Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire (review)

Richard J. A. Talbert

American Journal of Philology, Volume 123, Number 3 (Whole Number 491),

Fall 2002, pp. 529-534 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2002.0044

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/1397

Access provided by University of Exeter (26 Mar 2017 00:55 GMT)

 BOOK REVIEWS 529

which it constructs its argument: By the time Chaplin states her conclusions, they
have been so thoroughly argued as to seem self-evident. The broad approach
does have some limitations. Focusing on exempla across the AUC at the expense
of close reading occasionally distracts from the contextual details that make
Livian narrative so interesting. For example, it gives more weight to Fabius
invocation of Cannae as a grim example to remember that Hieronymus, boy-
king of Syracuse, has just in the previous episode used Cannae in a joke meant to
insult the Roman envoys. Elsewhere, one catches a glimpse of a potentially
fruitful approach not taken. Chapter 3 includes a tantalizingly brief discussion of
exempla that seem to have less effect than some other element of persuasion
(e.g., Camillus exempla-lled speech moves his audience, but what really con-
vinces the Romans to stay in Rome is the omen of the soldier calling out).
Since exempla occur most frequently in speeches, examining their invoca-
tion among other speech acts that refer to past events (oaths, jokes like that of
Hieronymus) would help open discussion to the broader uses of invoked memory.
This might include the less obvious ways in which Livy shows exempla asserting
their inuence. Chaplin nds it curious that no one in the extant books of Livy
takes Lucretia as a model of conduct, and thus, no one ever prots from Lucretias
experience (168). But Lucretia does not want to encourage rape victims to
commit suicide; she wants to discourage women from making excuses for adul-
tery. That the extant books are not populated with unchaste Roman women
evading the consequences of their behavior by crying rape is testimony to her
success. Moreover, having erased herself as a precedent for female unchastity,
Lucretia becomes a blank slate, as it were, to be reinscribed as an illustration of
a tyrants lust. Brutus learns from Lucretia, as do the Roman women who mourn
him as avenger of chastity in Book 2.
But these criticisms by no means take issue with Chaplins overall argu-
ment. The book makes its points convincingly. It is a welcome contribution that
should convince even the most traditionally inclined of Livys historical and
literary sophistication.

MARY JAEGER
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
e-mail: maryjaeg@oregon.uoregon.edu

COLIN ADAMS and RAY LAURENCE, eds. Travel and Geography in the Roman
Empire. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. x + 202 pp. 48 black-and-
white gures. Cloth, $75.

Five of the six contributions to this varied and valuable collection of essays
originated as papers delivered at the 1999 Roman Archaeology Conference in
Durham, England. The sixth and longest piece, by Benet Salway, was then added,
together with an introduction by one co-editor (Adams) and an afterword by the
530 BOOK REVIEWS

other (Laurence). Notes follow each contribution, with a consolidated bibliography

and index at the end. Although in black and white only, the range of photos,
gures, and maps is appropriately extensive.
The volume stems from due recognition that geographical knowledge and
travel in the Roman world are topics at last attracting the serious attention they
deserve. Between them, the contributions amply demonstrate how even some of
the aspects most fundamental to our understanding stir deep controversy and
how incomplete the exploitation of much of the diverse source material has been
to date. Happily, the emergence of exciting new discoveries is prompting fresh
examination of testimony long known and neglected.
Useful, though limited in scope, is Anne Kolbs Transport and Communi-
cation in the Roman State: The cursus publicus (95105), which mainly connes
itself to identifying those categories of imperial ofcials and other individuals
entitled to use the service (more properly referred to as vehiculatio during the
Principate). By contrast, the support Kolb offers for the doubtful claim that
transport of freightother than baggage accompanying ofcialswas a rela-
tively unimportant aspect of the service, even in the Late Empire (102), remains
inadequate. Throughout, changes to the service over such a long span seem
underappreciated (not least, for example, Nervas removal of the burden from
Italy).
Adams modestly characterizes his contribution There and Back Again:
Getting around in Roman Egypt (13866) as descriptive rather than analytical.
His aim is to demonstrate the scope and value of the testimony preserved on
papyri, and he does this engagingly, with unfailing regard for the impact of
Egypts unique geography and topography on travel there. Even though its
publication dates back to 1952, few readers are likely to be familiar with the
extensive archive preserving an itinerary and accounts for Theophanes return
journey from Antinoopolis to Antioch around 320 (16062). Even fewer will be
aware of the record of travelers and animals accommodated overnight, and
rations issued to them, kept by the two large, busy mansiones in the Oxyrhynchite
nome during the mid-fourth century and only published in 1994 (14244). Vivid
illustration of the multiple hazards awaiting travelers by road from causes both
natural and human (15456) can serve as a sobering counterbalance to the ideal
conditions evoked by Aelius Aristides and quoted earlier by Adams (as eulogy)
in the Introduction (12). One manifestation of recreational travel, which
seems strangely absent from the discussion, on page 157 in particular, is pilgrim-
age (note, in general, Der Neue Pauly, s.v. Pilgerschaft 1).
Jon Coulstons Transport and Travel on the Column of Trajan (10637) is
another predominantly descriptive contribution but one well geared to substan-
tiate its conclusion: The conict is not simply between Romans and Dacians,
Trajan and Decebalus. It is also a contest between Romans and barbarians,
disciplina and perturbatio, labor and inertia, imperial virtues and enemy perdy,
civilisation and untamed nature, urbanisation and wilderness (12930). Descrip-
tion, moreover, is justied here when no other piece of Roman propaganda art,
 BOOK REVIEWS 531

before or after, depicts armies on the movetents (for which soldiers were
charged! [Tacitus Annals 1.17.4]), carts, pack animals, equipment, provisions,
along roads, over bridgeswith such amazing fullness and detail. We possess no
more forceful illustration of the huge train that had to accompany every legion
(11819; the comparison made with Ottoman armies on campaign in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries is instructive). Coulstons acute observation,
lucid presentation, and reluctance to overinterpret individual details on the
column (11415, with the caution that the sculptors own grasp may have been
incomplete) all enhance the value of his contribution.
Laurences The Creation of Geography: An Interpretation of Roman
Britain (6794) comes splendidly illustrated with tables, bar graphs, and sketch
maps for each of the islands routes in the Antonine Itinerary. It is less clear,
however, whether the latter work (along with Ptolemys Geography, in particu-
lar) can in fact furnish the basis he desires for a reliable model to understand
cultural change in Roman Britain. Laurences claim that the itineraries for each
route in the work were assembled to create an account of the geography of the
whole empire (75) is insecure. So, too, the argument that the journeys listed
should be viewed not individually but as an interrelated network of routes that
intersected at certain points or key places. The stress in the itineraries on the
distance between places in both peripheral provinces and the Mediterranean
core allows for comparison of inter-centre distances or the spacing of places in a
number of locations across the empire (7580). Without question, his similar-
size samples for Italy and Britain do happen to reveal shorter intervals between
recorded stopping-places in the latter region than the former. Striking though
the difference is, it may not be valid to explain it, as he does, by presuming lower-
quality road construction and maintenance throughout Britain, requiring travel-
ers there to stop more often, a factor that in turn would affect the overall
concentration of resources and the development of towns in larger, more
centralised nucleated settlements (87). As Laurence himself immediately ac-
knowledges, the mere inclusion of a toponym in an itinerary can seldom give a
clue to the appearance of the place on the ground; many of those recorded in
Britain must have been really modest. In addition, it is mistaken to believe that
uniform criteria were necessarily adopted for the recording of stopping-places in
collections of itineraries. The claim may in fact be valid for the Bordeaux Itinerary,
which derives, after all, from one individuals experience. The materials that
make up the Antonine Itinerary and Peutinger Table, by comparison, are far
more varied in origin and detail. The latter reects the widest extremesfre-
quently retaining intervals of only one, two, or three miles, while elsewhere
content with intervals of fty miles and more, even though intermediate stops
must have existed (note, for example, gures of fty-one from Casaroduno to
Cenabo in Gaul and one hundred thirty from Nicopolistro to Marcianopolis in
Moesia Inferior).
The overlapping pair of contributions by Kai Brodersen, The Presenta-
tion of Geographical Knowledge for Travel and Transport in the Roman World:
532 BOOK REVIEWS

Itineraria non tantum adnotata sed etiam picta (721), and Benet Salway, Travel,
Itineraria, and Tabellaria (2266), have the widest scope. The latter effectively
divides in two. Its opening merits special gratitude for furnishing what has for too
long been unavailable in English, a concise overview of the nature and composi-
tion of both the Antonine, Bordeaux, and related itineraries and of the Peutinger
Table. A particularly welcome accompaniment is the set of three maps outlining
the coverage of the two itineraries just named, an exact copy ofand replace-
ment forCuntzs single, fragile sheet of 1929, although omitting his explanation
for the dotted road linework (stretches covered only in the Bordeaux Itinerary).
It seems a pity that the chance was not taken to distinguish the entire course of
that itinerary too. The key point is well made that the Antonine Itinerary, which
has reached us as a single work and is typically referred to as such, in fact
comprises an unstructured collection of records for a variety of routes, by no
means all compiled uniformly by a single author. The coverage offered by the
Peutinger Table, by contrast, is not only more comprehensive but also presented
as a whole, although it, too, reects records made at different times according to
variable criteria. However, I doubt the inference (44), from the red linework
added along certain rivers in Europe between Lugduno and Ravenna, that an
itinerarium uviale had also been consulted here to identify navigable stretches.
This inconsistent addition (which also extends to the lake by Aquileia, inciden-
tally) seems rather to be just a copyists decorative quirk, an experimental our-
ish soon abandoned.
Salway rightly argues that the data used by the Antonine Itinerary and the
Peutinger Table cannot have derived from the ofcial records of some imperial
bureau (47). Instead, their sources lie elsewhere, which leads to the second part
of his contribution: Here he argues that the term tabelarios (accusative plural),
uniquely attested in the so-called elogium from Polla, is to be understood as
tablets listing the names of places along a route with the distances between each,
something which this document itself then at once proceeds to do, albeit in very
summary form (53). Such tabellaria, as he prefers to call them, could well have
furnished the lists on the Vicarello beakers (photos in J. M. Roldn Hervs,
Itineraria Hispana [Valladolid: Universidad, 1975], Lm. XIVXXI; the objects
themselves can now be seen in Romes Museo Nazionale at the Palazzo Massimo).
Since 1994, the meager tally of known fragments of comparable documents in
stone has expanded with the remarkable discovery and reassembly of a massive
one from Patara (Lycia) datable to A.D. 45, the full publication of which remains
frustratingly delayed. It proclaims itself to be a stadiasmos. Whether the Latin
equivalent term is tabellarium, as Salway urges, remains to be proven. Brodersen
(14, note 28) is skeptical, and there are indeed grounds for hesitation. The fact
that tabelarios are mentioned after miliarios could imply that they are less
signicant, conceivably intermediate markers of some kind between milestones,
unattested archaeologically according to Salway (51), although Adams (141)
happens to cite Petries report of such stones on a route in Egypts Eastern
Desert. Equally, we do hear of other kinds of roadside notice: Siculus Flaccus
 BOOK REVIEWS 533

mentions roads, which titulos nitis spatiis positos habent, qui indicent, cuius
agri quis dominus quod spatium tueatur (B. Campbell, The Writings of the
Roman Land Surveyors [London: Roman Society, 2000], 112). This said, while
doubt about the Latin term equivalent to stadiasmos must persist, Salway does
convince one with his broader, more important claim that the material in the
Antonine Itinerary and the Peutinger Table ultimately derives in large measure
from sources of this type.
Brodersens main purpose is to expose the traditional scholarly assump-
tion that there was a Roman tradition of scale maps (912) and to urge that
instead their geographical knowledge was organised, and presented, in itinerar-
ies (19). In so doing, he reinforces positions established in his 1995 book Terra
Cognita: Studien zur rmischen Raumerfassung (Hildesheim: Olms) (objections
by Salway to its provocative claim that Agrippas map was actually no more
than a monumental inscription are now countered in page 9, note 9). Some
doubts may linger, however; I single out two: First, to state without further
discussion that not even the surveyors maps are drawn to scale (9), with the
implication that, hence, the Romans must be considered incapable of producing
scale maps, seems excessive. Valid grounds there certainly are for continuing to
debate the character and extent of mapmaking in Roman society, but the
longstanding presence within it of some such activity cannot be in question. To
attempt making any kind of map by denition requires an awareness of scale,
and with the survival of (say) the Marble Plan of Rome and the Orange cadasters,
to maintain that Romans altogether lacked this sense surely goes too far. Admit-
tedly, scale in Roman maps seldom meets modern standards of accuracy and
consistency, but a map does not need to attain these to be of value. What further
insight into this and other issues of cartographic production will eventually
emerge from the full Artemidorus map (16)another new discovery whose
publication remains frustratingly delayedremains to be determined. In all like-
lihood its considerable degree of incompleteness (which extends to the absence
of any color) will unfortunately prove a major obstacle. Moreover, for present
purposes we should recognize that it is without question Greek work, not Ro-
man, and quite possibly predates the imperial period.
My second doubt concerning the dismissal of a Roman tradition of scale
maps stems from Brodersens extreme representation of the Peutinger Table as a
mere route diagram, on which there is certainly no concept of scale (18).
Fortunately, since substantial segments of this diagram were chosen for three
pages of plates (3, 17, 174), not to mention the books jacket, readers can detect
otherwise, even with the color missing. True, land routes and the names associ-
ated with them are prominent throughout, but there is much more besides
numerous rivers, islands, mountains, spas, peoples, and regions are marked and
named. If this was genuinely a route diagram, then it quite failed to drop an array
of redundant data, which (as Brodersen says, 19) is one of the dening charac-
teristics that render modern maps of this type so effective and popular. The
Peutinger Tables last editor, Konrad Miller, whose research now dates back a
534 BOOK REVIEWS

century and more, focused almost exclusively on checking the routes marked
against known conditions on the ground without ever attempting an evaluation
of the map as a piece of complex, creative cartography. Brodersens dismissal
underlines the urgent need to develop the latter perspective. It in turn will lead
to a realization that the sources used range far beyond what could be found in
any set of itineraries and that this extraordinary masterpiece could only be the
work of one or more individuals somehow already very familiar with carto-
graphic design and techniques (including, of course, a sense of scale). The inge-
nious layout of the shorelines, together with the related placement of the key
nodal points on the route network, offers the clearest demonstration of both
these insights. In short, fundamental reevaluation of the Peutinger Table from
this perspective is poised to cast considerable doubt on the dismissal of a Roman
tradition of scale maps.
That major task lies ahead, however. Meantime, all the authors in the
present volume merit our thanks for such stimulating contributions, which con-
rm the value and appeal of enquiry into Roman travel and geography as well as
their outstanding potential as subjects for further investigation.

RICHARD J. A. TALBERT
U NIVERSITY OF N ORTH CAROLINA, CHAPEL HILL
e-mail: talbert@email.unc.edu