APPENDIX 2

SOME FURTHER NOTES ON MAPPING IN ANTIQUITY

Maps are an essential tool of geography, but the evidence for them in Greek antiquity remains elusive. Although the concept of a map has existed since Sumerian times,¹ there is little physical evidence for any from the Greek period. One must rely primarily on literary descriptions, which can be ambiguous, and thus their study becomes a philological problem.² Morover, maps that are not the work of the author of a text became attached in later times to their manuscripts: this is certainly the case with the Geographical Guide of Ptolemy. Ephoros' statement about the four ethnic divisions of the extremities of the inhabited world does not seem to imply a map,³ yet in the sixth century AD Kosmas Indikopleustes had one in his text of Ephoros.⁴ The Artemidorus Papyrus includes a portion of a map of the southern Iberian peninsula (as well as other material, including a supposed excerpt from Book 2 of the Geographoumena of Artemidoros of Ephesos, written around 100 BC). Yet the authenticity of the papyrus, and thus its map, remains disputed.⁵ If it proves genuine, it will be the best surviving example of a Greek map, although it is more of a sketch or draft than a finished product, and remains difficult to interpret.⁶

Literary evidence, then, is the primary source for Greek maps.⁷ Greek map-making began with Anaximandros of Miletos in the early sixth century BC, but there are no particulars about his efforts.⁸ The next known map-maker is his fellow citizen, Hekataios, around 500 BC: his map was said to be so much better than its predecessor that it was “a source of wonder,” but again it is little known. Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletos, used a map that may have been drawn by Hekataios. In discussing it, Herodotos preserved the first detailed information about a Greek map. Aristagoras went to Sparta and

had with him a bronze tablet on which the entire circuit [of the earth] was engraved, all the sea and all the rivers.⁹

Aristagoras then described to the Spartan king, Kleomenes, what was on the map:

the lands where they live are next to one another: here are the Ionians and here are the Lydians, who live in a good land and have a great amount of silver … next to the Lydians are the Phrygians, toward the east, the richest in flocks and the richest in produce of all whom I know about. Near the Phrgyians are the Kappadokians, whom we call Syrians.

The account continues across Anatolia and on to the east, and eventually reaches “Sousa, where the Great King lives and where his treasure storehouses are.” Were it not for Herodotos' explicit testimony that Aristagoras is talking about a map, the reader would not necessarily know that the description was anything more than an itinerary from Ionia to Persia. There are many similar itineraries in Greek literature that may not have come from a map, and thus determining the origin of such a report is an inherent problem in understanding the evidence for ancient maps.¹⁰ Herodotos also made it clear that maps could provide wrong information, as well as be more revealing than its creator might have intended: the reaction of Kleomenes upon seeing Aristagoras' map was that the Persians were too far away to be a threat.¹¹

Other maps, and itineraries that may be based on maps, are documented for classical times but, as always, it is difficult to separate the literary genre from the physical map. Whether or not works such as Demokritos' Kosmographia or The Circuit of the Earth of Eudoxos of Knidos included maps cannot be proven.¹² Yet it seems that maps were widespread, especially by the early Hellenistic period, as demonstrated by the will of Theophrastos, in which he requested that there be

erected in the lower stoa [of the Lyceum in Athens] plans on which the circuits of the earth are depicted.¹³

This enigmatic statement cannot easily be interpreted: obviously there was more than one plan, but the use of the plural throughout suggests more than one “circuit of the earth,” perhaps indicating that the plans were designed to illustrate specific texts. These maps are clearly a teaching tool, not a political document like that of Aristagoras. Using maps for teaching is obvious, but the evidence is elusive.¹⁴ On the other hand, a map such as that described by Apollonios in the palace of Medea's father, showing “all the roads,” suggests a political rather than an academic purpose.¹⁵

Eratosthenes' account of the grid of the oikoumene implies a map, and his terminology points in that direction, but it is impossible to be certain.¹⁶ Nevertheless, he used maps in his research, at times objecting to their inaccuracy.¹⁷ His critic, Hipparchos, a mathematician rather than a geographer, probably did not create a map, despite his astronomical positioning of places in the inhabited world, yet he also made use of them.¹⁸ The globe of Krates has such a specific ideological purpose that it can hardly be called a map, although it was surprisingly influential in medieval times.¹⁹ In the later Hellenistic period presumably there were many maps in circulation, and some of these may be reflected in the itineraries preserved in literature. The major Greek mapping project from the Roman period is that of Ptolemy of Alexandria, dated to the mid-second century AD, based on the work of Marinos of Tyre.²⁰

The evidence is stronger for Roman maps.²¹ As the Romans established their government in new areas, there was a need to have the visual information that a map would provide as part of the political record. In 174 BC, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus dedicated in Rome a map of Sardinia, which he had just conquered.²² But, more importantly, the centralized government of the Roman state and the belief that Rome ruled the entire oikoumene, or orbis terrarum, to use the common Latin term, resulted in the production of large-scale public maps. Roman public mapping is typified by that of M. Vipsanius Agrippa of the latter first century BC, which was described as “the lands of the globe for the city to look at,” with “globe” refering to the oikoumene, not a sphere.²³ Extensive fragments of one such map, the Forma Urbis Romae, dating to around AD 200, actually survive,²⁴ and another, from maybe a century later, exists through the medium of the document known as the Peutinger Map.²⁵

Yet maps did not need to be state documents. One of the more engaging accounts of a Roman map comes from a poem of Propertius, probably written around 16 BC.²⁶ Arethusa pines for her husband, away on military service, yet a map helps her determine where he is:

I am forced to learn from a tablet the worlds painted on it, and how they were placed on it by its learned creator: which lands are slow with frost, which decay from heat, and what wind will bring the sails safely to Italy.²⁷

In fact, the impression is that Arethusa has both a map and an accompanying geographical commentary. Propertius' vignette demonstrates that maps were far more common in Roman times than the scant physical evidence implies.