Foreword

VIKING

Published by the Penguin Graup

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin BOok.s USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, USA
Penguln Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin ~ooks Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toranto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
PengUln Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland lO, New Zealand

Roman civilization is one of the great unifying factors in the history of Europe and the
Mediterranean. The extensive empire ruled by the Romans stretched from the sands of
the Sahara to the mouth of the Rhine, and from the Atlantic In the west to the
Euphrates in the east. It has left us its legacy in the form of Roman law, which still underlies many western-inspired legal systems, and in the Romance languages-French,
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Romanian-derived from Latin, which are still spoken
not only in former Roman territories but in countries of the New World as well as the
Old. Furthermore, Roman cities lie beneath many of our modern centres, and the state
religion of the late Roman world-Christianity-remains the dominant faith throughout
most of Europe today.

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harrnondsworth, Middlesex, England

The Penguin Histoncal Atlas 01 Ancient Rome is an introduction to the Roman Empire based
on maps. The Romans themselves made maps of their empire, though little of these
have survived apart from the so-called Peutinger Table (a medieval copy) and fragments
su eh as the marble map of Rome. It is other sources, then, which have been used to compile the present volume, and they are of broadly two kinds: historical and literary on the
one hand (what the Romans said about themselves), and archaeological and architectur-

First published 1995

Published simultaneously in Penguin Books
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

al on the other

Text copyright Chris Scarre, 1995

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Each of these sources has its own particular role. The details of historical events themselves are known to us mainly through written texts in Latin or Greek. These include
works of famous historians such as Livy and Tactius, and social or official documents
such as letters and laws. Coins and inscriptions provide abundant further evidence, and
can often be dated precisely. Archaeology, on the other hand, can sorne times be tied
into the history but essentially tells us a different kind of story. We may remember the
Romans in terms of kings and consuIs, battles and emperors, but for the majority of
Roman inhabitants, those who ploughed the fields and tended the olive groves, by far
the best testimony comes from archaeological remains of ordinary houses, farms and
workshops. No one source of evidence, however, is intrinsically better then the others; it
is by using them together that we gain the fullest insight into the world of ancient Rome.

Design and maps copyright Swanston Publishing Limited, 1995

AII rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above
no p~rt of this publication may be repraduced, stored in or intrad~ced into
a retneval ~ystem, or tran~mitted, in any form or by any means (electranic,
mechanr~al, photocopYlng, recording or otherwise), without the prior
wntten permission of both the copyright owner and the
above publisher of this book

Printed and bound in Great Britain by The Bath Press, Avon

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0-670-86464-1
.01

Chris Scarre,
Cambridge, 1995