OrniKosmos · Ornithological Kosmos: Birds, Ethology, and Human–Animal Relations in Ancient Greek Culture. A Study of the Ixeutika

This project reconstructs the intriguing cultural representations shaping relations between human communities and bird populations in the Greco-Roman world, through a detailed study of the Ixeutika, a unique classical text devoted to bird hunting, surviving in a Late Antique prose paraphrase (4th–6th c. CE). While book three describes capture techniques and human–bird interaction, the first two books portray the habitats and behaviors of 71 terrestrial and marine species.The Ixeutika is a singular cultural product in which literary traditions, folk hunting practices, and environmental and ethological knowledge are interwoven. Beyond philological analysis, interpreting this text requires reconstructing a comprehensive cultural ecology, combining species-specific information with eco-ethological data. Contemporary ethology proves essential for clarifying obscure or seemingly fanciful passages that in fact encode naturalistic observation.The project will contribute to the developing field of environmental humanities by offering the first eco-historical reconstruction of Greco-Roman human–bird relations. In it I pursue three objectives: (1) to reconstruct the cultural ecosystem reflected in the treatise, including geographical settings, habitats, mythical narratives, and local traditions; (2) to examine the interplay between folk knowledge and specialized expertise; (3) to analyze the cultural representations of predatory dynamics underlying capture practices.By integrating philology with eco-ethology and environmental history, I shed light on a neglected but essential aspect of ancient cultures and demonstrate how ancient societies conceptualized their interaction with a vital component of the biosphere. An interdisciplinary approach ensures relevance beyond classical studies, contributing to debates on sustainability, biodiversity, human–animal relations, and cultural perceptions and representations.