Smell and the ancient senses / edited by Mark Bradley.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Smell as sign and cure in ancient medicine / Laurence Totelin -- Ancient philosophers on the sense of smell / Han Baltussen -- Divine scents and presence / Ashley Clements -- Smelling trees, flowers and herbs in the ancient world / Jane Draycott -- Making scents of poetry / Shane Butler -- Roman urban smells : the archaeological evidence / Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow -- Urban smells and Roman noses / Neville Morley -- The scent of Roman dining / David Potter -- Foul bodies in ancient Rome / Mark Bradley -- Fragrance in the rabbinic world / Deborah A. Green -- The smell of Christianity / Jerry Toner -- Missing noses / Mark Bradley and Eric Varner.

From flowers and perfumes to urban sanitation and personal hygiene, smell—a sense that is simultaneously sublime and animalistic—has played a pivotal role in western culture and thought. Greek and Roman writers and thinkers lost no opportunity to connect the smells that bombarded their senses to the social, political and cultural status of the individuals and environments that they encountered: godly incense and burning sacrifices, seductive scents, aromatic cuisines, stinking bodies, pungent farmyards and festering back-streets. The cultural study of smell has largely focused on pollution, transgression and propriety, but the olfactory sense came into play in a wide range of domains and activities: ancient medicine and philosophy, religion, botany and natural history, erotic literature, urban planning, dining, satire and comedy—where odours, aromas, scents and stenches were rich and versatile components of the ancient sensorium. The first comprehensive introduction to the role of smell in the history, literature and society of classical antiquity, Smell and the Ancient Senses explores and probes the ways that the olfactory sense can contribute to our perceptions of ancient life, behaviour, identity and morality.