Category: Ethnography
The varying customs and ways of life of people across the world was one of the topics of the Arimaspeia, according to two accounts by Maximus of Tyre. The Arimaspeia can even be seen as the earliest known ethnography, study of human diversity, and critique of ethnocentricity, despite being more a work of imagination than fact.
Six lines of the Arimaspeia: a landlubber abhors the Greek way of life
Posted in Author and poem, EthnographyThis also is a great shock for us in our hearts: men live on water, away from land, amidst the sea. Unhappy are they, for their work is oppressive. Their sights are in the stars,…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight and the vision of untethered souls
Posted in Deathlessness, Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Seizure and possessionOnce there came to Athens a man of Crete named Epimenides, bringing a story that is difficult to believe as told. While lying in the cave of Zeus Diktaios in a deep sleep for many…
Maximus of Tyre on Aristeas’ flight to Hyperborea and claims of divine inspiration
Posted in Ethnography, Extracorporeal travel, Hyperboreans, Seizure and possessionAnd next, what do we think about Hesiod, shepherding around Helikon in Boiotia, encountering the singing Muses, being reproached for working as a shepherd, taking from them a branch of laurel, and suddenly he sings,…