Qua Ex Parte Est Hibernia ? Ireland, the Irish, and Alterity in the Antique Mediterranean Imaginary

Abstract: Ireland's peripheral remove from the Mediterranean core allowed ancient authors to populate this exotic elsewhere with an "imagined geography," an "imagined ethnology," and an "imagined menagerie," absent firsthand evidence about the place. Authors emplace Ireland inconsistently, sometimes to the north of Britain, sometimes to the west. This variance was purposeful and aligns with the rhetorical and compositional ambition of the given author's ethnographic imagination. Authors viewing Ireland as a total repository of dangerous alterity place Ireland northward, and those viewing Ireland with imperial ambition place it westward. Humoral climatology, and the ethnic thinking it engenders, explains this variance.