I have always been fascinated by maps, especially old maps. One of the most famous is the Tube map - better known as the London Underground map - a schematic transport map of the lines, stations and services of the London Underground, known colloquially as "the Tube", hence the map's name.
The first schematic Tube map was designed by Harry Beck in 1931. Since then it has been expanded to include more of London's public transport systems, including the Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, the Elizabeth line, Tram link, the London Cable Car and Thameslink. As a schematic diagram, it shows not the geographic locations, but the relative positions of the stations, lines, the stations' connective relations, and fare zones.
Another, even more remarkable old map, a kind of tube map to the Roman Empire, is the Peutinger Map. Drawn in 1265 by a monk from Colmar, the map consists of an enormous scroll measuring 6.75 metres long and 0.35 metres thick, assembled from 11 sections, a medieval reproduction of the original scroll. It was discovered in 1494 by Konrad Meissel, and given in 1507 to an Antiquarian of Augsburg, Konrad Peutinger.
This map describes the world as it was known in Antiquity. Indeed, several disappeared localities, like Pompeii or Herculanum, are indicated and other places, such as Hatra in Iraq or Tegea in Greece, bear their Roman names which were lost during the Middle Ages. In addition, several notes refer to ancient ideas, such as a wide river "flowing" under the Sahara. Moreover, the localities are connected by roads with distances marked in Roman numerals indicating the miles (1480m ) or, west of Lyon, the Gallic leagues (2220m ). Large cities are represented by thumbnails of variable size and a special importance is given to imperial cities. The metropolises of this map are Rome, Constantinople and Antioch.
Immediately below the metropolises in size are Nicomedia (Izmit ), Nicaea (Iznik ), Aquileia and Ravenna. Moreover, the map seems to indicate some maritime or river ways without clearly marking their departure or arrival destinations. For instance, a ferry could exist in the Southern Peloponnese, with a destination of either Crete or Cyrenaica, and Ostia, the harbour of Rome, is positioned exactly opposite Carthage. There is also a reference to a riverway between Ostia and the Adriatic Sea or Ravenna. This leads one to the conclusion that the Peutingerian Map is the result of successive copies and overprints carried out at various times from one or several ancient originals. The oldest information probably goes back to before 79AD since Pompeii is indicated, which was never rebuilt after Vesuvius erupted. Other temporal indications can be drawn from Jerusalem, which is named Aelia Capitolina, the name it was given in 132AD, and from Constantinople, the name commonly used since the fifth century.
The map is known as a Planisphere, a representation of a hemisphere of the earth on a flat surface. Thus, on the Peutinger Map, the Italian peninsula seems to extend from west to east and where Rhodes is close to the area of Tel-Aviv. The result is that the whole map looks like a modern subway plan. The routes were drawn in order to be clearly readable without taking into account the scale or of the exact geographical orientation, the essential being to show the distances and the crossroads. It is a functional document standing in comparison with present day roadmaps. The main roads of the imperial courier service, or cursus publicus, are shown, making it possible for the traveller to easily locate the stops, to calculate the distances to be covered and to organize supplies at the principal resting point.
The map is thought to be a distant descendant of the map prepared under the direction of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, a Roman general, architect, and a confidant to emperor Augustus; the map was engraved on stone and put on display in the Porticus Vipsania in the Campus Agrippae area in Rome, close to the Ara Pacis building, dedicted by Augustus in the early first century AD.
The stages and cities are represented by hundreds of functional place symbols, used with discrimination from the simplest icon of a building with two towers to the elaborate individualized "portraits" of the three great cities. The map was discovered in a library in the city of Worms by German scholar Conrad Celtes in 1494, who bequeathed the map in 1508 to Konrad Peutinger, a German humanist and antiquarian in Augsburg, after whom the map is named. The Peutinger family kept possession of the map for more than two hundred years until it was sold in 1714. It is today conserved at the Austrian National Library at the Hofburg palace in Vienna.
Barnaby ffrench
