Pollution and the Environment in Ancient Life and Thought (Geographica Historica, 36)

Was there any awareness of environmental problems among intellectuals and politicians of the ancient world? Did they even have notions of 'pollution', 'exploitation', and 'depletion' of natural resources? And what forms did human action take for the protection of the environment? The authors – from the fields of Ancient History, Classical Archeology, Ancient Laws, and History of Medicine – focus on the environmental and ecological awareness in the ancient world, both in material evidence of daily life and in the intellectual thought. They analyse if there was a common awareness of environmental and ecological questions, or if there were only a few and isolated measures aimed at the interest of special social groups and at specific political goals. They discuss to which extent the ancient evidence can be used to identify the roots of modern environmental sensitivity. Contents Preface Orietta Dora Cordovana / Gian Franco Chiai: Introduction. The Griffin and the Hunting Environment, pollution, and legal sources Cristina Simonetti: Uso e gestione delle acque in Mesopotamia nel Secondo Millennio a. C. Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi: Roman Rural Landscape and Legal Rules Environment and pollution in literary and epigraphic evidence Cinzia Bearzot: Ancient Ecology: problems of terminology Gian Franco Chiai: Rivers and Waters Protection in the Ancient World: how religion can protect the environment Arnaldo Marcone: L’evoluzione della sensibilità ambientale a Roma all’inizio del Principato Edoardo Bianchi: Floods of the Tiber in Rome under the Julio-Claudians Orietta Dora Cordovana: Pliny the Elder and Ancient Pollution Luca Montecchio: La cultura dell’ambiente in ambito monastico tra V e VIII secolo Environment, pollution, and diseases Elizabeth Craik: Malaria and the Environment of Greece Isabella Andorlini (†): Environmental Diseases according to Papyri from Egypt and Ancient Medical Thought Pollution and the Environment in Ancient life: Material Evidence Alain Bresson: Anthropogenic Pollution in Greece and Rome J. Donald Hughes: Deforestation and Forest Protection in the Ancient World Jocelyne Nelis-Clément: Roman Spectacles: exploring their environmental implications Indices