Romans

Topic for Discussion

Roman Geography: Do all roads lead to Rome?

The classic example of cartography exercised as science is by Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria (87–150 CE). The Romans, however, followed their own methodology, generally qualified as a decline relative to the Greek art and science of cartography, but with a logic that is the subject of this post. The Ptolemaic approach comprised a system of orthogonal terms, being the coordinates of latitude and longitude. The advanced mathematical basis that is… Read more

Travel

The Romans were Everywhere: a Cruise in the Western Mediterranean

A guest post by Anne Spendiff It seemed that when I watched TV programmes about Rome they featured gruesome death, sex, or communal toilets. Now I know that death, sex and toilets are part of life, but I did not want my first cruise to the Western Mediterranean, and my first trips to Rome and Pompeii, to focus on them. In preparation, I read Mary Beard’s Pompeii[1], and researched various… Read more