Mapping Ancient Rome

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/will-mapping-ancient-rome-save-western-urbanism-and-civilization/

by mstats • 7 years ago

99 18 7 years ago

SamBam• 7 years ago

I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome.

The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cultures cross-pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways of living, it is an open question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient forms will be felt much by those who live in the future, beyond the next horizon. [ ... ] Perhaps this time—our time—is really the end of the ancient world.

I read this as "all of the 'other' people who come into the West won't share this unifying history of the city that was the pinnacle of civilization."

Highly ironic that the article in the carousel directly above this one was "Why Identity Politics Kills Democracy."

tryitnow2• 7 years ago

My suspicion is that they had to find some ideological justification for writing about this cool project in a conservative magazine, so they probably just shoehorned those lines in there.

I don't think this is a bad thing. The more conservatives are exposed to ideas and cultures that are radically at odds with contemporary conservative mores, the more likely these conservatives are to open their minds.

And make no mistake, ancient Rome as a pagan civilization is absolutely at odds with contemporary American conservatism. They can twist and shoehorn in their preferred takes as much as they'd like, but once the seed is planted the smarter conservatives start looking beyond the provincial ideas they're inclined to inherit from their immediate cultural background.

jdpedrie• 7 years ago

Perhaps more exposure to the intellectual tradition of conservatism would likewise help free you from, to borrow a phrase, "the provincial ideas" about your political opponents that you seem to have been "inclined to inherit from [your] immediate cultural background. "

keiferski• 7 years ago

Why does one need to be a conservative to find value in Ancient Greco-Roman civilization? It's certainly possible for someone to be critical of modernity yet not be some kind of right-wing zealot, or even right-wing at all. Personally I don't identify with any modern political ideology and think that there is a lot of value to be found in the ancients.

This black-and-white view of dividing everything into "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists" is extremely destructive and it's one of the main reasons that Western Civilization is in its current identity crisis. And that applies to all sides of the political spectrum.

golergka• 7 years ago

I have read the same text and not for a moment read it this way.

al_form2000• 7 years ago

You are reading it with the bias you mention, and, as a consequence, you are attaching overbroad significance to a sentence that weighs in at about 3% of a text dedicated to the discussion of an archaelogical atlas of Ancient Rome.

gpvos• 7 years ago

Well, they suggest it in the title as well, so it appears like they find it important.

rukittenme• 7 years ago

I will point out that a dislike of "Identity Politics" can easily be defined as "divisions within some set that a person wishes to be uniform". For example, a Christian may be perfectly happy with Christianity's differences with other religions but very unhappy with divisions within Christianity itself. I don't think it is necessarily hypocritical to hold that view.

To put it in terms more familiar, intersectionality is intended to unify a diverse body against a larger uniform society. In a sense, the most conservative Americans and the most radical are one in the same. Radicals seek unity against enemies within and conservatives seeks unity against enemies without. The only thing separating some radical ideas from some conservative ideas is the scoping.

---

As a sidebar, I'm really digging this train of thought. Its kind of interesting to think that the only difference between Martin Luther and Pope Urban II was their scope of the world's problems. Which makes sense. After all we're only human. We don't think that differently from one another.

PorterDuff• 7 years ago

The book is a bit expensive, although I'd like to have a copy.

Given the turn that modern politics has taken, I guess all that matters was this sentence:

"Today, as cultures cross-pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways of living, it is an open question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient forms will be felt much by those who live in the future, beyond the next horizon."

It's not a bad question really, with 'Rome' as a stand-in for all the well-worn bits of culture. Are 500 year old nursery rhymes still in practice and will they be? You can certainly see the change in the teaching of literature in schools. Latin or Greek are scarcely taught anymore. No doubt there are 100's of examples. 'Rome' of course is an imaginary construct that is really a later Anglo-American version of historical matters.

I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out the underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh ones, perhaps it never mattered.

madhadron2• 7 years ago

I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out the underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh ones, perhaps it never mattered.

I think the elites of the world are steadily converging toward a common culture, which is exactly what gave the Roman empire its identity.

orliesaurus• 7 years ago

Off-topic but somewhat relevant: When I was in college (ca. 2009) I worked on a project whose aim was mapping ancient Rome in 3-D so that students could explore the city as if they were living in it. We were a team of three including our supervisor who was the expert in ancient Rome and we managed to recreate about 9000 buildings including temples in points of interest. Most recently I have discovered [0] that one version of assassins Creed that was based on ancient Greece is free to download, You can't play the game but you can explore the city with its really high quality renderings/interactivity and learn through quizzes

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/assassins-creed-odyssey-ge...

pugworthy• 7 years ago

I worked with that data on an ill-fated educational game a bit before that time...

FranzFerdiNaN• 7 years ago

I bought the book for my wife, who has a phd in Roman history. Its an absolutely gorgeous book containing a wealth of information. Its also incredibly dense material. Its really made for specialists, but for them its completely worth the price. Im glad people are creating works like this.

jaclaz• 7 years ago

In fact, the editor describes the Atlas as a virtual museum of the city (which has no brick-and-mortar institution devoted to its ancient topography).

Just in case: https://www.romereborn.org/

The actual brick and mortar museum (and model) does exist however: http://www.museociviltaromana.it/

http://www.museociviltaromana.it/it/collezioni/percorsi_per_...

Since the model was realized between 1933 and 1955 it may be somehow less accurate or missing some later discoveries/whatever, still it remains impressive, here is a short video that doesn't actually provide a sense of its size and detail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMEN3zOQ5E

wnissen• 7 years ago

Lots of good Roman mapping resources previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146055

I personally really enjoyed http://orbis.stanford.edu/ which maps between cities, even telling you how many dinarii it would have cost via various methods. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a layer with modern city names, so you have to know that, e.g., Budapest was Aquincum in Roman times.

madhadron2• 7 years ago

What a strange article. A very workmanlike review of a very interesting book bookended by two paragraphs each of filler verging on nonsense.

ngcc_hk• 7 years ago

After going to the city buried under volcanic ashes, always under the impression of sewage issue of Roman city. And prostitution.

Not as clean and romantic.

Mapping Ancient Rome

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