World and Hour in Roman Minds Exploratory Essays

World and Hour in Roman Minds: Exploratory Essays seeks to penetrate Romans' consciousness of space and time, aspects of antiquity currently attracting intense interest. Historian Richard Talbert presents here a cohesive selection of nineteen essays, published over the course of thirty years, all but one previously appearing in widely scattered publications. Now reinforced by an Introduction and textually and visually updated, these essays document the progress of pioneering efforts to glimpse the worldviews of Romans up and down the social scale--even Julius Caesar and Claudius--and to reassess the communicative role of Roman mapping along with its strengths and limitations.

Talbert interprets the Antonine Itinerary and Artemidorus and Peutinger maps afresh, visualizing the latter with a wider perspective than in previous scholarship and probing the challenges of its design, production and copying. He also casts doubt, however, on the idea that Romans conceptualized their long-distance roads as an interconnected system, as did certain comparable premodern states across the Americas and Asia.

The most recent essays share findings that emerge with a shift of focus from space to time, specifically Romans' daily timekeeping by hours--another neglected dimension of their social mentalité. Talbert suggests that Romans' tracking of time should be regarded as uncannily similar to that of the Japanese before Westernization. Throughout, the essays are unified by the methods applied. The value of broader, often comparative, approaches is demonstrated, as well as the creative potential of untapped testimony and digital technology--altogether an invaluable platform to stimulate further inquiry.

Richard J. A. Talbert is Research Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has edited the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World and authored Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered as well as Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in Your Hand.

Abbreviations
Introduction

Part I: World and Empire in the Mind's Eye
1. Oswald Dilke's Greek and Roman Maps (1985)
2. China and Rome: The Awareness of Space
3. Grasp of Geography in Caesar's War Narratives
4. Trevor Murphy's Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (2004)
5. An English Translation of Pliny's Geographical Books for the Twenty-First Century
6. Boundaries Within the Roman Empire
7. Rome's Provinces as Framework for Worldview
8. Worldview Reflected in Roman Military Diplomas
9. Author, Audience and the Roman Empire in the Antonine Itinerary
10. John Matthews' The Journey of Theophanes: Travel, Business, and Daily Life in the Roman East (2006)

Part II: Maps for Whom and Why
11. The Unfinished State of the Artemidorus Map: What is Missing, and Why?
12. Claudius' Use of a Map in the Roman Senate
13. Cartography and Taste in Peutinger's Roman Map
14. Peutinger's Map: The Physical Landscape Framework
15. Copyists' Engagement with the Peutinger Map

Part III: From Space to Time
16 Roads Not Featured: A Roman Failure to Communicate?
17. Roads in the Roman World: Strategy for the Way Forward
18. Communicating Through Maps: The Roman Case
19. Roman Concern to Know the Hour in Broader Historical Context

Bibliography
Index