The mountainous character of the Mediterranean was a crucial factor in the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. The Folds of Olympus is a cultural and literary history that explores the important role mountains played in Greek and Roman religious, military, and economic life, as well as in the identity of communities over a millennium—from Homer to the early Christian saints. Aimed at readers of ancient history and literature as well as those interested in mountains and the environment, the book offers a powerful account of the landscape at the heart of much Greek and Roman culture.
Jason König charts the importance of mountains in religion and pilgrimage, the aesthetic vision of mountains in art and literature, the place of mountains in conquest and warfare, and representations of mountain life. He shows how mountains were central to the way in which the inhabitants of the ancient Mediterranean understood the boundaries between the divine and the human, and the limits of human knowledge and control. He also argues that there is more continuity than normally assumed between ancient descriptions of mountains and modern accounts of the picturesque and the sublime.
Offering a unique perspective on the history of classical culture, The Folds of Olympus is also a resoundingly original contribution to the literature on mountains.
Awards and Recognition
- Longlisted for the Runciman Award, Anglo-Hellenic League
- Shortlisted for the London Hellenic Prize, London Hellenic Society
- A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year
Jason König is Professor of Classics at the University of St Andrews. He is the author of Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire and Saints and Symposiasts: The Literature of Food and the Symposium in Greco-Roman and Early Christian Culture, and the coeditor of Mountain Dialogues from Antiquity to Modernity, among other books.
"[An] enchanting love letter, a sonorous ode to nature. . . .This thorough, meticulous, and excellently written book informs the reader on basically every aspect of Greek and Roman imagination and experience of mountains."—Andrej Petrovic, Greece and Rome
"One need look no further than König’s The Folds of Olympus for what is surely the most readable, comprehensive account of mountains in ancient Greek and Roman culture. Based on firsthand experience, wide-ranging research, and profound insights, the book takes readers on a journey up slopes, atop summits, and across vistas of mountain geographies around the Mediterranean and beyond."—Choice
"[W]onderfully rich and stimulating."—John Taylor, Classics for All
"The Folds of Olympus shows König’s mastery of material vast enough to be the subjects and substance of countless seminars in Classical studies. This grasp of ancient history and culture is matched by König’s knowledge and love of the physical side of his subject."—Gerald Lalonde, The Past
"The Folds of Olympus is a handsome and well-written contribution to the recent uptake of interest in the representation of the mountain in various areas of cultural and literary scholarship."—International Journal of the Classical Tradition, William M. Barton
"The best and most comprehensive treatment of classical mountains to date. . . . [E]ssential reading."—Dan Hooley, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
“No one understands the topic of ancient Greek and Roman mountains better than Jason König. In this consistently innovative, intellectually sophisticated, stylishly written, and superbly well-informed study, he opens our eyes to a terrain situated simultaneously in the real world and in the imagination. Equally at home when scrambling up rocky slopes or when probing the texts and images that evoke them, König wears his learning lightly, but he has produced a magnificent piece of scholarship that will decisively shape this area of study for the foreseeable future.”—Richard Buxton, author of The Greek Myths That Shape the Way We Think
“Drawing on copious textual and visual materials, The Folds of Olympus is ambitious, wide-ranging, and very engaging, and Jason König’s writing is accessible, with a most appealing personal touch.”—Gareth Williams, Columbia University
