geography
Oikoumenē (The Inhabited World)
οἰκουμένη
The whole inhabited earth, imagined as a single bounded landmass that could be mapped and described in one continuous account.
The oikoumenē is the 'inhabited world' — Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa) taken together as one object to be charted and described. The concept grew out of early Ionian world-mapping by Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus (6th century BCE), was given mathematical dimensions by Eratosthenes (3rd century BCE), and frames Strabo's Geography, written for the statesman and the educated reader. It captured the ambition to grasp the entire human-occupied world as a single coherent whole.
Where this idea shows up
4 Greek sourcesWhere to read it
- Fragments & Testimonia540 BCEAnaximander· Miletus
- Fragmenta370 BCE
- De Republica54 BCECicero· Formiae
- Anonymous· Amaseia