LE LITTORAL ATLANTIQUE DE LA PENINSULE IBERIQUE ANTIQUE ET L’ANACHYSIS DE POSEIDONIOS D’APAMEE (original) (raw)

The introduction of new concepts of ecosystems’ geography leads us to review in a new light the writings of ancient geographers. When we try to apply the concept of riparia to the ancient world, and more especially to ancient geography, we are faced with a semantic as well as a theoretical challenge. In fact, when we examine the Greek or Latin lexicon of riparian spaces - riverside or shoreline spaces -, we note that it can be either repetitious or extremely varied, with words that are more especially used in a very particular cultural context or in a single geographical space. The word anachysis, meaning a coastal depression (koilas) filled by seawater in ancient geographical writings by authors such as Strabo, Claudius Ptolemy, Dionysius of Byzantium and Marcian of Heraclea, is typical of the second case. Most of all, among the ancient geographers, the word is employed by Strabo who uses it to picture the coast and the river mouths of Atlantic Iberia that one meets sailing from the Pillars of Hercules. More generally, the methodical study of the 169 occurrences of this word in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae database shows that it is a part of the lexicon of Hellenistic science which uses it to signify the expanse, the pouring of liquid substances (from anacheô = I pour). In medical language, for example, it is employed to describe the wide spreading of bodily fluids such as bile. In the IIIrd century BC, the word is also used by the stoic philosopher Chrysippus, who uses anachysis to represent the infinite overflow of the material when the Universe explodes, giving genesis to a new cycle of rebirth of the World. The disputes about the theories of stoic physics represented the background of the cultural training of Posidonius of Apamea. In the early Ist century BC, this stoic philosopher and scientist possibly had used the word anachysis in depicting the effects of tides along the Cadiz Gulf coastlines. In his Geography, indeed, Strabo gives us the tidal range measured by Posidonius on the basement of the temple of Hercules in Cadiz. The Augustan geographer also pictures the overflow of exceptional tides that covered the coastal plains of Turdetania at a certain time. It is possible that this exceptional overflow corresponds to a tsunami that struck the Iberian South-Atlantic coasts around 2400-2000 BP, according to recent geoarchaeological researches. In this work we argue that Posidonius is the source of Strabo’s picture of the Iberian coasts and that the using of the word anachysis is closely related to the theory of tides outlined by the philosopher of Apamea. So, the word anachysis, which belongs to the scientific and philosophical language of the Hellenistic age, depicts a characteristic morphological feature of the Atlantic coasts and estuaries in Iberia, which can be detected under the influence of tides. The tidal range is significant only on the Atlantic coastline, that is the reason why at that place, but at that place only, river mouths can be called anachyseis. In the Iberian Peninsula, geographical descriptions and scientific theory of tides are closely interconnected.