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Itinerarium

ITINERARIUM, a term applied to the extant descriptions of the ancient Roman roads and routes of traffic, with the sta tions and distances (Lat. iter, road). Earlier than these, and therefore to be treated as an original source, are the silver cups found at Vicarello, on the lake of Bracciano (q.v.), which belong to the time of Trajan, and give the stations from Gades (Cadiz) to Rome overland through Spain, southern Gaul and Italy. There are a few inscriptions which give shorter stretches; but for the rest, we are dependent on the written itineraries. According to one view, all the sources we have are derived from a lost official map; one descendant of this is the Antonin Itinerary, a some what unskilful excerpt from it of the stations and distances along the various roads of the Roman empire ; while from another map (also lost) are derived the Ravenna Itinerary and the Tabula Peutingeriana. Another view (Miller's) is that the maps arose out of the itineraries, which were kept at the main posting centres, and brought up to date from information given by travellers. Thus, he would hold, the Antonine Itinerary is made

up from material collected from these itineraries and from travellers in various parts of the world. It belongs to the time of Diocletian, but is of private origin.

The

Tabula Peutingeriana is a 12th century copy of Castorius' map of the world (4th century), which was intended to be rolled, and was also unofficial. From it is derived the Ravenna Itinerary.

The

Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum, made by an unknown pil grim in A.D. 333, records the stations and distances from Bordeaux overland to Jerusalem and back by Valona and Rome to Milan. The Itinerarium Maritimuns (generally, hut wrongly regarded as the second part of the Itinerarium Antonini) is independent.

See

R. Miller, ltineraria Romana (Stuttgart, 1916) ; and for Roman Britain, T. Codrington, Roman Roads in Britain; O. G. S. Crawford in Antiquity, i. 195 (1927).

itinerary, roman and stations