Pan's Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans

Abstract

In Pan's Travail, Hughes examines the environmental history of the classical period and argues that the decline of ancient civilizations resulted in part from exploitation of the natural world. Focusing on Greece and Rome, as well as areas subject to their influences, Hughes offers a detailed look at the impact of humans and their technologies on the ecology of the Mediterranean basin. He explores the complex relationships of human culture and the environment with topics that include deforestation and overgrazing, soil erosion, depletion of wildlife and natural resources, pollution, and urban problems such as water supply and sewage disposal. He also compares the ancient world's environmental problems to those of other eras and discusses attitudes toward nature expressed in Greek and Latin literature.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 138 citations exist upstream.