Proposed Course
Paradoxography:
Ancient Greek and Roman Literature of Wonders and Marvels
Synopsis
Stories of fantastic places, peoples, and objects populated the imagination of the ancients. Besides being
entertaining stories of the strange, bizarre, and out-of-this world, such accounts are an excellent (and
understudied) way through which to peer into the complexities of ancient cultures. Understanding how
people dealt with the abnormal provides a striking picture for us moderns of ancient ideas of "normal"; the
monstrous and bizarre transgressions of nature and society highlight some of the limits and the boundaries
which distinguished ancient conceptions of basic cultural categories. In this course we will look at bizarre
and unusual stories from ancient Greece and Rome in order to ask what such stories might tell us about
ancient modes of dealing with distant and unknown peoples, places, creatures, and objects.
We begin the course by looking at the study of wonders both as literature and as folklore, starting outside of
the ancient world for orientation in the first week and then looking at the surviving ancient wonder-book by
Phlegon of Tralles in the second week. Phlegon's stories offer a cross-section of the type of stories we will
study in the following weeks and thus we will return to individual parts of this text in different contexts. After
this introduction, we will look at the literary history of wonder-writing, not only in order to know the sources
for most ancient wonder-stories but also in order to build a picture of the changes in the practice of writing
about wonders and marvels. For example, we will look at the apparent origins of the genre of wonder
stories under the combined influence of 1. Aristotelian science and 2. the rise of libraries and centers of
learning in the Greek world of the third century B.C. (As one prominent scholar of the early 20 th century put
it: wonder literature is a parasite on the tree of historical and scientific literature.) In the third section of the
course we will look at different types of marvels: monstrous births and hermaphrodism, travel literature and
stories about the oddities at the ends of the world, bizarre creatures and animal behavior, and ghost
stories. Finally, we will end with a discussion of belief and disbelief and the relationship between wonder
literature and knowledge about the world.
In short, this course considers not only wonder tales and possible ways of interpreting them (e.g. as
folktales, as an example of "the fantastic" in literature) but also at the role that these stories played in
different social and cultural contexts: e.g. in Classical Athens, at the court of the Ptolemies in Egypt, or in
the literary culture of Rome.
Requirements:
Class Participation (50%): Although I will from time to time give mini-lectures, the primary mode of this
class is seminar discussion. Read and think about the material each week and come prepared to share
your insights and comments.
Writing Assignments :
1. Paper (35%): The sources for ancient wonder-tales make for a patchwork history and while the
selections in this class attempt to provide breadth and depth, the complexity of some sources and the
vastness of the material treated makes this an impossible task. Therefore, to delve further, your task for
the paper is to choose a small number of texts, authors, or tales for further study. Choose at least two
texts or tales as your primary body of data. For example, you could look at two authors like Apollonius
and Callimachus, or tales of people turning into trees and Aristotle's work on plants, or a modern short
story and a series of ancient tales on the same subject. Your texts do not necessarily have to be texts
Proposed Course
we've read in class. Discuss the role that wonders play in each of these works. You can discuss issues
of belief, audience and author interaction, the history of science, literary themes, etc. Papers should be
10-15 pages. You should email or meet with me before the ninth week of the course to discuss your
topic. I will read and discuss drafts submitted by the end of week 13.
2. Web-based discussion (15%): Throughout the course we will be reading speculative fiction (aka
science fiction, fantasy, etc.) -- a mix of classics, short stories, and literary criticism. These readings are
marked below by the superscript web. Each of these readings is related to the texts for the week. We will
discuss the first selection (L. Sprague de Camp's "Little Green Men from Afar") in the first week along
with the regular readings. However, for the majority of the course we will discuss this material via a
web-based threaded discussion. This less ancient fiction was chosen as a way to confront the topics in
the class with particular emphasis on the role which wonder literature plays in the modern world. Each
week you are required to post a few comments to the web discussion about the story or essay and how
it might relate to the ancient material. Here the focus is on content rather than form. Comments can be
informal. Simply think about the material a bit after you have finished a particular selection, transfer
your thoughts to written form and post them. Read what others have said and add your comments.
Schedule
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
ORIENTATION: MONSTERS AND MARVELS
 Daston and Park "Introduction: At the Limit" = Wonders and the Order of
Nature (1998): 13-20.
 Daston and Park Chapter 5 "Monsters: A Case Study" 173-214
 L. Sprague de Camp "Little Green Men from Afar" (1976)



Phlegon of Tralles Book of Marvels: 25-49
Hansen, W. "Introduction" = Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels (1996).
Brunvand, "Legends and Anecdotes" in The Study of American Folklore
(1998): 196-222
 Hansen: "Folklore" in Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and
Rome 2 (1988): 1121-30
web Shelley, M. Frankenstein (chapters 1-8)
LITERATURE OF WONDERS: A BRIEF HISTORY
The Greek Story to the Hellenistic period and the Genre of Paradoxography
 Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 9.4
 Romm, J.S. "Wonders of the East" = The Edges of the Earth in Ancient
Thought (1992): 82-109
 Greek marvel-sampler (pre-Hellenistic): Homer, Herodotus, Ktesias,
Theopompus, Hecataeus
web Shelley, M. Frankenstein (chapters 9-16)
Origins of a Genre?
 Aristotle Historia Animalium Book 9, pseudo-Aristotle On Marvellous Things
Heard
 "Geography" in Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era: A Sourcebook 113-149
 Greek marvel sampler (Hellenistic and later Greek): brief selections from
Callimachus, Posidippus (Milan papyrus), Apollonius, Antigonus, pseudo-
Proposed Course
Aristotle and anonymous collections (Florentine, Vatican, and Palatine)
 Robert Barnes: "Cloistered Bookworms in the Chicken-Coop of the Muses: the
Ancient Library of Alexandria" in The Library of Alexandria (2000): 61-77
web Shelley, M. Frankenstein (chapters 17-24)
Week 5
Week 6
The Roman Story
 Pliny Natural History book 7
 C. Pomponius Mela book 1 (in F.E. Romer 1998 with map)
web Aldiss, B.W. "The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nex Olympica"
SPECIES OF MARVELS
Monstrous Births
 Monsters (Hesiod: Theogony and selections from Enuma Elish)
 Hermaphrodites (Ovid: Metamorphoses 4.271-388; Salmacis Inscription)
web Campbell, J. "What do you mean . . . human"
Week 7
Fantastic Lands 1
 Homer Odyssey 9-12
 Other epic marvels: Kypria (F 19 Davies), Lynkeus (F13), Kyknos (arg. 32.6970 = 42.54-55)
web H.G. Wells The First Men in the Moon (chapters 1-8)
Week 8
Fantastic Lands 2
 Apollonius Argonautica 1 and 2
web Wells (chapters 9-16)
Week 9
Fantastic Lands 3
 Herodotus Histories book 2
 Konon 43 [Fires at Aetna]
 Strabo (selections)
web Wells (chapters 17-26)
Week 10
Amazing Creatures
 Athenaeus beginning of book 13 [on fish]
 review Phlegon of Tralles 34-35 from week 2
 bits and pieces: Aelian book 1; Konon 22 with Aelian NA 6.63; Hekataios: Fr
1, F 15 (vine growing dog's blood), F 17 (talking ram)
web Charnas, S. M. "Boobs"
Week 11
Ghosts
 Plautus Mostellaria; Pliny Letter 7.27; Lucian Philopseudes
 Felton "The Folklore of Ghosts" (1-21) and "The Fate of the Ghost Story" (8997) from Felton, D. (1999) Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from
Classical Antiquity
web Simak, C. "Desertion"
Proposed Course
Week 12
BELIEF AND DISBELIEF
Prose Fiction 1
 Apuleius [selection]
 Todorov The Fantastic chapter 2 (24-40) and chapter 10 (157-175)
Film: Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Week 13
Prose Fiction 2
 Lucian True History
web Munchausen (excerpts); Arthur C. Clarke "The Secret"
Week 14
Rationalization
 Palaephatus On Unbelievable Tales (trans. Stern)
 Shermer, M. "How Thinking Goes Wrong" = Why People Believe Weird
Things (revised edition): 44-62
web Dedman, S. "Tourist Trade" and Ross "Useful Phrases for the Tourist" in Not
the Only Planet: Science Fiction Travel Stories, D. Broderick ed.
Week 15
Pseudo-science
 Sloan, B. "Spicing Up the News: The Evolution of Sensationalism" = I
Watched a Wild Hog Eat My Baby! (2001): 17-28
 Bird, "Writers, Text, and Audience. Tabloids as Folklore" = For Enquiring
Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids (1992): 162-200
 Hartwell, D.G. "The Age of Science Fiction is Twelve" = introduction to Age of
Wonders
 Shermer, M. "The Most Precious Thing We Have: The difference between
science and pseudoscience" = Why People Believe Weird Things: 24-43