Richard J. A. Talbert Books

How was space perceived and presented in the Roman world? While it is tempting to assume that any modern historical atlas, with its maps of „the world as the Romans saw it“, gives a sufficient answer to these questions, recent research has suggested that the issue is more complex than this. To follow up such questions in more detail, the five original contributions to this volume, by leading experts from Britain, Germany, the United States, and Switzerland, discuss the tradition of scientific geography, Roman itinerary literature, and the Tabula Peutingeriana.

Talbert investigates miniature sundials which can be adjusted for the owner's whereabouts. They incorporate a list of locations and latitudes for ready reference, data that offers insight into Romans' worldviews. To some perhaps, these sundials were primarily symbols of scientific awareness as well as imperial mastery of time and space.

A long-overdue reinterpretation and appreciation of the Peutinger Map as a masterpiece both of mapmaking and imperial Roman ideology.