BMCR 2009.07.22: Talbert on Wittke, Historischer Atlas der antiken Welt. Der Neue Pauly. Supplemente Band 3

Anne-Maria Wittke, Eckart Olshausen, Richard Szydlak, Historischer
Atlas der antiken Welt.  Der Neue Pauly. Supplemente Band 3.
Stuttgart/Weimar:  Verlag J. B. Metzler, 2007.  Pp. xix, 308.  ISBN
978-3-476-02031-4.  EUR 179.95.

Reviewed by Richard J. A. Talbert, University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill ([email protected])
Word count:  3567 words
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John Pendlebury (1904-1941), archaeologist and hero in the Boy's Own
Paper mold, was right when he warned of the passion that maps can
generate:  "Never if you can help it display a map before a Greek," he
advises on the opening page of his Travelling Hints, explaining: "I did
so once and the man leapt at me with a short howl, yelled for his
friends who promptly appeared from nowhere, and with them tore the map
from my hand.  Within a minute they had settled down to a five days'
quarrel over the places mentioned on it, a business no less keen
because one half could not read Latin characters and the other half
could not read at all.  Within five minutes the map was
unrecognizable."[[1]]

To be sure, the present set of maps is far from meriting such uncouth
treatment, even if it ultimately fails to fulfill the initial high
expectations raised by the volume's handsome appearance.  It is, after
all, a substantial component of a major encyclopedia project (Der Neue
Pauly), in outsize format, its maps lavishly presented in an extensive
color palette, and its three co-editors all established figures in the
fields of ancient history and cartography.  In chronological scope the
atlas aims to match DNP, with a span from the third millennium BC in
Mesopotamia to the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453.  The core
comprises 127 pages of maps in color; these are grouped broadly
speaking by successive time periods, except for a cluster at the start
relating to worldview and exploration (pp. 2-9, the worldviews
re-created very traditionally, and all oriented North according to
modern convention).  Typically, each map page is paired with a facing
page of text and bibliography relating to the area or theme mapped;
space is also found on these text pages to accommodate 44 other maps of
varying size, all of them uncolored.  Frontmatter is brief: preface
(one page); table of contents (4 pp.); breakdown of the maps by area,
culture and period (3 pp.); guidance on use of the atlas, and its
transcription of alphabets (2 pp.); abbreviations (5 pp.).  Endmatter
comprises the continuation of bibliography and tables too extensive to
fit within the core of the atlas (19 pp.); a map-by-map listing of the
contributor(s) responsible for each, with (where appropriate) details
of the previously published map adapted or reproduced here; finally, a
gazetteer (33 pp.).

There is much to admire and praise.  The mere provision of an atlas is
a pathbreaking initiative in the evolution of the Pauly encyclopedia
over the past century and more; none accompanies the behemoth Pauly,
nor its handy successor Der Kleine Pauly.  The amount of effort
expended by Wittke and Olshausen (by far the principal contributors)
and fifteen fellow scholars is manifestly prodigious.  At the same
time, thanks no doubt to equal dedication by Szydlak, the style of
presentation for the maps (including their elevation tints) is
impressively consistent, a boon to users.  In fact this presentation
matches that of the Tuebinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (= TAVO,
1969-1993), in which Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak were all involved.
The map "Das Palmyrenische Sonderreich (250-272 n. Chr.)" (221) well
displays this cartography's strengths.  Central placement of Palmyra
within the frame highlights the city's strategic location in the zone
where the Roman and Persian empires meet.  Colors readily distinguish
the areas claimed by each empire, with hachuring overlaid to
demonstrate the remarkable extent of Palmyra's conquests.  Route
linework in further colors traces Odenath's offensives against
Ctesiphon, Zenobia's forays into Asia Minor and Egypt, and Aurelian's
retaliatory attack on Palmyra.  Nowhere is the map cluttered; the scale
adopted is appropriate to the quantity and range of names chosen for
marking.  Symbols and lettering fonts, too, are clear and suitably
sized.  The accompanying text summarizes first the nature and
development of the Palmyrene state, and then its rapid rise and fall in
the third century.  In the paragraph summarizing the sources a further
sentence would have been desirable, to draw attention to the fragment
of Peter the Patrician which preserves the story that Odenath had
sought to side with the Persians, only to be rejected by Sapor (frag.
10 = FHG IV, p. 187).  Overall, given the unfamiliarity of Palmyra to
most students of the third century, the map and text offer informative
assistance.

The pity is that the sound cartographic principles reflected by this
map have too often been overriden elswhere.  Surprising though it seems
(and unexplained), only one map (8-9, "Fernerkundung in der antiken
Welt") and the two endpapers (showing physical landscape) occupy a
double spread.  Otherwise all the maps are limited to a single page at
most, and frequently less than that in practice because many Key boxes
claim considerable space.  Such a frame of no more than approximately
7.75 x 12 ins (20 x 30 cm) must have proven a source of repeated
frustration.  It is nowhere near adequate for presenting Alexander's
campaigns satisfactorily, for example, or Rome's three wars against
Mithridates VI, as the maps on 113 and 159 strive to do.  Both in fact
derive from TAVO sheets B V 1 (1985) and B V 6 (1981) respectively,
where the main maps measure 12 x 26 ins (30 x 66 cm) and 17.25 x 22 ins
(44 x 56 cm), with insets in addition for local detail.  In the atlas,
the olive-colored lines on the Alexander map (for various generals'
forays) serve to confuse users more than inform them, while the
congestion within Asia Minor on the Mithridates map renders the region
meaningful only to the most conscientious of users.  In other
instances, too, the maker of a map has chosen to proceed oblivious to
the inadequacy of the scale determined for it, overcrowding certain
areas regardless rather than exercising restraint or adding an inset.
As a result, users will be baffled, not enlightened, by Sicily on 93
(Karte B) and again on 138, for example; Cyprus on 115; central Greece
on 119 and again on 135; the area south of Lake Tiberias on 123; and
that of modern Tunisia on 147.  The inadequate scale for showing the
sources of marble (84) leaves the unfortunate impression that the Gebel
Fatireh (= Mons Claudianus) quarries were on the Nile or very close,
when in fact they are situated more than seventy punishing miles
distant from the river.

The use of standard physical bases for maps is a prudent and practical
expedient (also followed by TAVO), but flexibility in its application
is sometimes lacking.  On "Roms Kriege im Osten I (214-129 v. Chr.)"
(151), the mismatch between the density of coverage eastwards to the
Hellespont and the map's emptiness thereafter (for the full length of
the Black Sea) calls for the frame and scale to be rethought.  Similar
rethinking is in order for the second of the maps on these wars (153)
so as to enlarge the presentation of western Asia Minor there.  By
contrast, a full page for the Iberian peninsula on "Roms Kriege im
Westen (206-101 v. Chr.)" (149) leaves that map too empty, because (as
the accompanying text explains) the surviving sources lack sufficient
detail for us to follow the course of these campaigns closely.

Several instances where the scale chosen could have permitted a more
informative presentation are to be found in the maps of Roman provinces
(either single ones, or an adjacent group).  These maps are intended to
illustrate shifts in the provinces' extent and boundaries from their
annexation as early as the third century B.C. through the fifth century
A.D.  Altogether an astonishing amount of space (both map and text) is
devoted to this theme, and the results hardly justify it.  The case of
Sicily (143) is especially striking.  Nowhere else in the atlas is the
island presented anywhere near as large, and yet here the map's sole
concerns are changes in the boundary of the province (actually just a
single, early change in over seven centuries, when Hiero II's kingdom
was annexed) and the legal status of the leading cities under Roman
rule; the use of color for this map is redundant therefore.  So much
more data could have been added, and to do that would have been easy
because, ironically, the map is in fact a stripped down version of an
uncolored forerunner "Die roemische Provinz Sicilia (ca. 241 v. Chr. --
535 n. Chr.)" which illustrates the DNP entry 'Sicilia'.  There, rivers
are named, villas marked, and roads and aqueducts traced.  The villas
include Piazza Armerina, which is nowhere marked in the atlas even
though DNP includes an entry for it, with a plan too.  Meantime a
column and a half on Sicily's text page in the atlas (142) is left an
unused blank.  The bibliography there, moreover, is a miscellany that
seems to be lifted uncritically from DNP 'Sicilia'; too many specialist
items are retained, including an unpublished dissertation by Goldsberry
(1973, not 1982), and a 1955 article about the Panormus-Agrigentum road
even though the map omits roads.  For the latter in any case it would
surely be more appropriate to cite the monograph by G. Uggeri, La
Viabilita\ della Sicilia in Eta\ Romana (Rome, 2004).  By the same
token, further invaluable citations missing from the atlas bibliography
(none of them included in the DNP entry either) are E. Manni, Geografia
fisica e politica della Sicilia antica (Rome, 1981); G. Nenci and G.
Vallet (eds.), Bibliografia topografica della colonizzazione greca in
Italia e nelle isole tirreniche (Pisa and Rome, 1977-ongoing); and the
periodic syntheses in Archaeological Reports (the latest by F. De
Angelis, 2007).

This unsatisfying presentation of Sicily in the atlas raises the larger
issues of the broad goals envisaged for the volume and of its intended
relationship with DNP.  A claim to stand alone is made, but then
immediately qualified (XIII): "Der Atlas ist als eigenstaendiges Werk
konzipiert, kann aber auch gut in Verbindung mit den alphabetischen
Baenden genutzt werden."  The Vorwort (V), especially in its section
"Voraussetzungen", affirms close linkage with DNP's scope, approaches
and materials; indeed it is stated that about sixty per cent of the
maps derive from the encyclopedia (which is printed without color
throughout).  In these entirely justifiable circumstances, therefore,
the puzzle arises that a closer meshing was not arranged.  Instead,
time and again -- as in the case of Sicily -- we find bibliography
appended to the alphabetic entries needlessly repeated in the atlas,
not to mention occasional lists of rulers (216, 218, 264) which
Supplemente 1 (2004) already offers in full.  Equally, the excessive
space found for tables of text references documenting shifts in the
extent and boundaries of Roman provinces -- including the full nine
pages 265-73 -- could have been put to far better use in an atlas with
the provision of more maps.  For example, the course of Xenophon's
Anabasis is an ideal cartographic theme, and it is duly mapped in the
DNP entry 'Xenophon', but the atlas declines the opportunity beyond
incorporating an easily overlooked thumbnail sketch within the map
"Fernerkundung in der antiken Welt" (8).  Another natural choice is a
map to illustrate the democratic process in classical Athens; again the
atlas offers none, even though the map "Attische Phylen (nach 508/7 v.
Chr.)" could be lifted from DNP 2 (1997) 237-38 and greatly enhanced by
the addition of color.  The inclusion of such a map could also only
help to redress the imbalance that the atlas as a whole may be
perceived to reflect in favor of Roman civilization against Greek.
Altogether the number of city-plans offered by the atlas is
disappointingly small (see list, XII), and curiously so when many more
could just have been lifted from the relevant alphabetic entries and
Nachtraege, among them Delos, Hattusa, Olympia, Pergamum, Pompeii,
Portus (Ostia), Priene, Syrakusai, Veii; even provision of a full list
of such plans in DNP would be a most welcome enhancement of the atlas.
Again, reproduction of DNP's upper plan of Troia (12/1 [2002] 859-60)
with color added could help immensely to distinguish periods VI, VIIa
and VIIb there.

Incorporation of maps already in DNP aside, the atlas presented greater
opportunities for extending DNP's range of maps than were taken.  True,
the map "Die drei grossen Missionsreisen des Paulus" (228) is a useful
such extension, though it is a puzzle that the final journey to Rome
should be entirely omitted (despite its mention in the accompanying
text), and a pity that the map could not be in color, allowing more
distinctive differentiation of the three journeys.  A clear instance of
an opportunity for extension of DNP not taken at all is the lack of a
city-plan to supplement the short entry for Thamugadi.  Equally,
Hadrian's travels remain without a map, even though DNP 'Hadrianus'
includes a section "Die Sorge um das Reich -- Die Reisen."  On 149, as
mentioned above, the scale for illustrating Rome's second-century
campaigns in the Iberian peninsula could readily have been reduced, and
space found for an inset of Numantia ringed by Scipio's nine siege
camps, which DNP's entry for the site specifically mentions but does
not map.  More generally, the atlas might have opted to overcome DNP's
unexplained reluctance to admit battle-plans, but it silently preferred
not to, and that will be further cause for disappointment to many (note
that the Rezeption volume 15/2 includes the entry 'Schlachtorte').
Ironically, DNP 'Kalkriese' includes a half-page plan which would look
even more appealing in color.  The atlas, however, despite its German
origin not only omits this plan, but also never even marks either
Kalkriese or Saltus Teutoburgensis.

The Vorwort avows a commendable commitment to developing
non-traditional cartographic themes, but again some striking
opportunities are missed.  For example, DNP 'Bodenschaetze' offers a
map "Mineralische Rohstoffe in der Aegaeisregion (ca. 4000 -- nach 1100
v. Chr.)," derived from TAVO A II 2 (1990) which stretches on eastwards
as far as Afghanistan and the Indus valley.  The basis for extending
the limited coverage of the DNP map in the atlas, and in color, was to
hand therefore, but no such initiative was taken.[[2]]  No more was the
lengthy "Chronologische Tabelle antiker Wracks (2 Jt. v. Chr. -- 7 Jh.
n. Chr.)" in DNP 12/2 (2002) 579-90 made the opportunity for a map --
an enhancement potentially all the more valuable because no map
accompanies 'Unterwasserarchaeologie' (DNP 15/3 [2003] 922-29) either,
even though this is a new field to which the Vorwort (1 [1996] V)
specifically commits DNP.

It is cause for regret that the makers of the atlas chose not to
elaborate upon how they mean to serve their intended audience.
According to their Vorwort, they envisage this as spanning an ambitious
range, across the entire spectrum from classical scholars to students
and non-professional enthusiasts.  Everywhere along it, however, there
is liable to be disappointment felt for a variety of reasons.  Scholars
consulting a work of reference reasonably hope to be informed about the
nature and value of comparable existing tools, and about how the
present one orients itself in relation to them.  The Vorwort does draw
attention to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (though
not its Map-by-Map Directory) as an essential resource for topography,
but nothing at all is said here of the Tabula Imperii Romani, for
example, or Tabula Imperii Byzantini, let alone of The Helsinki Atlas
of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period (2001).[[3]]   Even TAVO is
taken granted, although it is in fact unfamiliar to most scholars
outside Germany; a paragraph or two about its nature and scope would be
fully justified.  More generally, no reference is made to the DNP
entries 'Kartographie' or 'Kartographie (Rezeption)', still less to my
analysis "Mapping the classical world: major atlases and map series
1872-1990," JRA 5 (1992) 5-38.  Scholars may be irked when the texts in
the atlas are no more than loosely related to the maps they are placed
to illuminate, as in the case of the text for "Staedtegruendungen und
Bildungsstaetten (4. bis 2. Jh. v. Chr.)" (118-19), for instance.  It
may not please scholars either that the sections headed "Die Quellen"
seem unduly prone to give primacy to texts, while considering other
materials and sources of knowledge as secondary.  Scholars may query
the unexplained decision to maintain the coverage of the atlas so far
beyond the end of antiquity to the fall of Constantinople.  Granted,
DNP itself does extend as far, but only for Rezeption.  Thus there are
entries 'Karolingische Renaissance', for example, and 'Palaeologische
Renaissance', but none for Karl der Grosse or individual Palaiologoi,
or for the Crusades.  In practice the coverage of the millennium from
AD 500 that the atlas offers remains very limited -- with a map devoted
to the first three Crusades (249), for example, but none of
Charlemagne's empire.  It might have been more useful, and still
sufficiently in line with DNP's scope, to settle for a cut-off date
well before 1453, and to expand the coverage for earlier periods.

One divergence from TAVO's practice that all users are likely to regret
is the (again silent) decision never to state any map's scale in
figures (1:2,000,000 aut sim.) as well as by means of a scalebar.  It
goes almost without saying that such a statement of scale is useful not
only when examining any map but also for comparing it to related ones.

In view of the unavoidably high price of the atlas, it may seem
optimistic of its makers to hope that it will see much use by students
and enthusiasts.  Should these learners gain the chance, however, they
are likely to have mixed reactions.  Maps showing all or part of the
Italian peninsula they should find instructive.  These often
incorporate the physical landscape informatively and tend not to be
overloaded with cultural data: the map "Sprachen im alten Italien vor
der Ausbreitung des Lateins" (67) is an attractive example.  Less
useful by contrast are maps where the complete lack of elevation omits
a vital element in learners' understanding, as in the pair "Die
hellenistischen Koenigreiche Indo-Baktriens im 2. und 1. Jh. v. Chr."
(133), which stretch from the Indus delta high up across the Hindukush
and then north down again to the Aral Sea.  Learners will certainly
appreciate the four maps which chart the growth of the Kingdom of
Pergamum from 241 to c. 185 B.C. (125).  All but the most methodical,
however, will be deterred by maps which seek to distill an indigestible
succession of developments.  As many as six Syrian wars (275/74-168
B.C.) form the subject of a single map (123, derived from TAVO B V
16.1), for example.  "Die territoriale Entwicklung des Imperium Romanum
in republikanischer Zeit" (141) distinguishes nineteen stages by date,
and "Die Entwicklung der roemischen Provinzen in Kleinasien (2. Jh. v.
Chr. bis 5. Jh. n. Chr.)" (183) tops that with twenty-one.  Today, such
sequences are obvious themes for presentation electronically with
overlays that can each be added to a map or removed at will.  Almost
all students are sufficiently conversant with the use of computers to
be aware of this capacity, but they will search this atlas in vain for
even a passing reference to digital mapping, let alone for even the
briefest discussion by its makers of how they see the new technology
influencing and reinforcing their aims.  In the era of Powerpoint, GIS
and Google Earth, such complete detachment seems unfortunate to say the
least.  When Rome's Marble Plan is cited (174), no reference is made to
the indispensable Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project
(http://formaurbis.stanford.edu) .  Similarly, in connection with the
impressive overviews of roads across the Roman empire (195-99, mostly
from DNP 'Strassen' and 'Viae Publicae'), attention is not drawn to the
various versions of the Peutinger Map accessible on the web.  Much less
is there recognition of the interactive maps now available that enable
students to trace the course of campaigns and battles in particular
(see notably The Mapping History Project
(http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu) ).

Ever since 1579, when Abraham Ortelius created a supplement
('Parergon') of classical and biblical maps and attached it to his
innovatory Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the makers of historical atlases
have struggled to achieve a satisfying balance of timeframe and themes,
map and text.  Their efforts are a dominant theme of Walter Goffart's
detailed study Historical Atlases: the First Three Hundred Years,
1570-1870 (Chicago, 2003), which confirms -- predictably enough -- that
no ideal solution is attainable.  Every atlas, like every map, is
perforce a set of compromises, the product of multiple choices.   In
their ambitious endeavor, Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak make many sound
choices and offer much of value.  But the sense lingers of
opportunities missed, potential not fulfilled, mismatch of material and
its intended audience.  More effective integration with DNP could have
been developed by the historical atlas intended to supplement it; text
and bibliography could have been subordinated more to maps.  Last but
far from least, especially in an atlas which proclaims its commitment
to new ways of approaching antiquity, all engagement with information
technology and digital mapping should not have been evaded.  For a
masterly appreciation of how the computer revolution only complicates
the bewildering array of choices that the creative mapmaker already has
to navigate, one could hardly do better than re-read Denis Cosgrove's
(1948-2008) wide-ranging Introduction to his edited volume Mappings
(London, 1999).  Even so, as Cosgrove himself recognized, the new
challenge is one to be welcomed and exploited; a twenty-first century
atlas which sets it aside falls short.

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Notes:


1.    From the volume John Pendlebury in Crete, p. 1, printed by
Cambridge University Press in 1948 for private circulation.  For his
exploits, see now Imogen Grundon, The Rash Adventurer: a Life of John
Pendlebury (London, 2007).

2.   Note further in this connection A. Orejas (ed.), Atlas historique
des zones minie\res d'Europe (2 vols., Luxembourg, 2001, 2003).

3.    Note the review of the Atlas by S. Richardson, Journal of Near
Eastern Studies 65.2 (2006): 125-27.