L'Occidente nella concezione geografica di Diodoro Siculo

Abstract

In his first five Books of Historical Library Diodorus pays a particular attention to the lands of Atlantic Far West. Even if the historian does not show to be particularly interested in geographical descriptions and cartography, nevertheless he often portrays the background of mythical stories happening in western areas according to patterns which, in a sort of symmetrical correspondence, are similar to the historian’s representation of events involving the geographical areas of the Asian Far East. Diodorus has a “continuistic” view of the development of civilisation in all parts of the world known until then. The geography of the mythical past is fully consistent with that of Diodorus’ own times, showing that the far shores bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, seen as a kind of eschatia, have been found and civilised by great mythical and historical founders, just as it has happened in the Eastern areas of the ecumene. By broadening the horizon of his subject matter to the Atlantic West, Diodorus shows that the geographical, political and cultural centre of the world runs across the Rome – Sicily - (central)Libya axis.