NOS OPERTUIT TUNC VERTISSE. ALIQUEM DE VIA CONSULAMUS

September 26, 2011 11:56 AM

Salve! Do you have trouble finding your way from Brindisium to Antium or planning a vacation at your villa in the Appenines because no one produces an online map with directions in good Latin these days? Well, be of good cheer, friend, OmnesViae has what you need.

Alas, the map has place names in Italian. Still, if you need to find your way hinc illuc, it is the best I have seen.

posted by ricochet biscuit (23 comments total)

This will be invaluable in my time travels.
posted by klangklangston at 11:59 AM on September 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

Also useful if you have taken a modern military force back to ancient Rome to conquer it.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:01 PM on September 26, 2011 [6 favorites]

No Aquae Sulis! So much for a holiday at the baths.
posted by pointystick at 12:05 PM on September 26, 2011

Compendium, Aquarium, Laudanum and Totorum are all missing, by Toutatis!

These Romans are crazy!
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:07 PM on September 26, 2011 [8 favorites]

All I remember from my high school Latin classes are how to say hello (salve) and all the different ways to curse. Unfortunately most of those words are not common names of towns..
posted by Deflagro at 12:11 PM on September 26, 2011

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:11 PM on September 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

and here I am without Titus Pullo's address.
posted by The Whelk at 12:16 PM on September 26, 2011

Inde situm video domo mea!
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:19 PM on September 26, 2011

WARNING: this is based on the Peutinger table, so please set your time machine to after 450 CE.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:20 PM on September 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Whelk:

Apartment IV, Decrepit Hovel Above the Collegium, Gracchus Street, Western Face of the Aventine, Rome.


You're welcome.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:33 PM on September 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

This is great. The Tabula Peutingeriana is not very detailed though, so if you're going to time travel keep in mind it's pretty useless for short distances. Enter Nijmegen en the nearest bridge to the south, Cuijk, and all it will give you is a straight line right through every marsh for the next 10 miles.

Nijmegen en Cuijk, by the way, are pretty good examples of what happens to perfectly good latin place names when you leave them in the hands of germanic tribes for 2000 years.
posted by Sourisnoire at 12:39 PM on September 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thebes (either Thebes, Thiva or Thebai) isn't present, which is irritating. Oh well...
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 12:50 PM on September 26, 2011

(If you want a comprehensive map of the ancient world, you can't really do better than the still in-progress Pleiades Project)
posted by oinopaponton at 1:05 PM on September 26, 2011

There's no Londinium, which is vexing on its own merits, and will probably cause the first searches of half my friends to fail, since "Roma" and "Londinium" are - I suspect - the only two Roman city names most of them know offhand.
posted by Tomorrowful at 1:38 PM on September 26, 2011

Thebes (either Thebes, Thiva or Thebai) isn't present, which is irritating.

There's no Londinium,

CAVEAT EMPTOR
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:37 PM on September 26, 2011

Thebes (either Thebes, Thiva or Thebai) isn't present, which is irritating.

There's no Londinium,

CAVEAT EMPTOR

No Carthage either....
posted by Alles at 3:14 PM on September 26, 2011

No Carthage either....

CARTHAGO DELENDA EST
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:26 PM on September 26, 2011 [6 favorites]

60 days to get from rome to marseilles? - this is why they used ships
posted by pyramid termite at 5:50 PM on September 26, 2011

There's no Londinium

Boudica was thorough.
posted by homunculus at 5:57 PM on September 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

Carthago delenda fuit-- deleta est!
posted by oinopaponton at 6:20 PM on September 26, 2011

Thebes (either Thebes, Thiva or Thebai) isn't present, which is irritating.

Well, the town had been destroyed for close to 600 years at the time the map was compiled, so it's not surprising that they didn't include it.
posted by dd42 at 7:01 PM on September 26, 2011

Well, the town had been destroyed for close to 600 years at the time the map was compiled, so it's not surprising that they didn't include it.

Dang, no kidding. I need to check Wikipedia more often! I felt sure that the Romans had refounded it later... I see now that I was confusing it with Corinth.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 1:57 AM on September 27, 2011

No, you're right - its acropolis was refortified in 316 BCE and it became a small, comfortable city in Roman times centered around the acropolis, but it wasn't very important even in Boeotia.
posted by dd42 at 9:18 PM on September 27, 2011