What is "Europe" in EB's timeframe?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

The thing with geographical definitions is that they tend to be arbitrary. Why should the Dnieper mark the boundary rather than some other geographical feature(s)? If there is no reason to setting the border at a particular place, is there any point in trying to define "Europe" to begin with?

Another interesting thing is that if "european" simply refers to any inhabitant of an arbitrarily defined geographical area, then it must follow that for exmple greeks who settle on the Anatolian coast will cease to be europeans, while the huns will become europeans after they've migrated far enough west.

Well to take your example, Hellanism was about 50% self definition and 50% being let into the club. The Ancient Greeks invented Europe and they simple defined it as everything on the other side of the Hellespont. Europe was an area while Hellenism was a state of being. Later Outremer was never considered part of Europe but it was still part of Chrisendom.

[Watchman]

You know, I would imagine both the "europeans" and "asians" at the time regarded the northern steppe with its strange and dangerous horse barbarians as sui generis and not part of either, rendering the question moot. The border of the steppe proper is clearly enough demarcated on the Asian side of the Black Sea by the Caucasus range, but extends quite far into Eastern Europe (as the Hungarian plain) and down the western coast.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I would say, during this time period, that the Mediterranian was a more important geographic structure than the continent of Europe.

[Watchman]

Depends on what exactly you mean by "important", I'd say. And then there's the thing that Europe around the Med is rather a bit different in many ways from the Europe north of those mountain ranges ringing it...

However, this discussion is about the contemporary perception of where the division between "Europe" and "Asia" went - and I'm pretty sure the only folks in Europe that cared about the matter were the around the Med, and even there probably only near the actual border zone. Your average Briton, Gaul or German could hardly have cared less, after all, and I rather doubt if the question was particularly central to the average Latin either.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Wouldn't the devision of East and West be the division of Greeks/Hellenistics and Romans/Celts? (IMO)

[Watchman]

Nah. That'd be the Mediterranean/North division.

[Bootsiuv]

How are we 100% certain that "Europe" in the sense that we think of it today even existed 2000 years ago...I'd imagine anything away from the mediterranean was probably considered barbaric.

In fact, I think most Romans would have probably felt closer to the Ptolemies of Egypt, or even the Carthaginians or Seleucids (none of which were "european" although many were of hellenistic descent) than they did with their fellow "europeans", the gallic and germanic tribes.