Itinerarium

Itinerarium (i.e. road-book, from Lat. iter, road), a term applied to the extant descriptions of the ancient Roman roads and routes of traffic, with the stations and distances. It is usual to distinguish two classes of these, Itineraria adnotata or scripta and Itineraria picta—the former having the character of a book, and the latter being a kind of travelling map. Of the Itineraria Scripta the most important are: (1) It. Antonini (see Antonini Itinerarium), which consists of two parts, the one dealing with roads in Europe, Asia and Africa, and the other with familiar sea-routes—the distances usually being measured from Rome; (2) It. Hierosolymitanum or Burdigalense, which belongs to the 4th century, and contains the route of a pilgrimage from Bordeaux to Jerusalem and from Heraclea by Rome to Milan (ed. G. Parthey and M. Pinder, 1848, with the Itinerarium Antonini); (3) It. Alexandria containing a sketch of the march-route of Alexander the Great, mainly derived from Arrian and prepared for Constantius’s expedition in A.D. 340-345 against the Persians (ed. D. Volkmann, 1871). A collected edition of the ancient itineraria, with ten maps, was issued by Fortia d’Urban, Recueil des itinéraires anciens (1845). Of the Itineraria Picta only one great example has been preserved. This is the famous Tabula Peutingeriana, which, without attending to the shape or relative position of the countries, represents by straight lines and dots of various sizes the roads and towns of the whole Roman world (facsimile published by K. Miller, 1888; see also Map).