The Ancient Greeks and the Myth of Egypt

Presented in partnership with the Institut italien de culture, Pointe-à-Callière is offering a free conference on the theme of the Queens of Egypt exhibition.

Andrea Falcon Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Concordia University, Montreal, will present the conference The Ancient Greeks and the Myth of Egypt.

Abstract:

I will review what ancient Greek texts from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus tell us about Greeks, Egypt, and Egyptians. Of course, we must distinguish between the historical reality of Egypt and the ancient Greek representation of it. Our information is mostly about the latter, not the former. Briefly, the Greeks were fascinated with Egypt and considered it not only a country full of natural wonders but also the seat of an ancient culture and a source of ancient wisdom. I will show how this fascination gave rise to the Myth of Egypt.

About the speaker:

Andrea Falcon is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at Concordia University, Montreal. He works on Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, with a focus on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Philosophy. He is the author of Corpi e Movimenti. La fortuna del De caelo nel mondo antico (Bibliopolis 2001); Aristotle and the Science of Nature: Unity without Uniformity (Cambridge University Press 2005); Aristotelianism in the First Century BCE: Xenarchus of Seleucia (Cambridge University Press 2012); Aristotelismo (Einaudi 2017). He is the editor of the Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Aristotle in Antiquity (Brill, 2016); and co-editor, together with David Lefebvre, of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press 2017).