Tabula Peutingeriana
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The Tabula Peutingeriana (Peutinger table) is an itinerarium showing the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map (only copies have survived) dates from the 4th century. It covers Europe, parts of Asia (India) and North-Africa. The map is named after Konrad Peutinger, a German 15-16th century humanist.
Map description
The oldest surviving copy of the Tabula Peutingeriana was made by a monk in Colmar in the 13th century. It is a parchment scroll, 0.34 m high and 6.75 m long. It is a very schematic map: the land masses are distorted, especially in the east-west direction. The map shows many Roman settlements, the roads connecting them, rivers, mountains and seas. The distances between the settlements are also given. The most important cities of the Roman Empire, Rome, Constantinople and Antioch, are represented with a special decoration.
Disputes
The Peutinger Table does not satisfy modern conceptions of a map: longitude, which can only be calculated with an accurate clock, is highly compressed in comparison with latitude. The table is believed to be based on "itineraries", or lists of destinations along Roman roads. Travellers would not have possessed anything so sophisticated as a map, but they needed to know what lay ahead of them on the road, and how far. The Peutinger table represents these roads as a series of roughly parallel lines along which destinations have been marked in order of travel. The shape of the parchment pages accounts for the rectangular layout. However, a rough similarity to Ptolemy's earth gives some writers a hope that some terrestrial representation was intended by the unknown author(s).External links
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