ETIAM PERIRE RUINAE
In "Etiam perire Ruinae", which means "its ruins were also disappeared" (Lucanus. Farsalia , IX, 969), you will find maps of ancient world. It is an ambitious work started about two years ago, and maybe I never will finish due to its size extremely considerable.
My mind is to make a complete catalog of the known world as maximum as the second century after Christ. At first, following the great Claudius Ptolemy's work, and also those of two previous geographers, Pliny the Elder and Strabo of Amasia. The idea is to put all the places that an ancient traveler could to find in those times: seas, rivers, capes, gulfs, mountains, ethnicities, peoples, cities and regions, with its Latin name.
On the one hand, the maps of Ptolemy will be presented in its old configuration (conveniently retouched by me), according to the work “Claudii Ptholomei Alexandrini Cosmographia”, published in Rome in 1478 by Conrad Schweinheim and Arnold Buckinck, and translated from Greek into Latin by Jacobus Angelus many years earlier (more information on biography of Ptolemy). There are many editions of Ptolemy's “Geographia”, but I have chosen this one because it presents a very attractive maps.
In these ones I have placed all the names that appear in that work, which are recorded in an "Access" database. Several data are added, including the current names, if known, and will be possible to consult all the items appeared. At the moment, this "access" database is not available, and occasionally I will upload an "excel" file with several options of research.
Apart “old Ptolemy's maps", modern maps are also included. In some cases there is no doubt of the exact location of a geographical reference; in others it is approximate, and in others simply assumed (accompanied in that case by a question mark) .
In these modern maps, divided by provinces or historical regions, appear the names included in Ptolemy's work and also in Pliny (Natural History) and Strabo (Geography). In addition, there will be a general map where the names of these three authors will appear together, close with other names from minor geographers or ancient historians, such as Herodotus, Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes, Posidonius, Agatharchides, Pytheas, Claudius Aelianus, Pomponius Mela , Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Julius Caesar, Pausanias or Diodorus of Sicily. In some cases, these names are cited by several authors, in others only by one of them. It's important to know that there are many synonyms, sometimes written of very different spellings due to several reasons: poor transcription made by copyists throughout history, variability of a name or different origin from the source itself.
The idea is to benefit the reader of ancient works with that support to provide him accurate information of where are the places referred from Greek and Roman authors. Knowledge cannot be simply reduced to a name, most often strange or unfamiliar, if not to reach information about what old country it belonged: if it was on the coast or inland; if it was located in a mountainous place or bathed by a river; people or ethnic group to which he belonged; what other peoples and ethnic groups limited or what cities were close to it.
To display the maps are available four tabs: Europe, Africa, Asia and Oikoumene (inhabited earth). The first three tabs are subdivided in Ptolemy's maps (ancient and modern), Strabo, Pliny and other authors. And in Oikoumene will appear maps from minor geographers and historians that describe the known world, but whose reports are lower than the others and names can be represented in a single map where are included the three continents.
In tab "References" its included the bibliographic relationship used to carry out this work, and the digital version if book is available.