Ways and means of communication [antikvár]

New Antipodes Do God's creatures exist which walk upside down? wondered a shocked Lactantius, a 4th century Christian apologist. It was foolish to believe in such men and Saint Augustine, basing himself on the Bible, stressed: one must put no store by tales of the Antipodes. The Antipodes: those who, according to Greek philosophers, lived in the hemisphere of the earth unknown to us. Considerable controversy has arisen as regards their existence: philosophers hold it to be a logical necessity (why should the earth be populated on only one side?) whereas uncultured men appealed, like Lactantius, to common sense. Christian science refused to accept their existence: they were an invention of those who claimed the earth to be a sphere. The earth was, however, flat and the entire population were descendants of Noah. A thousand or more years were to pass before Christianity really did meet up with the Antipodes, in America A reminder of this age-old and equally long-forgotten controversy is an ideal starting point for this volume devoted to men's means of communication, since we felt it to be representative of a mental universe the changes in which this book recreates, even if only indirectly. Both Greek scientists and Christian writers lived in a world of which they were familiar with a mere part: they had no knowledge of, and could only imagine what was to be found beyond the space which represented their direct experience. The Greeks resolved the problem by projecting specular images of their world into the other parts of the earth; Christians, likewise, overcame the difficulty by denying the existence of everything they did not know, until they were forced to reckon with experience. What connection was there between Adam and Eve and the inhabitants of the New Worid? they were to wonder, somewhat concerned. The worid had turned out to be far larger than one had imagined, and contained a wealth of surprises: previous interpretations of reality seemed barely suitable. As early as the sixteenth century one had begun to claim openly that the Bible was « Sui temporis », a stand which mirrored the scientific culture of an age and of a people: it proved the defense of Galileo before the Holy Office. Science, too, had found its Antipodes with which to reckon. Despite Saint Augustine, the Antipodes did exist. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans reached the Antipodes: in other words, they came into contact with other worids which covered the surface of the earth, all considerably isolated one from the other. Isolated worlds: cultures and civilizations living predominantly in reciprocal unawareness of each other, worids with independent histories, although not entirely without occasional contact. No relationship existed therefore between the Old and New World until the 16th century: merely a brief encounter, around the year 1000, between Eskimos and Vikings, without leading any further neither for one nor the other. Between Europe and Oceania there was total reciprocal unawareness until the 18th century. Contact probably did exist, although no evidence is forthcoming, between American civilizations and Polynesia; were they in turn civilizations of far distant Asiatic origin? Within the Old World itself- Europe, Asia and Africa - contacts were somewhat frequent and had lasting effects, however there were also impenetrable screens and lengthy ruptures. Black Africa, apart from Sahel and the East Coast had no rapport with other worlds until the ISth century. There were some mutual exchanges along the rivers: the black races and the Arabs from coastal areas or the Sudan left salt, materials and tools on the river bank and the next morning they found powdered gold in their place. The people never saw each other nor did they speak. Asia, on the other hand, did not experience barely any periods of standstill: civilizations from China, India and the Steppes met and sometimes clashed, overlapped and went their new ways once again. An Indian cult such as Buddhism flourished in Japan, a desert religion like that of Islam was established in the Philippines Europe, the annex of Asia, was influenced to a certain extent by this exchange.