The use of tactical maps in late-1st C.AD

[Quintius Clavus]

You can get a very useful look at how the Romans saw their world in a book "Rome and the Enemy" by Susan P. Mattern, University of California Press, 1999. The subtitle is Imperial Strategy in the Principate. There is a lengthy chapter called The Image of the World, which deals with the Roman view of geography, maps, etc.<br>
She writes in the chapter: "Ancient sources, as noted above (earlier in the chapter), assume that it is only after military intervention that one can expect detailed information about a geographical region."<br>
Earlier in the chapter she notes: "The Romans inhabited a world without modern land surveying techniques, without aerial or satellite photography, and without the compass. The bird's eye view was not available to them; the only reliable way to acquire information about an area was to march through it, ideally with an army."<br>
To some extent, obviously, the Romans also used information obtained from merchants, other travelers and captured or defecting enemies. It still presented a linear view, like an itinerary, not a wide spatial view. That would still be true for a time for an area the army had marched through.<br>
The book is an interesting discussion of the Romans' own strategic world view.<br>
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Quinton/Marcus Quintius Clavus <p></p><i></i>