Forum Romanum


Subject:	Issue 2.1!!!!!!!
From:	Dav--------eadows <a href="/post/novaroma?protectID=114232192237248190028232203026129208071" >dmeadows@--------</a>
Date:	Fri, 14 May 1999 06:40:42 -0400

Apologies for crossposting, but my free email newsletter is one year old
today! -- dm

]|[============================================]|[

]|[ ]|[ EXPLORATOR
]|[ ]|[ Watching the Web for News of the Ancient World
]|[ ]|[ Volume 2, Issue 1 -- May 14, 1999

]|[============================================]|[

Editor's note: Depending on your mail software, some urls may wrap which
will require you to rebuild the url at your end; if you get a 'file not
found', check to see if the url wrapped on you. Most urls should be active
for at least eight hours from the time of 'publicatio' .

]|[============================================]|[

Woohoo! After 140 issues (interrupted by a major computer crash) Explorator
is now officially one year old! And so hic incipit volume 2 (auspiciously,
I hope!):

The Nando Times picks up an AP story on the British Museum's opening of two
mummy galleries {watch the wrap):

<a href="http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48371-77940-556161-0,00.html" target="_top" >http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48371-77940-556161-0,00.html</a>
<a href="http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48371-77940-556161-0,00.html" target="_top" >http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48371-77940-556161-0,00.html</a>

Also in the Nando Times is an AP story on the threatened condition of
ancient Ctesiphon:

<a href="http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48210-77707-527748-0,00.html" target="_top" >http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48210-77707-527748-0,00.html</a>
<url:<a href="http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48210-77707-527748-0,00" target="_top" >http://www2.nando.net:80/noframes/story/0,2107,48210-77707-527748-0,00</a>.
html>

Yesterday's Il Messaggero has an interesting piece (in Italian) on the
suggestion that the big head which is usually identified as Constantine
might actually hail from Nero's Colossus!

<a href="http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19990513/01_NAZIONALE/19/TESTA.htm" target="_top" >http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19990513/01_NAZIONALE/19/TESTA.htm</a>
<url:<a href="http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19990513/01_NAZIONALE/19/TESTA.htm" target="_top" >http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19990513/01_NAZIONALE/19/TESTA.htm</a>>

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an interesting piece on what archaeology
tells us about the ancient sites of Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira (possibly
ancient Sodom and Gomorrah):

<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com:80/healthscience/19990510sodom1.asp" target="_top" >http://www.post-gazette.com:80/healthscience/19990510sodom1.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.post-gazette.com:80/healthscience/19990510sodom1.asp" target="_top" >http://www.post-gazette.com:80/healthscience/19990510sodom1.asp</a>

To celebrate our first anniversary, here's a website that just came on line
that's worth checking out -- it's the official Roman Forum website and
features webcams that are one 24 hours a day; you can apparently control
them (but only one person at a time). This one's a collaboration between
Microsoft and the Comune di Roma (it's available in English and Italian)

<a href="http://www.capitolium.org/" target="_top" >http://www.capitolium.org/</a>
<url:<a href="http://www.capitolium.org/" target="_top" >http://www.capitolium.org/</a>>

Last, but not least (but definitely somewhat frivolous), fans of Jeopardy
will want to keep their eye open for a Near Eastern Studies student who has
made it to the final round (thanks to Charles Jones for the heads up!)

<a href="http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990513/cracraft.shtml" target="_top" >http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990513/cracraft.shtml</a>
<url:<a href="http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990513/cracraft.shtml" target="_top" >http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/990513/cracraft.shtml</a>>

]|[============================================]|[

EXPLORATOR is an irregular newletter (posted every two-three days)
representing the fruits of the labours of 'media research division' of The
Atrium. Various on-line news and magazine sources are scoured on a daily
basis for news of the ancient world (broadly construed: practically
anything relating to archaeology or history prior to about 1700 or so is
fair game) and when a sufficient number of urls are gathered, they are
delivered to your mailbox free of charge! Those articles that don't expire,
plus supplementary links eventually find a home at:

Commentarium (news articles)

<a href="http://web.idirect.com/~atrium/commentarium.html" target="_top" >http://web.idirect.com/~atrium/commentarium.html</a>

The Rostra (audio files)

<a href="http://web.idirect.com/~atrium/rostra.html" target="_top" >http://web.idirect.com/~atrium/rostra.html</a>

A media archive of links of files that have previously appeared in
Commentarium or at the Rostra is currently under construction.

]|[============================================]|[

Explorator is Copyright (c) 1999 David Meadows; Feel free to
distribute these listings via email to your pals, students, teachers, etc.,
but please include this copyright notice. These listings are not to be
posted to a website; instead, please provide a link to either Commentarium
or Rostra (or both)!

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]|[============================================]|[

]|[ David Meadows ]|[ <a href="http://web.idirect.com/~atrium" target="_top" >http://web.idirect.com/~atrium</a> ]|[ Rogue Classicist ]|[


Subject:	Agrippa And His Map
From:	jmath669642reng@--------)
Date:	Fri, 14 May 1999 21:29:51 -0400 (EDT)

A much quoted, but unfortunately not extent map, that of Agrippa was
compiled to further Roman imperial expansion. M. Vipsanius Agrippa
(64/63--12 BC) was one of the earliest supporters of the young Octavian
in his fight to establish himself as Julius Caesar's heir. He first
became prominent as the governor of Gaul, where he improved the road
system and put down a rebellion in Aquitania. He pacified the area near
Cologne (later founded as a Roman Colony) by settling the Ubii at their
request on the East bank of the Rhine. In 37 BC he was consul and built
Octavian a fleet which enabled him the following year to defeat Sextus
Pompeius in Sicily. Agrippa as admiral of this fleet used a new type
grapnel devised by him. His greatest victory was in 31 BC when off
Actium, near Preveza in western Greece, Octavian and he defeated Anthony
and Cleopatra. He was one of the main helpers of Octavian when in 27 BC
the latter was invested with special powers and the title Augustus. In
23 BC Augustus as he was ill, handed his signet ring to Agrippa, thus
indicating him as acting emperor. The same year Agrippa was given
charge of all the eastern parts of the empire, with headquarters at
Mitylene. In 21 BC he returned to Rome and married Augustus daughter
Julia. After he had put down the Cantabri of northern Spain in 19 he
returned to Rome more permanently and was given additional favors. From
17/16 to 13 he was pacifying the eastern provinces, and in 12 went to
Pannonia, but died shortly after his return.

Augustus had a practical interest in sponsoring the new map of the
inhabited world entrusted to Agrippa. On the re-establishment of peace
after the civil wars he was determined on the one hand to found new
colonies to provide land for discharged veterans on the other hand to
build a new image of Rome as the benevolent.head of a vast empire.
Mapping enabled him to carry out these objectives and to perfect a task
begun by Julius Caesar. It became, among other things, a useful tool in
the propaganda of Imperial Rome. Agrippa was an obvious choice as
composer of such a map, being a naval man who had traveled widely and
had an interest in the technical side. He must have had plans drawn.
and may even have devised and used large scale maps to help him with the
conversion of Lake Avernus and the Lacus Lucrinus into naval ports.

The world map, incomplete at Agrippa's death in 12 BC was completed by
Augustus himself. It was erected in Rome on the wall of a portico named
after Agrippa, which extended along the eastside of the Via Lata (modern
Via del Corso). This portico, of which fragments have been found near
the Via del Tritone was usually called Porticus Vipsania but may have
been the same as the one which Martial calls Porticus Europae, proably
from a painting of Europe on its walls. The building of this
collonnade was undertaken by Agrippa's sister Vipsania Polla. The date
at which the building was started is unknown, but it was still
incomplete in 7 BC. Whether the map was painted or engraved in the wall
is not known. The theory is that it was circular must surely have been
wrong, as such a shape does not suit a collonade wall: it is likely to
have been rectangular, probably with north rather than south at the top.

In the definement of the term "chorographia" we must turn to Strabo
ii.5.17 where he describes the above term.

"It is the sea above all which shapes and defines the land, fashioning
gulfs, oceans and straights and likewise isthmuses, peninsulas, and
promontories. But rivers and mountins too help with this. It is
through such features that continents, nations, favorable sites for
cities and other refinements have been conceived features of which a
regional (chorographic) map is full; one also finds a quantity of
islands scattered over the seas and along the coasts."

Clearly Agrippa's map had many of the above features but whether it also
contained main roads is uncertain. The map did not in all probability,
in the absence of mention use any system of latitude and longitude. It,
no doubt, inherited a system of regional shapes from.Eratosthenes. It
is as one might expect, more accurate in well-known than in less-known
parts and more accurate for land than for sea areas.

Agrippa's map, sponsored by Augustus, was obviously an improvement on
that of Julius Caesar on which it was likely to have been based. The
fact that such an insigificant and distant place as Charax was named on
the map shows the detail which is embodied. Moreover, it seems to have
been the first latin map to be accompanied by notes or commentary.
Romans going to the colonies. particularly outside Italy could obtain
information about the location or characteristics of a particular place.
Also the full extent of the Roman Empire could be seen at a glance.

Reference:
Greek and Roman Maps; O.A. Dilke, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY,
1985. Pages 41, 42, 53

Respectfully Submitted;
Marcus Minucius Audens

Fair Winds and Following Seas!!!


Subject:	temple to jupiter
From:	"Darth Vilmur; Dark Lord of The Sith" darth_vilmur@--------
Date:	Fri, 14 May 1999 20:00:38 -0700

i've made some changes at the temple to jupiter. though some of it is unfinished(like the
contacts section) but it is easier to navigate and has a few new features
<a href="http://angelfire.com/ca3/OLYMPUS" target="_top" >http://angelfire.com/ca3/OLYMPUS</a>