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OmnesViae: Roman Routeplanner
- Freak_NL 4y agoInteresting. I live in a barbarian part of the Netherlands north of the Limes boundary, so no Roman roads for me. Kinda weird how the OpenStreetMap base map behind is configured to show German names first in all of Europe before the local names (Straße von Dover for the Strait of Dover/Pas de Calais). I would expect the Latin names.
- rubenbe 4y agoSimilarly, I find it weird that there is no direct route from Lille/Tournai to Rotterdam through Belgium. There is a huge detour over Maastricht. Maybe this part of Belgium was not sufficiently under Roman control and too unsafe to travel through.
- Bayart 4y agoAs far as I can recall, this part of the Lower Countries was still mostly swamps.
- tremon 4y agoThere were still plenty of Roman settlements to the north of Brussels, so it's a bit curious that Belgica itself seems hardly populated. Maybe because of that tiny town that kept on resisting Roman rule?
- przemub 4y agoI guess the author is German and so his config spilled over?
- ygra 4y agoIt's probably the map tiles from openstreetmap.de, which show names preferably in German. Unlike the tiles from openstreetmap.org, which show names in the country's native language by default.
- ygra 4y agoWould be fun to (a) put the historic roman names for places in OSM, and (b) create map tiles that mimic the maps that are shown when clicking on the places. Would make for a much nicer presentation than the default OSM tiles (which aren't exactly meant for this sort of thing).
- Freak_NL 4y agoWell, lots of places already have name:la (Latin) tagged, and since it is a dead(-ish) language it often matches the historic name Romans used, but you'll get edge cases like Lugdunum Batavorum which has been used as the Latin name of Leiden since the renaissance, but which is now considered to have been the name of nearby Katwijk. So the tag name:la=Lugdunum Batavorum is correct for Leiden (it is called that in Latin), but arguably not historically correct (it's not the same Lugdunum the Romans knew).
- undoomed 4y agoVery interesting map, but it is weird that there are no Roman roads through modern day Belgium.
- dwheeler 4y agoThe lack of Roman roads in modern day Belgium may be due to the loss of some written records and missing archaeological information. For example, the article "Roman highway uncovered between Antwerp and West Flanders" was published in 2021-03-17. It says, "Archaeological excavations in Adegem near Maldegem, West Flanders, have uncovered traces of a Roman road linking Antwerp to an important Roman camp. The existence of the road was known, but now for the first time there is archaeological evidence. The Roman road between Antwerp and the West Flemish municipality of Oudenburg has been discovered during archaeological excavations carried out as part of the construction of a supermarket...." https://www.thebulletin.be/roman-highway-uncovered-between-antwerp-and-west-flanders https://www.thebulletin.be/roman-highway-uncovered-between-a...
- rvieira 4y agoReally fun. The Latin text gives me "What If?" alternative universe vibes of the Roman Empire having online maps :)
- jaza 4y agoIn 5 stadia take the 3rd ostium on the circus. You have arrived at your terminus.
- defrost 4y agoOriginal Roman era route planners are interesting in their own right. Not so much 2D projections on a plane (as seen in the link), more 1.5D scrolls akin to railway | subway route graphics. The road scrolls unroll to reveal parallel lones, left and right, horizontally departing a central hub, with waypoints for destinations marked along the way. Early examples of network diagrams collapsed to a near linear projection.
- garblegarble 4y agoThank you for the jumping off point, fascinating! I discovered Tabula Peutingeriana[1]. Is this what you were referring to or are there other layouts to be found? 1a: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana 1b: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/Fi... Edit: I also noticed that the Tabula Peutingeriana is linked in the header of the site, clearly I should be more observant :-)
- defrost 4y agoYep, Tabula Peutingeriana is easily the best known example and the tip of my tongue that I failed to mention by name :-) There are others that I have seen in the British Library collection and some in Rome but I'd be struggling to name them - I had a lot of exposure to experts in History of Maps back in the 1980s|1990s when I was working bridging wet film photogrammetry and digital mapping, sadly my main focus was programming, mathematics, lens geometry, unification of existing maps under WGS84. All the examples I've seen have that subway diagram look, albeit freehanded, and clearly were all part of a tradition of road maps in that related style.
- ramcle 4y agoI would love a videogame that uses something like this for a map of the game world.
- shefmichelle 4y agoThere is also this, which is similar: https://orbis.stanford.edu/ https://orbis.stanford.edu/
- beardyw 4y agoInteresting to see the roads extended beyond Hadrian's Wall.
- UncleSlacky 4y agoThe Antonine Wall is further north than Hadrian's, so the empire did reach further north, at least until 162 CE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall#Abandonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall#Abandonment
- notpushkin 4y agoThis might be an interesting trip planner demo to make. I'm currently playing around with DigiTransit [1] (a journey planning app based on OpenTripPlanner, mostly used in Finland I think), curious if it would allow this level of customization. [1]: https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/ https://digitransit.fi/en/developers/
- HeckFeck 4y agoThis will come in handy for when someone finally cracks time travel. Time to brush up on the old Latin. And divest from all holdings in Pompeii.
- fbn79 4y agoMagnifico Lavoro!!! Would love to see the exact street map and not direct line from point to point. The feature to see mountain/river crossing on the direction tab is fantastic.
- demetrius 4y agoThe program is fun, but I'd like it more if it spelled place names correctly. I've tried building road from Lutetia to Olyssipo (which are totally correct spellings), and the program didn't accept it. The program wants me to type... "Lvteci" and "Olisipo". Okay, Olisipo is a possible variant, but what in the world is Lvteci? There is absolutely no reason to use "v" in "Lvteci". Before U/V were separate letters, sometimes V was used for uppercase, u for lowercase; sometimes v was used in the beginning and the end of the words. But "Lvteci" makes absolutely no sense. At the very least the program should treat U/V and I/J as same letters when typing the names. Or maybe make the search field all-caps and replace u's with V's.
- Grustaf 4y agoWhy would you say that? U and J are not used in classical Latin, they’re mediaeval innovations, presumably this website deals with the Rome of classical times? Back when Lutetia was called Lutetia, it was written with V.
- rob74 4y ago...but a fault-tolerant search could still accept both. Yeah, I know, that's one of those features that users expect these days but isn't that easy to implement... One more improvement: instead of just drawing straight lines between the cities, they could follow the actual Roman roads, which are mostly known.
- Grustaf 4y agoIf it was up to me the from field should only work with ablative forms, and the to field should require the accusative form, but the author is probably more broad minded. Definitely agree about the roads!
- tremon 4y agoIt still wasn't written with -ci though, which also seems to me a medieval innovation (in French, it was written as Lutece). I think they either should accept the original Roman spelling of Lvtetia, or the various modernized forms Lutetia, Lutece and Lutecia. But accepting only "Lvteci" seems like an anachronism to me. (edit: that said, when I search for "lugd" I do get search results for LVGDVNO, so maybe the search got improved?)
- caractacus 4y agoThe map misses a road which heads out from Cambridge to Colchester that shouldn't be difficult to spot given that it's called the 'Roman Road'. Even the Romans should be able to spot that. https://frrfd.org.uk/archaeology-and-history/roman-road/ https://frrfd.org.uk/archaeology-and-history/roman-road/
- dafman 4y agoIt also seems to be missing part of Ermine Street from London up to Royston and then to Peterborough
- TimTheTinker 4y agoI think it only lists the roads that were noted in this particular route scroll.
- toyg 4y agoIt only includes roads and locations mentioned in two sources: the Peutinger map ("tabula Peutingeriana" [0]) and the Itinerarium Antonini [1]. Clearly you've found where those sources lacked precision. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Itinerary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Itinerary
- leoc 4y agoThe routefinding also seems to be seriously imperfect. This journey from London to Tripoli takes the land route around the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean coast: https://omnesviae.org/#!iter_OVPlace427_TPPlace292 https://omnesviae.org/#!iter_OVPlace427_TPPlace292
- mothsonasloth 4y agoWould have been nice to include the forts and settlements in Scotland around the lowlands. All in all a cool idea though!
- tonoy 4y ago
- Grustaf 4y agoThe to field should be replaced with a single option, Roma.
- wink 4y agoAccording to my Latin teacher, "urbs" would've been enough. There's only one important city, after all. (cf. 'ab urbe condita')
- meigwilym 4y agoVery interesting. I was brought up in Caernarfon, or Segontium (Segontio on the map, although I've never seen that spelling before). I've walked and run part of the Roman road along the north Wales coast. Much of it is the old pilgrim's path that goes from Treffynon (Holywell) in the east to Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) off the tip of the western Llyn peninsula. It's a strange feeling to walk along a route that has been walked for milenia. But a shame that Sarn Helen isn't there, but I know there isn't much evidence of its existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segontium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segontium https://pilgrims-way-north-wales.org/ https://pilgrims-way-north-wales.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarn_Helen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarn_Helen
- toyg 4y ago> It's a strange feeling to walk along a route that has been walked for milenia. I was literally born on the via Emilia, a clogged artery of Northern Italy connecting Milano to Rimini on the Eastern coast. Obviously, loads of towns and cities have since developed all along that road. A significant amount of important roads all across Europe are similarly old, people just don't know or notice.
- LaMarseillaise 4y agoFor anyone curious, the name could be translated to “All Ways”.
- toyg 4y agoIt would be fantastic if it included a time estimate too. They could use the De Bello Gallico as reference for expected speeds (maybe toned down a little, to account for Julius Caesar's well-known self-aggrandizing tendencies).
- uoaei 4y agoZaragoza was once known as CAESARAVGVSTA. Seems like the modern name follows directly from slight mistranslation and drift from the original name over the years.
- oytis 4y agoLooks like it ignores most of sea routes. Not practical at all.
- selimthegrim 4y agoThere’s another website for that - https://orbis.stanford.edu/ https://orbis.stanford.edu/
- mrlonglong 4y agoFascinating to know the Romans had reached India. Gods only know what could have happened if Rome had gone against China. Would they be speaking Latin or we could have been speaking Chinese dialect if we lost ...