Greek Spaces in Roman Times: The Construction of Greek Geography in Pliny’s Naturalis Historia.

The influence of Greek culture on Pliny’s the Elder Naturalis Historia has been largely recognized over the last few years. However, an overall analysis of Pliny’s geographical discourse on Greece is still lacking. The aim of this project is to provide a comprehensive insight into Pliny’s description of Greece and to understand how Pliny’s perspective influenced the overall image of it. Combining the criteria of the history of knowledge inspired by Östling et al. (2018) with the Digital Classical Geography of Palladino (2021), I will detect and reconstruct the spatial model of Greece. The investigative strategy will be based on an innovative twofold methodology. First, I will employ sentiment analysis and discourse analysis to investigate the linguistic and narrative devices Pliny uses to characterize Greece. Second, I will examine the spatial connectivity between Greek spaces and the relational structure according to which Pliny disseminates knowledge about them throughout NH. This will result in a database of Greek geographical entities which will be encoded in a multi- layered digital map of the Greek spatial model in the NH–a tool that will support the visualization and investigation of connections running across Greek spaces. Finally, the analysis of the position of Greece in Pliny’s geographical and political discourse will contribute to shed new light on the Roman perspective on Greece during the Early Imperial history and during the Flavian age more specifically.