Help identify inherited Roman map

by DonieDanko

The Map

Merry Christmas, happy holidays!

This Christmas I inherited a map from my great uncle who recently passed. I don't know much about the map and would love to learn more. From what little I can tell, it looks to be Roman and it looks to be written in Latin. Any help that you can give in regards to what the map is or what any of the captions say would be wonderful.

Thank you!

Aurevir

My first thought on seeing this was, "That looks like an Abraham Ortelius map," and sure enough, it is! Link to an edition from 1608.

Ortelius is probably one of the most famous mapmakers in history, who compiled what is often called the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. It was first published in 1570, just after the beginning of the Eighty Years' war, in which the Dutch fought for their independence from the Habsburg monarchy. This is also the beginning of the period of Dutch dominance as a commercial power, greatly aided by the advances in cartography made by men like Ortelius. This particular map is from his Parergon, essentially an atlas of the ancient world that was developed as a companion to the Theatrum.

Now, all that being said, is your map 400 years old? It'd take a more thorough examination and more knowledge than I possess, but it isn't impossible- his maps were widely reprinted, and even editions from the 1500s can sometimes be found for surprisingly reasonable prices. Of course, it's more likely that it's a much more recent printing, but even a hundred-year-old map is a fun thing to have. It might be worth having it checked out by a professional, just for the sake of knowing.

christudor

Okay, so the bottom right panel shows the seven kings of Rome from Romulus at the top to Tarquinius Superbus at the bottom. The numbers below the names refer to the length in years of their reign.

The other circles identify spouses (medium-sized lines) and children (thinner lines). Males are in double-circles, whereas females are in single circles. As an example, you can see that Numa Pompeius got married to Tatia, and that they gave birth to a daughter Pompilia. You can look up the rest of the genealogies yourself if you like.

It’s quite hard to read some of the annotations but they seem to give more details about certain individuals. On the right hand side near the bottom you have a note starting “Hic L. Brutus ejectis regibus ...”, which basically says that once the kings were kicked out “this Brutus” (hic L. Brutus) became the first consul (primus consul factus est).

The writing at the bottom (starting with the words “Ex Livio, Dionysio...”) describes the source for the genealogical chart: “We have taken the genealogy of the seven kings from Livy, Dionysius [of Halicarnassus], and Plutarch.” The writing goes on to describe how he has displayed the information. “The thickest line denotes the kings themselves, the medium lines denote wives, and the thinnest lines denote children. Double circles denote males whereas single circles denote females.” (This is a paraphrase).

The writing on the bottom left is too small to read on my phone but the title tells you that it’s a short summary of the origin, growth, and greatest extent of the Roman Empire.

The map itself is of the Roman Empire. Image is too small for me to know which year it is supposed to represent.

Feel free to send me close-ups of all/any of the text and I can provide summaries of what it says (or an exact translation if you’d prefer).

Alkibiades415

Also: the map is not Roman itself (ie 2000 years old), but displays info about ancient Rome. It could be antique, but we would need much better images. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is 19th or even 20th century as date of creation.