucault, Derrida, Tschumi, Deleuze and Guattari, and Irigaray.