Roman Geography

"The present study describes the history and the archaeological evidence of the passes and mountain roads in the eastern Alps from the beginning of Roman influence in the 1st half of the 2nd century BC to late antiquity. Based on ancient literary sources, which describe the Alps, their geography, their economic system and their political history, this study is an extension of research by ancient historians, who explored the slow expansion of the Roman Empire into the eastern Alps, and the special relationship between ancient human beings and the hostile environment of 
the high alpine regions. 
Ancient writers handed down the knowledge of their time about the extension, the height and form of the Alps. In addition to that, we have the names of the most important passes, mountain ranges and rivers, as well as descriptions of the typical products of the alpine regions from cheese to ferrum Noricum. There are also descriptions of the harsh climate and various dangers that faced travellers willing to make the journey over the Alps. These dangers effected special religious behaviour and rites on top of the passes in hopes of attaining the mercy of the gods. 
While Roman trade relations had already expanded from Aquileia since the 1st half of the 2nd century BC into the eastern Alps, the leading political groups in Rome showed little interest in that area and pushed ahead a very defensive policy which tried to define the Roman border along the first mountain ranges of the Carnian and Julian Alps. That policy was changed only near the end of the 1st century BC and between 15 BC and the middle of the 1st century AD, when the eastern Alps were integrated into the Roman Empire. From that moment, the first big street building programs were carried out, beginning with the renowned Via Claudia Augusta. 
Until the first 
Marcomannic invasions 160-180 AD, a heavy road net was build, mainly determined by economic considerations. During this period, not only are there archaeological traces on the most important passes used by the cursus publicus, but also on many smaller passes used by local traffic. Unfortunately, the fully developed Roman road system allowed access to the Germans, who invaded as far as northern Italy, 
crossing the pass Ad Pirum in the Julian Alps. Nevertheless, emperors like Septimius Severus carried out new road building projects and renewed the old traffic lines in Raetia and Noricum, until c. 270 AD, when the Roman Empire fell into general crisis and certain important roads were deserted and not maintained for many years. 
In late antiquity, with the reforms of Emperor Diocletian, the situation stabilized for many decades. A new phenomenon can be observed along different passes: the building of fortification systems and walls to protect the entrances to Italy. At the end of the 4th century AD, the final deterioration of the roman road system begins and Roman traffic came to a nearly complete end with the destruction of Aquileia in 452 AD. 
From numerous passes in the eastern Alps we have Roman evidence and small finds: stations along the most important connections like Immurium under the Radstädter Tauern pass (Salzburg), several milestones, well preserved remains of Roman road constructions as on the Korntauern and Mallnitzer Tauern, exact dated streets like in the Via Claudia Augusta in the Lermooser Moos (Tirol), street building inscriptions like on the Plökenpass (Venetia – Carinthia), sanctuaries and shrines with small cultic statues in high alpine regions like at the Hochtor under the Großglockner (Salzburg) or large fortification systems like on the pass Ad Pirum (Slovenia). 
This evidence shows a very diverse picture of Roman life in the highest areas of the eastern Alps and it can be compared easily with the much more famous evidence from the passes of the western Alps."

Appian's Illyrian book (Illyrike) was originally intended to be just an appendix to his Macedonian book and today remains the only extant ancient work dealing with the early history of Illyricum which is preserved in its entirety. In this short work Appian puts together different local and regional histories in order to create a unified historical narrative and determines the historical and mythological coordinates of Illyricum inside the ancient world. This paper will discuss Illyrike in the context of the Roman construction of Illyricum as a provincial space, similar to some other regions in continental Europe such as, for example, Gaul or Britain. They were all firstly created through the needs of Roman political geography and later written into literary knowledge through the works of ancient history and ethnography. This paper will argue that Appian's Illyrike represented the final stage of the Roman construction of Illyricum from an imaginary to a provincial space, which was the point of its full coming of age as an integral part of the ancient world and the Roman Empire.

Caius Iulius Solinus, Latin grammarian and compiler from the third century AD, wrote a curious sentence in his work Collectanea rerum memorabilium or Pol-yhistor. Solinus in 2.51 called the Liburni, indigenous group that inhabited part of the northeastern coast of the Adriatic – " Asiatic people " (… per Liburnos, quae gens Asiatica est). The scholarship never took this statement seriously as its historical inaccuracy is beyond any doubt in both written and material evidence. However, the very same historical inaccuracy prevented a more substantial analysis of this statement in the scholarship, making it just one of (quite a) few of Solinus' bizarre statements. The paper will use available written sources to explore the reasoning behind this statement. The analysis will show that Solinus was not inventing fairy tales but was utilizing existing Graeco-Roman ethnographic 'knowledge' about this part of the world, and the Liburni in particular. This 'knowledge' was in its essence inter-textual and orientalizing, combining descriptive literary techniques and information gathered through different phases of cultural contact with indigenous population in order to construct a 'barbarian other'. The statement about Asian origins of the Liburni does not have factual accuracy but is still extremely useful as it reveals insight into some of the ways indigenous communities from the eastern Adriatic coast were perceived by the ancient Greek and Roman intellectual elite.

Geus, Klaus: 'Alexander' and 'Caesar' in a Middle Persian text: interpreting some names in the Šahrestānīha ī Ērānšahr. In: Külzer, Andreas and Popović, Mihailo (eds.): Space, landscapes and settlements in Byzantium: studies in hist¬or¬ical geography of the Eastern Mediterranean; presented to Johannes Koder. Novi Sad; Vienna: Akademska Knjiga, 2017 (Studies in historical geography and cultural heritage; 1), pp. 131-141, 467. [ISBN: 978-86-6263-191-6].

It is widely accepted that the Liburni, at some point in the Iron Age, ruled over much of the Adriatic. Professor Slobodan Čače was the first scholar to truly challenge these narratives through a critique of the written sources.  The aim of this paper is to build upon the work of Čače in seeking to rethink identities in pre-Roman Liburnia through analysis of ancient literary sources. It also takes a multidisciplinary approach, and seeks to address ideas about identity and cultural change through material culture. A re- examination is undertaken into Liburnian identity through archaeological evidence, and the transformations it apparently went through during the Iron Age, focusing on ideas about ethno-cultural identities and ‘Hellenization’ in interpretations of developments in Liburnia during the last 4 centuries BCE.

Grande qualité et ancienneté d'une source d'habitude très décriée, le Géographe de Ravenne pour la Maurétanie césarienne (césarienne +sitifienne). Mode de construction, à partir d'itinéraires; source quasi unique pour une part non négligeable de la rocade sévérienne de la Maurétanie césarienne.

A partir de la descripción de la península ibérica incluida en la Naturalis Historia de Plinio el Viejo (I d.C.) es posible recrear una serie de mapas (derroteros de costa y mapas hidrográficos) con los que pudo contar el naturalista romano. El análisis aislado del texto y la búsqueda individualizada de los asentamientos designados por los topónimos transmitidos habían hecho imposible hasta el momento detectar el sistema descriptivo adoptado por Plinio. Mediante el cotejo de bases de datos epigráficas, numismáticas y literarias, disponibles en su mayoría en la web, de la Tabula Imperii Romani y de bibliografía relacionada con cada uno de los topónimos, y tras evidenciar la lógica descriptiva de la geografía pliniana, ha sido posible situar sobre un mapa actual algunos de los topónimos latinos aún no reducidos o mal identificados. Presentamos, por tanto, los mapas resultantes del estudio del texto pliniano y la descripción de la metodología empleada para su realización. PALABRAS CLAVE: Plinio, cartografía antigua, hidrografía, derrotero, geografía histórica.

Around 500 BC, the Pythagoreans and Eleates put forward the idea that the earth is not a disc but a globe. At least at the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers and scientists accepted this new theory. Nevertheless, the age-old concept of a flat earth did not die out in antiquity. Resistance to the new concept can not only be found among the vulgus (Pliny) and philosophical groups like Epicureans, but also among Christians of later Roman time. Renown writers like Augustine, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Kosmas Indikopleustes attacked the "modern" theory with different arguments. This paper examines the reasons behind this alleged "Wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit". It also includes the first translation of a Syriac text of Theodore of Mopsuestia.

Geus, Klaus; Tupikova, Irina Tupikova: Astronomy and geography: some unexplored connections in Ptolemy. In: Pontani, Filippomaria (ed.): Certissima signa: a Venice conference on Greek and Latin astronomical texts. Venezia: Ca´ Foscari, 2017 (Antichistica; 13 = Philologia e letteratura; 2),. 61–73 [ISBN: 978-88-6969-166-9; also as ebook [ISBN 978-88-6969-165-2] in open access under: http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/it/edizioni/libri/978-88-6969-166-9/].
Abstract:
The authors discuss the so-called 'zenith star method', first mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography (ca. AD 150), from an astronomical and historical perspective. They reach the conclusion that the exact representation in some texts, i.e. that the distance between the two points of culmination is 1°, does not in fact concern a pair of stars culminating at the zenith but only one star which is measured at an angle of 1° from the zenith. This peculiar condition points to a historical measurement carried out by an unknown Greek astronomer: it makes use of the fact that the bright star Pollux (β Geminorum) culminated at Alexandria with an angle distance of 1° from the zenith or (which is equivalent) culminated at the zenith over a place 1° south of Alexandria (ca. 110 km).

Open Access
http://hdl.handle.net/2445/132987

RESEÑADO EN / REVIEWED IN
https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/spal/article/view/12035
http://revistas.uned.es/index.php/ETFII/article/view/25898/20534
https://revistas.uca.es/index.php/sig/article/view/5272
https://www.academia.edu/43903184/Colonizaci%C3%B3n_romana_y_territorio_en_Hispania_El_caso_de_Hasta_Regia

This monograph offers a whole range of knowledge and resources for the study of the Roman colonies, especially from a spatial perspective and for those colonies that were founded during the time of Augustus. The colony is seen as a symbol of the expansion of the urban lifestyle and the structured management of the territory. The Augustan colony has been considered as the peak of the Romanization. Its classic image is a reference with regard to a recurrent phenomenon throughout history. However, the Augustan colonial status conceals a diversity of cases. In order to deal with the variety of situations, concentric approaches are displayed for time and space. Geography, land surveying and agronomy provide parameters on the perception and exploitation of space. Viewed from Classics and historiography, this triple approach frames the complex historic interaction between the physical and cultural factors. Within the temporal level, a global image of colonization has been depicted, as understood by archaeologists and historians. Progressively focused on Antiquity and the Roman world, precedents, analogous forms and types of colonies have been described. Fundamental sources and historical milestones are discusses in the study of the time of Caesar and Augustus, in the culminating phase of the Roman colonial phenomenon.
It is still necessary to deal with the matter of the uniqueness of every case. In this respect, concentric approaches focus on the colonies in Hispania, explaining of their particularities in Republican times and the Principate. This panorama of research turns to more specific research problems within the study of Hasta Regia (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz). Faced with the usual deficiencies in the preceding dossier of evidence, this research shows how a combined analysis reveals some details that relate to the general understanding of Roman colonization. The territory of Hasta Regia is shown as a dynamic entity, which accommodates geographical conditions and preceding political realities that lead to new ones under Flavian municipalization. In short, this work offers a series of tools, comprising both fundamental principles and practical examples. All of these tools facilitate the study and promote the need to understand a key piece in the transformation of the Roman Empire, colonization.

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Esta obra ofrece un amplio panorama de conocimientos y recursos a emplear en el estudio de cualquier colonia romana, especialmente para la época de Augusto y desde una perspectiva espacial. La colonia representa la extensión del modo de vida urbano y la racionalidad en la gestión del territorio. Summum de la romanización y referente de un fenómeno recurrente en la historia, la imagen clásica de la colonia augustea oculta una casuística diversa. Para afrontar esta disparidad de situaciones, se presenta una serie de enfoques concéntricos en el tiempo y el espacio. Geografía, Agrimensura y Agronomía disponen los parámetros de la percepción y explotación del espacio. Reflejada en las fuentes y la historiografía, esta perspectiva triple sirve para encuadrar la compleja interacción histórica entre factores físicos y culturales. En el tiempo, se ha presentado una imagen global de la colonización, tal y como ha llegado a los arqueólogos e historiadores. Centrada progresivamente en la Antigüedad y el mundo romano, se describen precedentes, formas análogas y tipos de colonias. Finalmente, se comentan las fuentes fundamentales y los hitos históricos en el estudio de la época de César y Augusto, en la fase culminante del fenómeno colonial romano.
Queda entonces por acotar el problema de la singularidad de los casos. En este aspecto, las perspectivas concéntricas se ciernen sobre las colonias hispanas, explicando sus particularidades para las épocas republicana y altoimperial. Este panorama para la investigación se vuelve hacia problemas aún más específicos con el estudio de Hasta Regia (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz). Frente a las deficiencias habituales en la documentación de partida, se pone de manifiesto cómo un análisis de conjunto revela detalles que afectan a la percepción general de la colonización romana. El territorio de Hasta Regia se muestra como un ente dinámico, que asume condicionantes geográficos y realidades políticas precedentes para desembocar en otras nuevas con la municipalización flavia. En definitiva, esta obra ofrece una serie de herramientas, tanto principios fundamentales como ejemplos prácticos. Todos ellos facilitan el estudio y promueven la necesidad de comprender una pieza clave en la transformación del Imperio Romano, la colonización.

This paper offers comparison of the data about the Roman roads along
the coastline between Iader, Salona and Narona, the ones preserved in the itinerary sources (the Peutinger’s map, the Antonine’s Itinerary) and the Elder Pliny’s information (Nat. hist. 3, 141 and 142). Under the supposition that Pliny’s data came from the Agrippa’s map they might reflect situation from the early phase of Augustus’ reign. Having in mind excellent connections of Asseria with the road Iader– Scardona – Salona, the conslusion is that the building of this road must have been an additional impetus to fast development of Asseria in the Early Principate.

Le bornage des confins en haute et moyenne montagne dans les Alpes romaines : espaces de marges, espaces marginalisés, espaces finalisés ? Un exemple : la Haute Vallée de l' Arve et du Val d' Arly en Haute-Savoie Delphine Acolat -Franges urbaines et confins territoriaux, p. 601-618

Geus, Klaus: Wer ist Marinos von Tyros? Zur Hauptquelle des Ptolemaios in seiner "Geographie". In: Geographia antiqua 26 (2017), 13-22.
Abstract – As Ptolemy himself acknowledged, Marinos of Tyros was the main source for his Geographike Hyphegesis, his famous „Introduction to Geography“ (ca. AD 150). Next to nothing is known about this enigmatic geographer who wrote at the beginning of the second century AD. Several fragments exhibit that Marinos drew on unpublished sources, mined Latin geographical and topographical texts and had access to Roman military and administrative material which was otherwise inaccessible to ancient geographers. This makes it plausible that Marinos was not a Greek but a Roman geographer („Marinus“), probably one within the higher Roman administration. The author proposes to identify Marinos of Tyros with L. Iulius Marinus Caecilius Simplex, consul suffectus of the year AD 101. This Marinus´ origo was indeed Phoenicia. The denomination „Marinos of Tyros“ fits both the biographical information derived from Ptolemy and the common usage for Roman personalities in Greek texts from the Imperial period. The suggestions outlined in the article not only account for some peculiarities in connection with Marinos but also explain the numerous discrepancies between Ptolemy´s Geographike Hyphegesis and other geographical works in antiquity.

Geus, Klaus: „Er hat die Oikumene der römischen Herrschaft unterworfen“: Bemerkungen zu den Raumvorstellungen in der Zeit des Augustus. In: Baltrusch, Ernst; Wendt, Christian (eds.): Der Erste: Augustus und der Beginn einer neuen Epoche. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern / Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2016, pp. 76–85, 159–160 (Zaberns Bildbände zur Archäologie / Sonderbände der Antiken Welt) [ISBN: 978-3-8053-5033-4].

La montagne, quelle que soit la réalité de sa forme ou de son altitude, apparaît comme un des modèles de locus horridus chez les Romains. Il s'agit de voir sur quels critères se fonde le modèle très péjoratif, essentiellement littéraire, mais aussi iconographique (fresques, mosaïques, cartes, monnaies), et de discuter sa portée historique et ses conséquences dans les mentalités romaines de la période impériale.

Geus, Klaus: Die "Weltkarte" und das Verbrechen des Mettius Pompusianus: ein Vorschlag. In: Suárez de la Torre, Emilio; Canzobre Martínez, Isabel; Sánchez-Mañas, Carmen (eds.): Ablanathanalba: magia, cultura y sociedad en el Mundo Antiguo. Madrid: Dykinson, 2020 (Collección Clásicos Dykinson), 175–183 [ISBN: 978-84-1324-639-0 / 978-84-1324-682-6].

Throughout his academic career, spanning more than four decades, Professor Richard Talbert has studied the ancient world from various viewpoints and has analysed numerous aspects of the Greek and Roman world. The online database of the Année philologique attributes more than thirty articles and books to him, but even this is not yet complete, for another dozen works still need to be added (an up-to-date bibliography is kindly provided by Brice and Slootjes on pages 12-25). Colleagues, fellows, pupils, and friends from North American and West European universities have chosen to pay tribute to Professor Talbert for his achievements. They have offered this volume which is divided into three parts : part one is a foreword and a list of publications with references to major reviews and online access, part two includes nine papers on Roman institutions, and part three comprises eight articles on ancient geography.

[CAT]
Aquest article pretén donar compte de l’origen dels nesònims Columba i Nura per a Mallorca i Menorca, respectivament, documentats únicament per l’Itinerarium Maritimum (Wess. 511, 3 - 512, 1). Després d’examinar-los per separat i constatar la presència de sengles paral·lels sards, es conclou que en ambdós casos es tracta d’un error relacionat amb les fonts de l’obra de natura diferent a aquesta i que en realitat són els mateixos topònims sards mal ubicats.

[ENG]
The aim of the present papers is to identify the origin of the nesonyms Columba and Nura given to Mallorca and Minorca, correspondingly, only by the Itinerarium Maritimum (Wess. 511, 3 - 512, 1). According to the approach assumed here, they are indeed Sardinian toponyms misplaced from this island, a mistake due to the kind of sources used by this Itinerarium.

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