I am currently reading Bötticher’s Historiae antiquae epitome and am constantly encountering references to places in ancient Greece etc. Therefore I am looking for hi-res maps of ancient Greece (and Asia Minor during that time) and the ancient Roman world.
There are many maps floating around on the Internet. However, I am looking for hi-res maps so that the place labels can be read without major difficulty. And those seem to be quite scarce.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? (And no, the free maps provided by the Ancient World Mapping Center are not quite detailed enough).
Thank you,
Carolus Raeticus
PS: I can recommend Bötticher’s opus as a nice warm-up before turning to the “ancients”.
PPS: Have a look at the web-site Omnes viae which presents a Google-maps based map with Roman locations (based on the Tabula Peutingeriana and the Itinerarium Antonini). It allows the creation of an itinerary between two places. Wicked!
I cannot recommend online resources where you can find hi-res maps. However, the physical copy of the Barrington Atlas that I have has always been adequate for my studies. The issue, of course, is the cost of the atlas and the corresponding indices. (It could cost you around $600 new.)
Thank you for the offer, but the vicinity of Bremerhaven is not quite in my vicinity. The Barrington Atlas looks very interesting, however (see its website). The price tag is quite steep, especially if you want the print set of the two-volume Map-by-Map-Directory as well.
However, I incidentally found the downloadable Map-by-Map Directory (currently for free) as a zipped collection of PDF-files (27 MB). It might be interesting even for those not having the atlas itself. It contains one PDF-files for each of the 99 maps with the following information:
introduction to the map
directory of names on the map (grid on map, ancient name, period, modern name/location, reference)
As for the atlas itself, I am currently debating with myself. Hm…
Not sure if this one suits your needs, but there’s an early 20th century edition of Samuel Butler’s The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography freely downloadable at Project Guthenberg.
I had a further look at information about the Barrington Atlas and while doing so found a very interesting (and quite detailed) review titled Sitting down with the Barrington Atlas which can be freely downloaded as a sample article from the web-site of the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
It explains the information provided by the Atlas but also indicates its more problematic aspects, some of which are due to it being an example (perhaps the last great one) of an “older kind of hard-copy atlas” (instead of an electronic one). After all, as the reviewers write, “all maps ‘lie’ to us.”
All in all, the reviewers are quite content with the Barrington Atlas, although they describe it as “the late blossoming of an older kind of hard-copy atlas, yet one which, through its partly digital preparation and partly electronic directory, looks forward to different maps of the future.”
There are dissenting opinions, of course. There are a few Amazon-reviews (both on Amazon.com and Amazon.de) which slap it because of several errors.
A question to those owning the Barrington Atlas: what is your experience/opinion?
I scoured ebay.com and ebay.de and have not found a used copy at a better price than the new copies on Amazon. It’s a shame it’s so costly.
This line from the review link you provided is smart:
“We are already far better off with the Barrington Atlas than we were without it — as Talbert says, it is ‘a giant step forward’ (xviii). But even better days are on the horizon, as we rise and stand on the solid foundation the Barrington Atlas has provided.”
I use the atlas to follow the descriptions that Livy offers of places and events. He can be quite specific in his geographical descriptions, so using the Atlas helps me visualize well where things are on a local level. I so far have not run into any problems. However, I could imagine a serious student of archaeology or anthropology having a tough time with the mistakes that people say are on these maps. But for my uses, it has been excellent and worth the cost.
I’m going to be quiet now and wait to see what others think. There surely must be others who have this monumental reference work.
I am actually scheduled to visit Greece on November of this year, which is also another reason why I thought of learning the language. And the visit couples up with the lot of ideas for travel and adventure. Thankfully though, I have a smartphone I could use as my personal gps while in the area. Well, I bought this lonely planet guide to Greece which includes a detailed map of some areas which is great.
This site has high quality scanned maps of the ancient world including Greece, Italy and Sicily, which I have found very useful. The maps are in French, but a non-French speaker will have very little difficulty understanding them.
