Robert J Mayhew
Biographic Data
| ID | 113036 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert J Mayhew |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert J |
| FAMILY NAME | Mayhew |
| SIGNATURE | MAYHEW R J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 86 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 84 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
On a Possible Half-Ass Aristotle Fragment in Orion’s Etymologicum
There are two versions of a report attributed to Aristotle about a ‘half-ass’ (ἡμίονος) – a term usually applied to mules – in two versions of a pair of entries in Orion’s Etymologicum (5th century AD). The report is not found in Aristotle’s extant works, and yet this text does not appear in any of the collections of the fragments of his lost works. The present essay assesses the relevant texts and concludes that the Aristotle-reference in Orion’…
What the Seal Eats: On a Problematic Line in Antigonus, Historiarum mirabilium collectio 20.2 Giannini
Strabo's lived-in worlds: A conversation piece
The main themes addressed by the authors of this conversation piece are the following: why Strabo, a Greek geographer of the Augusto-Tiberian period, can still be relevant today in ongoing debates and how Strabo has shaped the world and his narrative of the world. Particular attention is paid to the tradition of Strabo’s Geography in the early modern period as well as to some of Strabo’s key concepts, such as chora and oikoumene (lived-in world)
On Aristotle in Eratosthenes’ Catasterisms: An Assessment of Possible Sources
The Catasterisms of Eratosthenes (276–194 BCE) contain two references to Aristotle, each including a title: Περὶ τῶν ζῴων (no. 34) and Περὶ θηρίων (no. 41). Editors of collections of Aristotle-fragments have included either or both of these references, but there has been little agreement over which lost work this material might come from. This note offers a fresh assessment of these two passages and concludes that the Aristotle-reference in Cat. …
Sacred Sneezes in Aristotle, Historia animalium I 11 and [Aristotle], Problemata physica XXXIII 7 & 9
The aim of this essay is to shed light on three related Peripatetic texts that have received little scholarly attention: a passage in Aristotle’s Historia animalium I 11, on the nose, which mentions in passing that «sneezing [...] is alone of breaths (πνευμάτων) a sign prophetic and sacred»; and, two chapters in pseudo-Aristotle, Problemata physica XXXIII, which ask and attempt to answer the question: why is sneezing (thought to be) sacred? An im…
Debating Malthus: A Documentary Reader on Population, Resources, and the Environment
Introducing students to the place of population in environmental thinking For centuries, thinking about the earth's increasing human population has been tied to environmental ideas and political action. This highly teachable collection of contextualized primary sources allows students to follow European and North American discussions about intertwined and evolving concepts of population, resources, and the natural environment from early contexts …
Porphyry and ancient scholarship on Iliad 10.252–253: Edition, translation and discussion
In Iliad 10, Odysseus claims that ‘more night has passed | than two parts, but still a third part remains’ (252–253). This gave rise to a Homeric problem, which received a great deal of attention from ancient scholars: If more than two parts of the night have passed, how can a third part remain? The main source for a variety of solutions to it is a lengthy discussion written along the perimeter of three pages of Venetus B, an important manuscript…
Neglected Evidence for Aristotle, Historia Animalivm 7(8) in the Works of Ancient Homeric Scholars
This brief article aims to supplement Stefan Schnieders's presentation of the evidence for Historia animalium 7(8)—that is, Book 7 according to the manuscript tradition, Book 8 according to Theodore Gaza's rearrangement—having been considered the seventh book of this work in antiquity. This is accomplished through the discussion of two texts not considered by Schnieders, both of them passages commenting on Iliad Book 21: P.Oxy. 221 (col. X 11–14)…
Aristotle on Homer on Eels and Fish in Iliad Book 21
The phrase ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες (‘eels and fish’) appears twice in Iliad Book 21, in descriptions of actions involving the river Xanthus: τὸν μὲν ἄρ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο (203) the eels and fish dealt with him [ sc . Asteropaeus]. τείροντ ̓ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες οἱ κατὰ δίνας (353) distressed were the eels and fish beneath the eddies. The context in which these verses appear is not that important here, as this combination of word…
Aristotle on the Theomachy in Iliad 21
The focus of this chapter is the Theomachy of Iliad 21. In this connection, two relatively neglected texts are examined: One is from an Oxyrhynchus papyrus containing a commentary on Iliad 21 (the Homeric problem discussed is: Why did Poseidon and Athena encourage Achilles, but not help him, in his battle with the river Scamander?). The other is from a lengthy scholium (the Homeric problem discussed is: Why, in Iliad 5, does Zeus chastise Ares, a…
The Titles (and Subtitles) of Aristotle’s Lost Work on Homer
I examine four types of evidence for the titles of the lost work that is the focus of this book: (1) the three most reliable ancient biographies of Aristotle, which contain lists of Aristotle’s works; (2) passages from three other, less reliable, ancient biographies of Aristotle; (3) the only three fragments from the Homeric Problems which refer to a title; (4) the incipit (i.e. opening words) of Poetics 25. Of the two most likely titles (Προβλήμ…
Aristotle’s Naturalistic Interpretation of Odyssey 12
This final chapter considers the textual evidence for Aristotle’s (possible or probable) discussions of three episodes in Odyssey 12, namely, concerning the Sirens, the ambrosia-bearing doves, and the Cattle of the Sun. All three have historically been treated allegorically. Further, as some contemporary scholars take the fragments on these doves and cattle to be evidence for Aristotle interpreting Homer allegorically, this is an appropriate plac…
Aristotle and Aristarchus on the Meaning of κέρας in the Iliad
This chapter examines numerous texts—Homeric scholia and Eustathius’ commentary on Iliad 11.385, and Plutarch’s Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer 24—in which Aristotle and/or Aristarchus are said to offer an interpretation on the specific meaning in context (in the Iliad ) of κέρας (‘horn’). The two authors are treated together, because one reason that these Aristotle fragments have been neglected is that earlier scholars have argued that …
A Reappraisal of Heitz
As part of my appeal to scholars not to limit themselves to the standard collections of fragments (i.e. Rose and Gigon) when studying the Homeric Problems , I argue that Heitz’s 1869 edition of Aristotle’s fragments is a too often overlooked collection (at least with respect to the Homeric Problems ). I do this by examining two fragments in Heitz’s collection that were not included in those of Rose and Gigon. One comes from the Etymologicum genui…
The Evidence from Poetics 21
This chapter attempts to expand our knowledge of Aristotle’s Homeric Problems through an examination in context of a select number of references to Homer in Aristotle’s Poetics 21. This chapter consists of a classification of the kinds of names or words, with a view to analyzing tragedy and epic poetry. The focus is particularly on the longest and most important section, words classified according to usage or form (that is, words that are foreign…
Aristotle's Lost Homeric Problems: Textual Studies
This series of studies focuses on various aspects of Aristotle's 'Homeric Problems', an oft-neglected work for which the evidence consists mostly of fragments surviving in the margins of medieval manuscripts. Aiming to expand our knowledge of the lost work, it argues persuasively that other sources do exist but have been overlooked
What is Landscape
What is Landscape? By John R. Stilgoe. xiv and 264; ills., bibliog. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2015. $20.95 (cloth), isbn 9780262029896. For geographers as a community, John Stilgoe's titular int
Sociable Knowledge: Natural History and the Nation in Early Modern Britain
The Letter & The Cosmos: How the Alphabet has Shaped the Western View of the World
Merchants and Explorers: Roger Barlow, Sebastian Cabot, and Networks of Atlantic Exchange, 1500–1560, Heather Dalton
Counting Bodies: Population in Colonial American Writing
Prodikos of Keos
Prodikos of Keos was a Greek sophist living primarily in the fifth century bce . No works of his are extant, though his famous Herakles‐speech is preserved in some form in Xenophon's Memorabilia . In addition to the defense of virtue in this speech, he was also known in antiquity for making fine linguistic distinctions, and for his rejection of the traditional Olympian gods.
New Perspectives on Malthus
State of Nature, Stages of Society: Enlightenment Conjectural History and Modern Social Discourse
Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c. 1640–1700
Rethinking ‘disciplinary’ history: Geography in British universities, c. 1580–1887
Against a background of recent work in the history of geography and of geographical knowledge, the paper considers evidence for the place of geography within British universities before the formal establishment of the first departments of geography. Attention is paid to geography’s discursive connections with other subjects within given university curricula, and to the values placed upon its teaching by contemporaries. The paper argues that extan…
Space and Time in Ancient Greek Narrative
The character of English geographyc. 1660–1800: A textual approach
Materialist hermeneutics, textuality and the history of geography: Print spaces in British geography, c.1500–1900
British Geography's Republic of Letters: Mapping an Imagined Community, 1600-1800
Introduction: Geographies of the Republic of LettersOne of the main ways in which scholars molded their self image in early modern Europe was as citizens of the of At the level of professed ideals the concept of the republic of letters was simple: scholars would create an egalitarian world amongst themselves, where views could be expressed without the rancor of national, religious, historical, or other barriers to their exchanges. Recent studies …
Enlightenment Geography: The Political Languages of British Geography, 1650-1850
McCulloch, 1830-50 Coda: Halford Mackinder and the Empire of 'New' Political Geography, c.1887-1919 Enlightenments and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Politics of Early Modern British Geography, c.1550-1850 Notes Bibliography Index
The effacement of early modern geography (c.1600–1850): A historiographical essay
This article examines the ways in which geographers have written about the history of geography in the early modern period ( c. 1600–1850). It is argued that geography was a clearly defined practice in that period, but that a century of writing about the period by geographers has consistently effaced that definition. This practice began with modern geography's ‘founding fathers’, of whom Mackinder, Hartshorne and Sauer are considered. They develo…
Geography in Eighteenth‐Century British Education
This article analyses the ways in which social change affected the sites and texts through which eighteenth‐century Britain facilitated a geographical education. Whilst geography was not an independent discipline at schools and universities, the wide variety of geographical texts available show that mathematical and descriptive geography were taught to a range of ages and social classes. The growth in children's literature produced several distin…
Enlightening choices: A century of Anglophone canons of the geographical tradition
Ten Books that Shaped the British Empire: Creating an Imperial Commons
Was William Shakespeare an Eighteenth‐Century Geographer? Constructing Histories of Geographical Knowledge
A Wittgensteinian view of language and meaning is employed in a modified approach to the historiography of geography which steers between socio‐economic approaches and the scepticism engendered by post‐structuralist theories of language, so enabling connections between geography and humanism to be explored. The contextual history which flows from this method is exemplified by an analysis of eighteenth‐century editions of Shakespeare and the appro…
Historical geography, 2009-2010: Geohistoriography, the forgotten Braudel and the place of nominalism
The 25th anniversary of the death of Fernand Braudel is used to draw attention to two different ways in which he conjoined history and geography. It is argued that Braudel was aware that geography is a constructed ordering device for historical studies, and that this insight is being pursued in a wide range of contemporary historical studies which might be labelled ‘geohistoriographical’. Particular attention is paid to work in Atlantic history a…
Mapping science's imagined community: Geography as a Republic of Letters, 1600–1800
This paper extends discussions of the sociology of the early modern scientific community by paying particular attention to the geography of that community. The paper approaches the issue in terms of the scientific community's self image as a Republic of Letters. Detailed analysis of patterns of citation in two British geography books is used to map the ‘imagined community’ of geographers from the late Renaissance to the age of Enlightenment. What…
Geography as the Eye of Enlightenment Historiography
Whilst Edward Gibbon's Memoirs of My Life comprise a notoriously complex document of autobiographical artifice, there is no reason to question the honesty of its revelation of his attitudes to geography and its relationship to the historian's craft. Writing of his boyhood before going up to Oxford, Gibbon commented that his vague and multifarious reading could not teach me to think, to write, or to act; and the only principle, that darted a ray o…
Geography is Twinned with Divinity: The Laudian Geography of Peter Heylyn
This critical history of geography looks to the political concepts that historical actors held and analyzes the incorporation of these concepts into geography. Peter Heylyn, who politicized his geographical books Microcosmus (1621) and, still more, Cosmographie (1657), followed William Laud's characteristic brand of High Church Anglicanism, avowedly hostile both to Roman Catholicism and to Calvinist forms of Protestantism, while upholding an idea…
Edmund Gibson's Editions of Britannia: Dynastic Chorography and the Particularist Politics of Precedent, 1695-1722
Geographical writing has been linked with political discourse as 'advice literature' since the time of Strabo. In the early modern period, geography and related forms of spatial enquiry preserved this role. This article examines the political positioning of William Camden's massively influential chorographical work, Britannia, as updated by a team of scholars led by Edmund Gibson in 1695 and 1722. The 1695 edition is shown to have espoused loyalt…
King-bees and Mother-wasps: A Note on Ideology and Gender in Aristotle's Entomology
Soulevant la question de la denomination des abeilles-reines ou abeilles-meres en termes masculins d'abeilles-rois dans l'«Histoire des animaux» (V, 21), l'A. montre que l'explication selon laquelle Aristote exprime les prejuges ideologiques de son epoque, telle que la pretendue superiorite de l'homme sur la femme, est trop simpliste. Soulignant, dans un autre passage du traite biologique (VIII, 41), la denomination inverse des chefs en termes fe…
Border traffic: Recent exchanges between historical geography and intellectual history
Historical geography 2007—2008: Foucault's avatars — still in (the) Driver's seat
Geography, print culture and the Renaissance: “The road less travelled by”
This essay re-examines the connections between geography, print and the Renaissance. Starting with an historiographical survey of the ways in which these categories have previously been connected, the essay points to an explanatory lacuna in the accepted view. It is widely agreed that geographical writing responded remarkably slowly to the changing European knowledge of the globe initiated during “the age of discovery”, major transformation away …
Halford Mackinder's "new" political geography and the geographical tradition
Contextualizing practice in intellectual history
Aristotle on Homer on Eels and Fish in Iliad Book 21
The phrase ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες (‘eels and fish’) appears twice in Iliad Book 21, in descriptions of actions involving the river Xanthus: τὸν μὲν ἄρ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο (203) the eels and fish dealt with him [ sc . Asteropaeus]. τείροντ ̓ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες οἱ κατὰ δίνας (353) distressed were the eels and fish beneath the eddies. The context in which these verses appear is not that important here, as this combination of word…
State of Nature, Stages of Society: Enlightenment Conjectural History and Modern Social Discourse
Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science: Histories of Philosophy in England, c. 1640–1700
Aristotle on the Extent of the Communism in Plato’s Republic
Contextualizing practice in intellectual history
The tory view of landscape
The communism of property; a note on Aristotle, Politics 1263a8–15
Aristotle begins his criticism of the communism of property in Plato's Republic 1 with the following (which I have divied into two sections for convenient reference): (i) τπων μν οὖν ὂντων τν νεωπγοὑντων ἂλλς ἂν εἴη ςπóπος καì πᾀων, αὐτν δ’ αὑτοις διαπονοὑνων τ πεπì τς κτσεις πλεíονς ἃν παπχοι δνσκολíας. (ii) καì γπ ν ταις πολαεςι ν τοις ἒπγοις μἠ γινομνων ἴςων λλ’ νíσων ναγκααιον γκλματα γíνεσθαι ππòς πολαὑσντας μν ἢ λαμβνοντας πολλ, òλíγα δ πον…
Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Communism of Women and Children
Etude de la critique aristotelicienne de la communaute des femmes et des enfants definie par Platon dans la «Republique». Fondee sur la distinction entre les notions d'amitie personnelle et d'affection familiale, la critique d'Aristote depasse le domaine politique de la fragmentation sociale pour aborder le probleme ethique du role de l'education dans l'unite de la cite
Aristotelian Political Philosophy
Impiety and Political Unity: Aristotle, Politics 1262a25-32
Landscape, Religion, and Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century England
Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Republic
The first five chapters of the second book of Aristotle's Politics contain a series of criticisms levelled against Plato's Republic. Despite the abundance of studies that have been done on Aristotle's Politics, these chapters have for the most part been neglected; there has been no book-length study of them this century. In this important new book, Robert Mayhew fills this unfortunate gap in Aristotelian scholarship, analyzing these chapters in o…
The character of English geographyc. 1660–1800: A textual approach
Geography in Eighteenth‐Century British Education
This article analyses the ways in which social change affected the sites and texts through which eighteenth‐century Britain facilitated a geographical education. Whilst geography was not an independent discipline at schools and universities, the wide variety of geographical texts available show that mathematical and descriptive geography were taught to a range of ages and social classes. The growth in children's literature produced several distin…
Was William Shakespeare an Eighteenth‐Century Geographer? Constructing Histories of Geographical Knowledge
A Wittgensteinian view of language and meaning is employed in a modified approach to the historiography of geography which steers between socio‐economic approaches and the scepticism engendered by post‐structuralist theories of language, so enabling connections between geography and humanism to be explored. The contextual history which flows from this method is exemplified by an analysis of eighteenth‐century editions of Shakespeare and the appro…
The Denominational Politics of Travel Writing: The Case of Tory Anglicans in the 1770s
King-bees and Mother-wasps: A Note on Ideology and Gender in Aristotle's Entomology
Soulevant la question de la denomination des abeilles-reines ou abeilles-meres en termes masculins d'abeilles-rois dans l'«Histoire des animaux» (V, 21), l'A. montre que l'explication selon laquelle Aristote exprime les prejuges ideologiques de son epoque, telle que la pretendue superiorite de l'homme sur la femme, est trop simpliste. Soulignant, dans un autre passage du traite biologique (VIII, 41), la denomination inverse des chefs en termes fe…
Proleptic locations: Charting the birth of modern geography
Geography unbound: French geographic science from Cassini to Humboldt; Anne Marie Claire Godlewska; University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, pp. xii+444. Geography and Enlightenment; David N. Li
Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Republic
Halford Mackinder's "new" political geography and the geographical tradition
Edmund Gibson's Editions of Britannia: Dynastic Chorography and the Particularist Politics of Precedent, 1695-1722
Geographical writing has been linked with political discourse as 'advice literature' since the time of Strabo. In the early modern period, geography and related forms of spatial enquiry preserved this role. This article examines the political positioning of William Camden's massively influential chorographical work, Britannia, as updated by a team of scholars led by Edmund Gibson in 1695 and 1722. The 1695 edition is shown to have espoused loyalt…
The effacement of early modern geography (c.1600–1850): A historiographical essay
This article examines the ways in which geographers have written about the history of geography in the early modern period ( c. 1600–1850). It is argued that geography was a clearly defined practice in that period, but that a century of writing about the period by geographers has consistently effaced that definition. This practice began with modern geography's ‘founding fathers’, of whom Mackinder, Hartshorne and Sauer are considered. They develo…
Where was Enlightenment?”: English problems, English answers
Geography, print culture and the Renaissance: “The road less travelled by”
This essay re-examines the connections between geography, print and the Renaissance. Starting with an historiographical survey of the ways in which these categories have previously been connected, the essay points to an explanatory lacuna in the accepted view. It is widely agreed that geographical writing responded remarkably slowly to the changing European knowledge of the globe initiated during “the age of discovery”, major transformation away …
Aristotle Politics: Books V and VI
Aristotle Politics: Books v and Vi
Book Review| October 01 2001 ARISTOTLE POLITICS: BOOKS V AND VI ARISTOTLE POLITICS: BOOKS V AND VI. Translated with a commentary by David Keyt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. xvii, 265. Robert Mayhew Robert Mayhew Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2001) 110 (4): 593–596. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-110-4-593 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Sea…
Facing Each Other: The World's Perception of Europe and Europe's Perception of the World
Rethinking ‘disciplinary’ history: Geography in British universities, c. 1580–1887
Against a background of recent work in the history of geography and of geographical knowledge, the paper considers evidence for the place of geography within British universities before the formal establishment of the first departments of geography. Attention is paid to geography’s discursive connections with other subjects within given university curricula, and to the values placed upon its teaching by contemporaries. The paper argues that extan…
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