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The tides have always been an impressive natural phenomenon that triggered various types of emotional and rational reactions on the ideological as well as the practical level. The article sketches ancient perceptions and explanations of the tides as found in scholarly scientific writings as well as belletristic literature. The following characteristics can be observed: To begin with: in addition to the pure description of the facts, there is evidence of comprehensive and well-differentiated endeavours to examine the phenomenon from the scientific point of view, i.e. to find a natural explanation of a natural occurrence. Secondly: within that context, not only monocausal theories but also complex physical causal systems were developed, encompassing all of theearth's topographical areas - subterranean, epipolar, sublunar, lunar and side real. Third of all: as a rule, these explanation systems are integral elements of comprehensive methodological, philosophical and theological concepts which were regarded as pre-ordained laws, and from which the conceptions examined here were derived by a deductive nomological process. Fourthly: whereas in some cases problems were seen on the secular level with regard to the natural boundary between land and sea in flat coastal areas, the same does not seem to have played a role in the realm of religion, at least as far as we can tell from the sources. There is no mention of any crisis related to the conception of the jurisdictions of sea and land deities in the tideland areas because the Mediterranean was not particularly affected by the phenom enon physically. Fifthly: in the literary reflection on the tides on the southern coast of the North Sea as well as in the area of the Indus estuary, affective connotations of the natural phenomena are mirrored during a brief period. Associated with historical events and author-related projections, the tides here serve the purpose of describing psychological and cultural habitus of two figures considered at the time to be of great ...
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