This is a paperback reissue of N.’s now classic treatment of Roman geography, published in 1991. The text of the paperback is unchanged from the hardcover. That 1991 book is, in turn, an English translation of a book published in French, L'Inventaire du Monde: Géographie et politique aux origines de l'Empire romain (1988). Both the French original and the English translation were reviewed widely at the time, though never in the pages of CR. (A standout review of the French is N. Purcell in JRS 80 [1990], 178–82.) The book addresses a question that remains pertinent to Roman history and, in fact, presaged subsequent research on space and imperium. What is the relationship between the Principate, under Augustus, and the development of incipient notions of Roman territory (p. 2)? N.’s strong suit is an insistence on the political value of geography (p. 5), and his close reading of the Res Gestae (Chapters 1–2) emphasises the coincidence of imperial representation and real geographical knowledge (pp. 22–4). Summaries of Greek geographical discoveries (pp. 57–66) and the Roman reception of the same (pp. 66–74) lead to the querying of what writers such as Strabo were trying to communicate politically and why, despite a widespread understanding of Greek mathematical geography, Romans are often thought to exhibit a ‘noncartographical mentality’ (p. 73). N.’s tallying of Roman expeditions concludes that, up to the time of Augustus, the Romans had not discovered any lands unknown to the Greeks, but they investigated these lands to a higher degree and, by so doing, created a known world identical with Roman boundaries (Chapter 4). Strategy and symbolic representation, in the service of politics, reaches a zenith in Agrippa's map of the oikoumene (orbis terrarum) in the Porticus Vipsania, which, according to N., is the ultimate ‘epic’ expression of Augustus’ pax Romana (p. 114). N. does not dwell on the fact that this map does not survive, nor does he admit parallels in later cartography, such as the Peutinger Table or medieval mappae mundi. Other modes of tabulation, the census and the cadastres (Chapters 6–7) give further evidence of Augustus’ global view of enumeration and centralisation, and the ‘cosmocratic destiny’ of Rome under the imperial founder is linked to Augustus’ cartographic pretensions (p. 183).
A paperback reissue of this important book is welcome. N.’s close readings of Augustan texts and monuments continue to impress. However, the larger question of Roman spatial thinking has moved on significantly. Notable is the trend towards a synchronic view of Roman geographical awareness. C. Jacob's L'empire des cartes (1992), K. Brodersen's Terra cognita (1995) and R. Talbert's Rome's World (2010) all draw salient conclusions from texts and maps later than Augustus (e.g. Dionysius Periegetes, the Antonine Itinerary, the Peutinger Table). These and other scholars remain divided on the cartographical acumen of the Romans. N. never addresses the question directly outside of the reign of Augustus and thus stands apart from current debates over the reception and reconstruction of maps. Nevertheless, as a study of Augustus’ project of surveying the empire, this remains an erudite and trustworthy guide.
