The construction of the imaginary in Antiquity: Creatures of the night

Abstract

Night is a symbolic and an actual space where physical and cultural otherness meet. Opposite the space lightened by the order, lays chaos, crowded with fictitious beasts and perversions. It doesn`t matter if this encounter happens during the physical darkness, as symbolic night of ignorance is equally dark. The inquiry on the boundaries can be made under the sun light in unknown territories or in the dark shadows of the night through imaginary topographies. This paper displays aspects of the limits of the graeco-roman imaginary in search for its liminal and some other beasts scattered over the historiographical production.