Sunday, March 17, 2019

The Tabula Peutingeriana







The Roman mile or mille passus ("thousand-pace") consisted of the left foot 
hitting the ground 1000 times. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through 
uncharted territory, would often push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. 
Well-fed and harshly driven Roman legionaries in good weather thus created longer miles. 
The distance was indirectly standardised by Agrippa's establishment of a standard Roman 
foot (Agrippa's own) in 29 BC, and the definition of a pace as 5 feet. An Imperial Roman
 mile thus denoted 5,000 Roman feet, which is about 1,481 metres. All roads radiated out 
from Rome, some 50,000 miles of stone-paved roads, and at every mile was placed a 
milestone carved with a Roman numeral, so you always knew how far away you were. 




On the Peutinger Table some distances are compressed, while others 
are expanded. Image above - the southern half of the Italian Peninsula 
spans across this section and the Mediterranean appears no wider than 
a river.
The link below provides an 
opportunity to scroll through 
all eleven panels. 
http://peutinger.atlantides.org/map-a/#?z=1&xy=161.30556%2C17.06111&l=BTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF


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