Slide #120
TITLE: Tabula Peutingeriana
DATE: First century A.D.
AUTHOR: Castorius (?)
DESCRIPTION: Shown here are reproductions of an early road map of the
imperial highways of the Roman world, covering the area roughly from southeast
England to present day Sri-Lanka. It is not a 'map' in the true sense of
the word, but a cartogram. No copies of the original have survived but a
copy of it, now in Vienna, was purportedly made in 1265 by a monk at Colmar
who fortunately contented himself with adding a few scriptural names, and
who seems to have omitted nothing important that appeared in the original.
The entire map was originally a long, narrow parchment roll and in its present
state measures 22 feet,1.75 inches long by 13.25 inches wide (6.75 meters
long but only 34 centimeters wide). Only one of these 'original' twelve
section is now lost.
According to most authorities, about A.D. 250 the original tables were,
themselves, copied from a larger original map of the first century A.D.
(some scholars have identified that the author may have used M.V. Agrippa's
world map as his source (Slide#118). About A.D. 350 the presentation
of the coastal regions was improved and some islands were added. At the
turn of the 5th-6th centuries the world ocean was added and improvements
were made to the seas; at about the same time, the influence of this map
appears in a work by an anonymous cosmographer of Ravenna (Slide
#203), who made use of some new material recently added to his source.
Since the Ravenna cosmographer names a certain Castorius as the author of
his source in connection with material also found in the Tabula Peutingeriana,
it is to be inferred that this was the maker's name for the original. The
overall form of the Colmar edition, which is the basic form of the Tabula
as it has reached us today, must have been fixed at this period, about A.D.
500; although a few local corrections were made subsequently, for example,
in the 8th and 9th centuries.
This Colmar copy was found by Konrad Celtes (1459-1508), a German poet and
scholar for the Emperor Maximilian I and later turned over to Konrad Peutinger
(1465-1547) in 1508 in Augsburg and has since been known as the Tabula
Peutingeriana or Peutinger Tables or Itineraries. After
Peutinger's death, two of the twelve sections of the Colmar manuscript were
engraved and published in 1591 with annotated text and place-names taken
from the sections reproduced. A second edition by Abraham Ortelius was published
in Antwerp in 1598 as part of his Theatri Orbis Terrarum Parergon
which contained eight of the twelve sections of the Table. Numerous other
engraved reproductions were made until 1753 when it was finally reproduced
in its entirety.
In its design, the Peutinger Table makes no pretense of showing the
whole world or even its major parts in correct proportion. It is merely
a graphic compendium of mileages or basically an itinerary route map with
the roads delineated predominantly by straight lines, often with curious
jogs. The routes are drawn in red, while the sea is indicated by greenish-blue.
The map does not conform to the rules of any projection, nor is it possible
to apply a constant scale to determine distances from place to place; for
these measurements we have to refer to the figures written in by the author.
Also the Table was not apparently designed for military use, but
instead gives prominence to trading centers, mineral springs, places of
pilgrimage, mountain chains (in profile) and in three great cities (Rome,
Constantinople and Antioch) set three rulers, believed to represent the
sons of Constantine enthroned as symbols of a tripartite empire. The use
of vignettes and/or medallions is also found depicting the city of Alexandria,
while smaller towns are illustrated by little houses; three forest districts,
two in Germany and one in Syria, are represented by sketches of trees.
Except for a very few instances, where the interpolation may be easily traced,
there is nothing in the Peutinger Table which has any reference to
a time later than Diocletian; and the greater number of the names it contains
may be referred to an era earlier than the death of Augustus in A.D. 14.
The arrangement of the barbarian tribes on the frontiers of the Empire seems
to agree pretty nearly with what we know of them in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius; and the importance of the name of Persia, for instance,
in the far East, perhaps points to a revision of this part of the Table
as late as the 3rd century, at some time subsequent to the great Persian
revival of A.D. 226 - but these details leave the essential character of
the plan strictly classical.
In the Jansoon edition of the Peutinger Table (1652), the first sheet
shows a section of southeastern England protruding from the title cartouche,
with the roads and harbors marked. France, Spain, and North Africa with
roads, cities and some prominent buildings are also depicted, along with
major Mediterranean islands being Corsica and Sardinia. The second page,
comprising Segments III and IV, shows Italy with surrounding islands and
landforms bordering adjacent seas. Special prominence is given to Rome,
with many roads leading to it, of course. A royal figure, probably a Pope,
or perhaps an allegory of Christ the King is portrayed as representative
of the city along with a building which resembles St. Peters Basilica (or
the personage could be that of one of Constantine's sons as previously mentioned).
Further south is the city of Naples drawn inland, next to it is a dark mound
which might represent the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Segments V and VI illustrate the eastern Mediterranean by prominently showing
the Grecian archipelago and present-day Turkey and Crete. The seventh Segment
shows Cyprus, present-day Saudi Arabia, a large allegorical representation
of the Holy City, and the area southeast to Mesopotamia. The last, or eighth
Segment depicts Babylon to the Caspian Sea, the Indian peninsula and, in
the bottom right corner, the island of Taprobane, the Ptolemaic name
for Ceylon/Sri Lanka.
The Colmar manuscript of the Peutinger Tables, also known as Codex
Vindobonensis 324, is presently in the National Bibliothek, Vienna and
has been divided into sections for preservation. Its date of transcription
is 12th or early 13th century, but it has long been recognized as a copy
of an ancient map. In his will of 1508, the humanist Konrad Celtes of Vienna
left to Konrad Peutinger (in whose hands it had been since the previous
year) what he called Itinerarium Antonini. This was not justified
as a title: it is indeed a road map, but not connected with the Antonine
emperors and different from the Antonine Itineraries. It was first
published in 1591 by Markus Welser, a relative of the Peutingers and since
1618 n has generally been known as the Tabula Peutingeriana or translations
of that phase. Tabula is one Latin word for map, but forma
is more common. Inexplicably the word tabula has been translated
"table" rather than "picture" or "map" in
popular usage. It is now time to call it the "Peutinger Map" to
avoid any misconception that the original image was somehow carved on a
table or was like a statistical table. The alternative naming of the Peutinger
Map as the "world map of Castorius" has met with very little
support. Castorius, a geographical writer of the 4th century A.D., is several
times mentioned as a source in the Ravenna cosmography; but there is no
evidence to link him directly with the Peutinger Map. The original
roll at the time of its transcription in the early Middle Ages was of eleven
sheets, but as such it was incomplete, since much of Britain, Spain,and
the western part of North Africa were already missing at the time of copying;
there may also have been an introductory sheet forming part of an earlier
prototype version. It was evidently not, as was once thought, the work of
the Dominican monk Konrad of Colmar, who in 1265 quite independently produced
a mappamundi that he says he copied onto twelve parchment pages;
the paleography suggests an earlier date. The second sheet of the Peutinger
Map was treated as if it had been the first, with spellings of truncated
names containing false initial capitals (for example, Ridumo for
what was originally Moriduno). Hence a total of twelve sheets extant
at the time of copying can be accounted for only by assuming that, when
the copyist mentioned this number, he was including a title sheet.
The Peutinger Map was primarily drawn to show main roads, totaling
some 70,000 Roman miles (104,000 km), and to depict features such
as staging posts, spas, distances between stages, large rivers, and forests
(represented as groups of trees). It is not a military map, though it could
have been used for military purposes but the words of Vegetius give an indication
of its possible function. They suggest that, whether or not the term itinerarium
pictum [painted itinerary], was in current use, it is a convenient phrase
for this unique map. The distances are normally recorded in Roman miles,
but for Gaul they are in leagues, for Persian lands in parasangs,
and for India evidently in Indian miles.
The proportions of the Peutinger Map are such that distances east-west
are represented at a much larger scale than distances north-south; for example,
Rome looks as though it were nearer to Carthage than Naples is to
Pompeii. The archetype may well have been on a papyrus roll, designed
for carrying around in a capsa [tool box]. As such, its width would
be severely limited, whereas its length would not. In the extant map a north-south
road tends to appear at only a slightly different angle from an east-west
one, and distances are calculated not by the map's scale but by adding up
the mileages of successive staging posts.
The date of the archtype is likely to have been between A.D. 335 and 366.
Such dating is suggested by the three personifications placed on Rome, Constantinople
(labeled Constantinoplis, not Byzantium ) and Antioch;
and it fits in well enough with biblical references on the map. Sometime
after the foundation of Constantinople in A.D. 330 as a new Rome on the
site of Byzantium, Antioch was recognized as the important bastion against
the Parthians. Put the suggestion that this 4th century archetype was based
on a much earlier map would account for the inclusion of Herculaneum,
Oplontis, and Pompeii, which had been destroyed in the eruption
of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and not rebuilt, except for parts of Pompeii.
It is also perhaps easier, on this supposition, to see why certain roads
are omitted, such as the major routes through the Parthian empire mentioned
in the Mansiones Parthicæ [Parthian Stations] of Isidorus of
Charax. This work is believed to have been compiled in the late first century
A.D.
Around the personification of Rome - a female figure on a throne holding
a globe, a spear, and a shield - are twelve main roads, each with its name
attached, a practice not adopted elsewhere. The Tiber is correctly shown
with 90 percent of the city on its left bank. But owing to the personification
the city surround is formally shown as a circle, enlarged in proportion
to the very narrow width of the Italian peninsula. The Via Triumphalis
is indicated as leading to a church of Saint Peter; the words ad scm
[sanctum] Petrum are given in large minuscules on the medieval copy.
Ostia is shown with a harbor occupying about one-third of a circle,
in a fashion similar to that of miniatures in the early manuscripts of Virgil's
Aeneid. Constantinople is represented by a helmeted female figure seated
on a throne and holding in her left hand a spear and a shield. Nearby is
a high column (rather than a lighthouse) surmounted by the statue of a warrior,
presumably Constantine the Great . Antioch has a similar female personification,
perhaps originating in a statue of the Tyche [fortune] of the city,
together with arches of an aqueduct or possibly of a bridge. Nearby is the
park of Daphne, dedicated to Apollo and other gods and famous for its natural
beauty and as a leisure center. Even though the temple of Apollo was burned
down in 362, there were many other temples, so that this is not necessarily
a guide to the dating. It has been claimed that in A.D. 365-66 all three
personified cities were important, since the pretender Procopius had his
seat of power in Constantinople, Valentinian I in Rome and his brother Valens
in Antioch. But in fact, although Valens set out for Antioch, he was diverted
to fight Procopius and he cannot be correctly associated with the last-named
city.
Throughout the map, mountains are marked in pale brown and principal rivers
in green. Names of countries and some tribes are recorded. Apart from the
personifications, cartographic signs include representations of harbors,
altars, granaries, spas, and settlements. A unique sign is that for a tunnel,
used for the Crypta Neapolitiana, near Pozzuoli. Harbors, if indicated,
are given the accurate shape mentioned in connection with Ostia.
The sign for a spa is an ideogram of a roughly square building with an internal
courtyard, often with a gabled tower at each end of the near side. There
are fifty-two such buildings represented, of which twenty-eight are at places
specifically called Aquae; in some other cases there is reason to
think that a place so denoted had prominent baths. There are also in the
Peutinger Map places with cartographic signs for granaries, denoted
as rectangular roofed buildings. One such is Centumcellæ [Civitavecchia],
which had a corn-importing harbor of some size. Variants of a two-gabled
building were used to depict some settlements, but most were distinguished
by no more than a name. Attempts to differentiate between types of settlements
on the map and to establish criteria for the attribution of signs have not
been entirely successful. Certain important cities are shown with walls:
Aquileia, Ravenna, Thessalonica [Salonika], Nicæa [Iznik],
Nicomedia and Ancyra. But why would the triple-gable sign
appear only at Forum Iulii [Frejus], Augusta Taurinorum [Turin],
Luca [Lucca], Narona [on the Neretva River], and Tomis
[Constanta]? It is interesting to see that, just as there is one personification
in the West and two in the East, so two cities of the second rank, symbolically
given walls, are in the West and four in the East. Important cities like
Carthage, Ephesus, and Alexandria are not shown with a distinctive sign.
The road network is thought to have been based (at least within the empire)
on information held by the cursus publicus, responsible for organizing the
official transport system set up by Augustus. This system, extended under
the late empire to troop movements, relied very largely on staging posts
at more or less regular intervals; couriers traveled an average of fifty
Roman miles (74 km) a day.
The part of the British section of the Peutinger Map that survives
is so fragmentary that it covers only a limited area of the southeast, not
even including London, and an even smaller area around Exeter. Colchester,
surprisingly, is given no cartographic sign. The most northerly place extant
in Britain appears as Ad Taum; but it is very far removed from the
river Tay. This name, however, really consists of the ends of [Ven]ta
[Icenor]um (Caistor Saint Edmund, Norwich), and the only unusual feature
is ad, which may have belonged to an adjacent name.
One of the important features of the map is that it records so many small
places. This can be well illustrated by a name in Italy otherwise recorded
only (in corrupt form) in the Ravenna cosmography. On the Gulf of Naples,
marked as being six Roman miles from Herculaneum and three miles
each from Pompeii and Stabiae [Castellammare di Stabia
], is shown a large building with the name Oplont[i]s. Until
recently scholars could not place this name, like a number of others. But
since 1964 a large palace, which probably belonged to Nero's empress Poppæa,
has been excavated at Torre Annunziata, and it seems to authenticate the
detail on the map. Or again, a much earlier discovery near Aquileia in 1830
appears to correspond to an entry on the Peutinger Map. A large bathing
establishment, mentioned also by the elder Pliny, was discovered on the
lower reaches of the river Isonzo. This is probably the place given the
cartographic sign for a spa, with the words Fonte Timavi [spring
of the river Timavus]. Its fresh waters by the sea were regarded as an unusual
phenomenon and obviously worth mapping.
Owing to the shape of the map, the Nile could not be represented as a long
river if it were made to flow northward throughout its course. Instead it
is made to rise in the mountains of Cyrenaica and to flow "eastward"
to a point just above the delta. The delta itself is shown in less compressed
form from south to north than most parts of the Peutinger Map. The
distributaries of the Nile are shown to have many islands, three of them
marked with temples of Serapis, three with temples of Isis, while the roads
are somewhat discontinuous. On the Sinai desert we find the words desertum
ubi quadraginta annis erraverunt filii Israelis ducente Moyse [the desen
where the children of Israel wandered for forty years guided by Moses],
and there are other biblical references. There is also an area in central
Asia labeled Hic Alexander responsum accepit usq[ue] quo Alexander [Here
Alexander was given the oracular reply: "How far, Alexander?"].
Perhaps these ample descriptions, whether Christian or pagan, were added
on otherwise empty space about the 5th or 6th century A.D. In several areas
research is in progress combining fieldwork with study of the Peutinger
Map and of the history of place-names. One such is the area between
the Gulf of Aqaba and Damascus.
LOCATION: Österreichische National Bibliothek, Vienna
REFERENCES:
Bagrow, L., The History of Cartography, pp. 37-38.
Beazley, C., The Dawn of Modern Geography, vol. I; pp. 381-383.
*Bricker, C., Landmarks in Mapmaking, pp. 21-22.
*Brown, L., The Story of Maps, pp. 54; 92-93.
Brown, L.A., The World Encompassed, No. 5.
*Dilke, O.A.W., Greek and Roman Maps, pp. 112-120, 128, 152-3, 158-9, 169-70,
193-5.
*Harley, J.B., The History of Cartography, Volume One, pp. 238-242., Plate
5
*Nebenzahl, K., Maps of the Holy Lands, pp. 20-23, Plate 4 (color)
*Nordenskiöld, A.E., Facsimile Atlas, p.35.
*Jansoon, Tabula Itineraria ex illustri Peutingerorum Bibliotheca quae Mugistae
Vindelicorum beneficio Marci Velseri SeptemVeri Augustani in lucemedita,1741.
*illustrated
A portion of the Puetinger Map: Western Asia Minor and Egypt.
The elongated deformation of the map is shown by the ribbon-like representation
of (top-to-bottom) the Gulf of Azov and the Black, Aegean, Mediterranean,
and Red Seas. Constantinople is named as such and not as"Byzantium",
which confirms the pre-5th century date of the archetype. Its personification
is in the form of a female warrior, enthroned with a shield and spear. Close
by are a column and a statue, presumably of Constantine the Great. (original
size: 33 X 56. cm)