Il Mediterraneo in Elio Aristide

The paper focuses on the 2nd century Greek rhetorician Aelius Aristides and his representation of the Mediterranean Sea. This author has never been studied from this perspective, although this theme features several times in his writings. By analyzing the passages in which the Mediterranean Sea – or parts of it, like the Aegean Sea – is mentioned, it is possible to distinguish four ways at least through which Aristides deals with this topics: 1) the sea as setting of his personal autobiography (especially in the Sacred Tales, where some dangerous and turbulent sea journeys are described); 2) the Mediterranean Sea from a political point of view: a ‘pacified’ and commercially prosperous place, made safe by the Roman Empire (or. 26 to Rome); 3) the Mediterranean Sea (but also the Ocean) as a geographic object of study, especially in the Egyptian discourse (or. 36); 4) the sea as a divine entity, to whom Aristides dedicates a prose hymns, namely or.44 to the Aegean Sea.