Images of the built landscape in the later Roman world
At its greatest extent, the Roman empire represented one of the largest continuous areas of land to have been ruled by a single central administration in the classical period. While the extent of the empire may be determined from both the extensive body of literary evidence from the Roman world, and also from the physi- cal remains of great public works stretching from Britain to Arabia, the processes by which the Romans were able to apprehend larger spaces remain infrequently studied in modern scholarship. It is often assumed that Roman spatial awareness came from cartographic representations and that the imperial Roman administration must have possessed detailed scale maps of both individual regions and of the empire as a whole. In the first part of the present study, it is demonstrated that Roman spatial understanding may not have relied very extensively on cartography, and that any maps produced in the Roman world were designed to serve very different purposes from those that we might associate with maps today. Instead, it is argued that the extensive construction projects that defined the character of the imperial world would have pro- vided a means by which the larger physical spaces of the empire could
Simon, Jesse
Late antiquity and the Middle Ages ; History of the ancient world ; History ; Imperial Rome ; Roman Empire ; Late Antiquity ; Geography ; Cartography ; Landscape ; Built Environment
Images of the built landscape in the later Roman world. At its greatest extent, the Roman empire represented one of the largest continuous areas of land to have been ruled by a single central administration in the classical period. While the extent of the empire may be determined from both the extensive body of literary evidence from the Roman world, and also from the physi- cal remains of great public works stretching from Britain to Arabia, the processes by which the Romans were able to apprehend larger spaces remain infrequently studied in modern scholarship. It is often assumed that Roman spatial awareness came from cartographic representations and that the imperial Roman administration must have possessed detailed scale maps of both individual regions and of the empire as a whole. In the first part of the present study, it is demonstrated that Roman spatial understanding may not have relied very extensively on cartography, and that any maps produced in the Roman world were designed to serve very different purposes from those that we might associate with maps today. Instead, it is argued that the extensive construction projects that defined the character of the imperial world would have pro- vided a means by which the larger physical spaces of the empire could
images build landscape later_roman world great_extent roman_empire represent one_large continuous area land rule single central_administration classical_period extent empire may determine extensive body literary_evidence roman_world also cal remain great public work stretch britain arabia process romans able apprehend large space remain study modern_scholarship often_assume roman spatial awareness come cartographic representation imperial roman_administration must possess detailed scale map individual region empire whole first_part present_study demonstrate roman spatial may rely extensively cartography map produce roman_world design serve different purpose might associate map today instead_argue extensive construction project define character imperial world would pro mean large physical_space empire could