This paper seeks to answer the question of how Apollonius of Rhodes portrays Greekness from a Pto... more This paper seeks to answer the question of how Apollonius of Rhodes portrays Greekness from a Ptolemaic perspective in the Argonautica through the travels of the Argonauts. From his Ptolemaic Egyptian context, one can begin to discern foundational elements of what it means to be Greek in Apollonius’s mind. The Argonautica is a useful literary source for defining Greekness because it enters into a standing tradition of Greek epic poetry, typified by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, while also offering elements of Ptolemaic contextualization from Apollonius, and thus it will be the primary source of investigation in the present work. Insofar as Apollonius is undertaking a work of ethnography and geography, his portrayals of the peoples and lands encountered by the Argonauts shed light on his understanding of Greekness in his Ptolemaic cultural setting and bring those foreign cultures to his Alexandrian audience, interpreting new and different customs and practices in comprehensible, distinctly human, and uniquely Hellenistic terms. Each element of the Argonautica gives a unique nuance to what it means to be Greek as Apollonius makes the mythic past relatable to a contemporary audience through a blend of accessible categories and images with far-off lands and peoples.
This paper seeks to answer the question of how Apollonius of Rhodes portrays Greekness from a Pto... more This paper seeks to answer the question of how Apollonius of Rhodes portrays Greekness from a Ptolemaic perspective in the Argonautica through the travels of the Argonauts. From his Ptolemaic Egyptian context, one can begin to discern foundational elements of what it means to be Greek in Apollonius’s mind. The Argonautica is a useful literary source for defining Greekness because it enters into a standing tradition of Greek epic poetry, typified by Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, while also offering elements of Ptolemaic contextualization from Apollonius, and thus it will be the primary source of investigation in the present work. Insofar as Apollonius is undertaking a work of ethnography and geography, his portrayals of the peoples and lands encountered by the Argonauts shed light on his understanding of Greekness in his Ptolemaic cultural setting and bring those foreign cultures to his Alexandrian audience, interpreting new and different customs and practices in comprehensible, distinctly human, and uniquely Hellenistic terms. Each element of the Argonautica gives a unique nuance to what it means to be Greek as Apollonius makes the mythic past relatable to a contemporary audience through a blend of accessible categories and images with far-off lands and peoples.
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