Richard J. A. Talbert – författare

Mercury's Wings: Exploring Modes of Communication in the Ancient World is the first-ever volume of essays devoted to ancient communications. Comparable previous work has been mainly confined to articles on aspects of communication in the Roman empire. This set of 18 essays with an introduction by the co-editors marks a milestone, therefore, that demonstrates the importance and rich further potential of the topic. The authors, who include art historians, Assyriologists, Classicists and Egyptologists, take the broad view of communications as a vehicle not just for the transmission of information, but also for the conduct of religion, commerce, and culture. Encompassed within this scope are varied purposes of communication such as propaganda and celebration, as well as profit and administration. Each essay deals with a communications network, or with a means or type of communication, or with the special features of religious communication or communication in and among large empires.The spatial, temporal, and cultural boundaries of the volume take in the Near East as well as Greece and Rome, and cover a period of some 2,000 years beginning in the second millennium BCE and ending with the spread of Christianity during the last centuries of the Roman Empire in the West. In all, about one quarter of the essays deal with the Near East, one quarter with Greece, one quarter with Greece and Rome together, and one quarter with the Roman empire and its Persian and Indian rivals. Some essays concern topics in cultural history, such as Greek music and Roman art; some concern economic history in both Mesopotamia and Rome; and some concern traditional historical topics such as diplomacy and war in the Mediterranean world. Each essay draws on recent work in the theory of communications.

World and Hour in Roman Minds: Exploratory Essays seeks to penetrate Romans' consciousness of space and time, aspects of antiquity currently attracting intense interest. Historian Richard Talbert presents here a cohesive selection of nineteen essays, published over the course of thirty years, all but one previously appearing in widely scattered publications. Now reinforced by an Introduction and textually and visually updated, these essays document the progress of pioneering efforts to glimpse the worldviews of Romans up and down the social scale--even Julius Caesar and Claudius--and to reassess the communicative role of Roman mapping along with its strengths and limitations.Talbert interprets the Antonine Itinerary and Artemidorus and Peutinger maps afresh, visualizing the latter with a wider perspective than in previous scholarship and probing the challenges of its design, production and copying. He also casts doubt, however, on the idea that Romans conceptualized their long-distance roads as an interconnected system, as did certain comparable premodern states across the Americas and Asia.The most recent essays share findings that emerge with a shift of focus from space to time, specifically Romans' daily timekeeping by hours--another neglected dimension of their social mentalité. Talbert suggests that Romans' tracking of time should be regarded as uncannily similar to that of the Japanese before Westernization. Throughout, the essays are unified by the methods applied. The value of broader, often comparative, approaches is demonstrated, as well as the creative potential of untapped testimony and digital technology--altogether an invaluable platform to stimulate further inquiry.

The Peutinger Map is the only map of the Roman world to come down to us from antiquity. Today it is among the treasures of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Richard Talbert's study presented in Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered offers a long-overdue reinterpretation and appreciation of the map as a masterpiece of both mapmaking and imperial Roman ideology. Here, the ancient world's traditional span, from the Atlantic to India, is dramatically remolded; lands and routes take pride of place, whereas seas are compressed. Talbert posits that the map's true purpose was not to assist travelers along Rome's highways, but rather to celebrate the restoration of peace and order by Diocletian's Tetrarchy. Such creative cartography, he shows, influenced the development of medieval mapmaking. With the aid of digital technology, this book enables readers to engage with the Peutinger Map in all of its fascinating immensity more closely than ever before.

This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of DiscoveryProvides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient IndiaExplores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials

This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies. Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of DiscoveryProvides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient IndiaExplores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials

The Peutinger Map is the only map of the Roman world to come down to us from antiquity. Today it is among the treasures of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Richard Talbert's study presented in Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered offers a long-overdue reinterpretation and appreciation of the map as a masterpiece of both mapmaking and imperial Roman ideology. Here, the ancient world's traditional span, from the Atlantic to India, is dramatically remolded; lands and routes take pride of place, whereas seas are compressed. Talbert posits that the map's true purpose was not to assist travelers along Rome's highways, but rather to celebrate the restoration of peace and order by Diocletian's Tetrarchy. Such creative cartography, he shows, influenced the development of medieval mapmaking. With the aid of digital technology, this book enables readers to engage with the Peutinger Map in all of its fascinating immensity more closely than ever before.