Brill’s New Pauly Supplements I - Volume 3 : Historical Atlas of the Ancient World

146–46 BC After the destruction of the city of Carthage in the spring of 146 BC, P. Cornelius Scipio had the seventh Roman province defined by laying down a demarcation line to the Numidian kingdom. This Fossa regia, of which evidence survives in the form of boundary stones, ran from Thabraca in the north-west to Thenae in the south-east. The province was named Africa, probably after the Libyan Afri tribe from the lower reaches of the Muthul (cf. smaller map). The province’s administrative seat was at Utica. 46–40/39 BC After his victory at Thapsus in 46 BC, Caesar created a second …

Date Province Event Sources 58 BC Part of province of Cilicia Cyprus organized as province by M. Porcius Cato with propraetorial imperium lex Clodia: Cic. Dom. 52f.; 65; Cic. Sest. 57–60; Liv. Per. 104; Vell. Pat. 2,38,6; 2,45,4f.; App. Civ. 2,23; Cass. Dio 38,30,5; 39,22,2f.; Plut. Cato Minor 34–39; Plut. Brutus 3; Plut. Pompeius 48; Flor. Epit. 1,44; Rufius Festus, Breviarium 13,1; Amm. Marc. 14,8,15; Cilicia: Cic. Fam. 13,48; Cic. Att. 5,21,6 48/47–44 BC Part of Ptolemaic kingdom Given by Caesar to a sister and brother of Cleopatra App. Civ. 5,35; 5,9; Cass. Dio 42,35 44–30 BC Given by A…

I. The Roman Danube frontier territory from the confluence with the Tisza to the Delta At Singidunum/Belgrade, the abundant Savus/Sava flows into the Danube’s middle reaches from the right and the Pathissus/Tisza from the left. The Danube then leaves the Great Hungarian Plain after the conflux with the Margus/Morava (right tributary) at the municipium of the same name. It now breaks through the barrier of the southern Carpathian Alps in a 130 km section of narrower, faster flow which culminates at the Iron Gates (Serbian Ðerdap, Romanian Porţile d…

Some 80 years after establishing their protectorate over parts of Illyricum, the Romans successively established three provinces in the southern Balkans: Macedonia, Achaia and, briefly, Epirus. After the end of the 3rd Macedonian War (see Map Rome’s wars in the east I (214-129 BC)), in 167 BC, the senate charged a ten-man commission under the direction of the proconsul L. Aemilius Paullus with organizing the Macedonian heartlands into four res publicae (Greek merides). Livy (Liv. 45,29,5-9) describes the regional structure of these four merides in detail, but does not allow th…

I. Development of the Roman provinces of Sardinia and Corsica (237 BC – AD 534) Records from Sardinia are far more plentiful and informative. The smaller island of Corsica was always in the shadow of its neighbour. Sardinia was known for its fertility. With Africa, Sicily and Egypt, the island delivered the grain so important to the urban population of Rome. Sardinia was also of economic importance for its ore resources. Corsica, on the other hand, could offer only the products of its forests (timber, resin) a…

Their acquisition of the Iberian Peninsula brought the Carthaginians territories of enormous economic importance. Quite apart from the products of the fertility of the land, mineral wealth was particularly striking, especially in the south, the future Hispania Baetica. Here were precious gems, gold, silver, iron, tin and lead: the makings of an expansive overseas trade. After the Roman victory at Ilipa in 207 BC and the expulsion of the Carthaginians from the Iberian Peninsula (see map The Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC)), the Senate announced its i…

I. The Roman Danube frontier from the headwaters to the influx of the Tisza Two great river frontiers framed the Roman Empire to the north at the time of its greatest extent under Trajan (AD 98–117): the Rhine and the Danube. The Danube was navigable by the flat-bottomed barges of internal trade all the way from near its head-waters to the Black Sea. Abundant inflowing Alpine rivers, such as the Hilaria/Iller, Licca/Lech, Isara/Isar and Aenus/Inn, swell the river, and by the time it leaves what was the province of Rhaetia at Batavis/Pa…

I. The eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, 2nd and 3rd cents. AD Whereas on other imperial frontiers Rome had to defend itself against constantly shifting opponents, the foe in the region covered by this map was clear. Until AD 224 it was the Parthian Arsacids, and thereafter it was the Sassanids (see map The Sassanid Empire (AD 224-651)). This section of frontier was not protected with major fortification structures as in Britain and Germany, and only in places was it marked by river frontiers (the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris and the Chaboras/Ḫabur) ( limes of Asia Minor an…

Between c. 1200 and 1150, the Late Bronze Age civilizations and political units in the Aegaean region, in Anatolia, Syria and Palestine were obliterated. The collapse of the political, economic and cultural systems had many causes and happened in different ways in different regions. The evidence is problematic: substantial written sources are available only for Egypt and Assyria. Apart from those we have to rely on linguistic research, later texts and archaeological appraisals. I. The eastern Mediterranean region and the Near East (12th cent. BC; map A) Around 1200 BC, the palace …

The Emperors of ‘Romania’ 1204–1261 Baldwin I of Flanders 1204–1205 Henry of Flanders 1206–1216 Peter of Courtenay 1217 Yolanda 1217–1219 Interregnum 1219–1221 Robert of Courtenay 1221–1228 Baldwin II 1228–1261, with John of Brienne 1231–1237 The Great Comneni of Trebizond David I 1204–1214 Alexius I 1204–1222 Andronicus I 1222–1235 John I 1235–1238 Manuel I 1238–1263 Andronicus II 1263–1266 George Comnenus 1266–1280 John II 1280–1284; 1285–1297 Theodora 1284/85 Alexius II 1297–1330 Andronicus III Comnenus 1330–1332 Manuel II 1332 Basilius 1332–1340 Irene Palaeologina 13…

This map focusses on the interaction between the territories settled and culturally dominated by the Mycenaeans, the so-called Mycenaean koine ( c. 1400– c. 1200 BC), and the system of states in the eastern Mediterranean under the hegemony of Ḫattusa and Egypt. On the basis of archaeological evidence and Linear B inscriptions, it traces the development of the Mycenaean koine in Greece and the Aegean region. It also shows its connections with the eastern Mediterranean as evidenced by Mycenaean imports into Asia Minor, …

This map presents political and economic conditions at the beginning of the 11th cent., at the zenith of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance. It depicts neither the crises of the 7th - 9th cents nor the slow disintegration of the Empire from the mid 11th cent. From the 7th to the 9th cents., the Byzantine Empire found itself in a profound political, military, demographic and economic crisis. Wide expanses of territory from India to Spain had passed into the hands of the Arabs, who had advanced even as far as Sicily and southern Italy. The…

I. The world from the point of view of the Egyptian New Kingdom ( c. 1570–1080 BC) (map A) The Egyptian world view was Egyptocentric. Reflecting the culture’s dualism, it centred on the two halves of the country, Ta-Mehu (Lower Egypt or the Nile Delta) and Ta-Shemau (Upper Egypt, i.e. the actual Nile Valley up to the first cataract at Elephantine). Both parts of the country were continuously reunited in the person of the king. This was symbolically represented by the linking of the armorial plants of the two kingd…

Among the peoples of ancient Italy it was the Etruscans whose highly developed culture attracted the attention of travellers and scholars at an early stage. They were the only Italic people to be actively involved in overseas trade and despite the problematic state of the sources, their history can still be retraced more clearly than that of the other peoples. The question of their origin and immigration has been the subject of controversy ever since Antiquity (among others Hdt. 1,94; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1,30). The same is true of their ethnogenesis, wh…

The map shows significant aspects of Rome’s expansion into the region of the Etruscan and Faliscan cities and the region of Umbrian settlement (which has only recently been the object of closer scholarly attention) in the period from the 4th to the early 1st cents. The beginnings of this process of expansion in the territories of Etruria and Umbria can be traced to the military conflicts (434–396 BC) between Latin Fidenae, Veii’s bridgehead on the Tiber (conquered 426 BC), and Veii itself (conquered 396 BC) on the one hand and Rome on the other. It came to an end de iure with the grant of Roma…

The Mycenaean civilization has been named after its main site Mykenai/Mycenae, located in the Peloponnesian Argolid. In scholarly usage the term signifies the Late Bronze Age (late 17th–11th cents. BC) civilization of mainland Greece and the continuation of the Minoan palace system across the whole Aegean region under Mycenaean auspices (see map Map A – The Aegean area in the Early Bronze Age (c. 2700-2000 BC) — Map B – The extent of the ‘Minoan Koine’ in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (c. 2200-1400 BC)). Its essential manifestations are the finds and findings at the sites immort…

These maps deal with the 1st and 2nd Punic Wars, military conflicts in pursuit of primacy in the western Mediterranean fought between Rome and Carthage. Before 264 BC, the relationship between the two powers was one of peaceful coexistence, their respective sphere of influence precisely defined by several treaties (509 BC, several in the 4th cent. BC). However, the situation changed radically with a dispute over the city of Messana on Sicily, a situation which arose above all from Roman expansio…

A ‘Crusade’ is defined in the narrower sense as a military campaign initiated by the medieval Church against ‘infidels’, i.e. ‘heathens’ and ‘heretics’, but historically it refers to the campaigns of the western Christians aimed at regaining the ‘Holy Land’ between the 11th and 15th cents. Of the numerous campaigns in this latter sense, the map shows those counted by canonical tradition as the first three. However, this numbering should not obscure the fact that there were various other armed pi…

First and Second Burgundian kingdoms Around 413, the Burgundians settled around Borbetomagus/Worms. They retreated before the Huns into Belgica, where they were defeated in 436 by the Roman general Aetius with the help of Hunnic foederati. Aetius settled the survivors as foederati in Sapaudia (modern Savoy) between the Rhône and Lake Geneva in 438. They extended their kingdom into modern Burgundy, but were not in the end able to withstand the Franks. Their last king, Godomar, was defeated in 532 at Divio/Dijon and his realm incorporated into the Frankish kingdom. The Visigothic kingd…

Forms of political organization transcending the individual polis were already developing in ancient Greece during the Archaic period, c. 700-500 BC, and these are today commonly referred to as ‘leagues’. However, the terms used in ancient sources to refer to these organizations, such as koinon (‘commonwealth’), ethnos (‘people’) or sympoliteia (‘confederacy’, ‘union with interchange of civic rights’), are less specific, and were also used of other ancient forms of association (peoples, tribes, societies). The origins of the leagues are obscure. They are discussed by…