Media history has existed for nearly a century. For most of that time, it has been approached as a history of technical innovations: writing, printing, photography, film, radio, and electronic media. The authors of this book seek a different approach: they ask less about what media are and more about what became a medium in various historical situations. This creates a history of the medial along constellations and scenarios that have become defining for the Western imaginary: from Moses receiving the tablets of the law on Sinai, through the cave dweller whose experience is revealed as a medial illusion in Plato, to Narcissus and Echo, where the depths of voice and mirror are expressed, then to medieval forms of ekphrasis and body writing, leading to significant new approaches.