Travel and Communication in the Ancient World

(4 Credits)

This course explores traveling, communicating, and spreading news in antiquity. Unlike moderns, the ancients did not travel for leisure, and the notion of travel as “routine” would have been foreign to them; their journeys had mythic and epic significance and took place under precarious conditions. Likewise, whereas today we are able to communicate with each other in multiple convenient ways, sending letters and messages in the Greek and Roman worlds was cumbersome and time-intensive. Nonetheless, people did get in touch with each other and exchange news. Indeed, one of the goals of the course is to question what might be called a “progressive model” of understanding communication(s) that automatically assumes the superiority of modern technology.