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15 · Cartography in the Byzantine Empire 15 · Cartography in the Byzantine Empire o. A. W. DILKE WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY THE EDITORS Of all the civilizations of the classical world, the Byzan­ rents that mingled in maritime and commercial centers tine is probably the least known from the cartographic such as Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, and Thessalon­ point of view. The Byzantine state was the richest, the ica-and above all in Constantinople itself-were com­ most powerful, and the most civilized in Europe and the plex. They were not only the contacts with the heartland Middle East at that time. 1 Although the territorial of the old classical world but also links with the Islamic boundaries of its empire fluctuated,2 there was a con­ and other societies to the east.4 Byzantine cities became tinuity in political organization, in cultural influences, entrepots through which astronomical and geographical and in religion for over a thousand years from A.D. 330, learning (including a knowledge of maps) was handed when Constantinople was founded, to the fall of Tre­ on in many directions. bizond in 1461, eight years after the collapse of the Notwithstanding their complexity, some of these con­ capital. ditions should have been favorable to the survival of It is paradoxical, however, that a literate society, heir classical cartographic knowledge. It is disappointing, to Greek and Roman learning, should have left so few therefore, that so few maps have come down to us from traces of an interest in mapping. At least some of the the whole of the Byzantine millennium. Moreover, it is necessary conditions for the development of such an quite clear that these few are representative neither of interest were present. In late Roman times the eastern the theoretical cartography developed by the Greeks nor empire, from its base in Constantinople, had access to of the applied mapping practiced by the Romans. In the practical skills of the Roman land surveyors, in­ addition, there are fewer literary allusions to maps from cluding mapmaking. The cartographic needs of Byzan­ the Byzantine period than from the Roman period, so tine emperors in connection with administration, mili­ that once again our expectations cannot be matched by tary conquest and subjugation, propaganda, land actual evidence.5 management, and public works were apparently similar to those of Rome itself. Moreover, the revival of classical ROMAN INFLUENCES: THE THEODOSIAN culture, consequent on the restoration of literary Greek, MAP AND THE RAVENNA COSMOGRAPHY gave the educated classes a reading knowledge of clas­ Despite the gaps in our knowledge, there are no grounds sical Greek and Latin. Finally, it is known that astro­ for believing in a hiatus, in the fifth and sixth centuries, nomical and geographical texts, both containing maps, between mapping in the late Roman Empire and map- were in circulation even before the so-called Renaissance of the tenth century A.D. Certainly these were available 1. Robert Browning, The Byzantine Empire (New York: Charles during the later Byzantine Empire when Maximus Plan­ Scribner's Sons, 1980), 7. Not until the western empire was over­ udes (ca. 1260-1310) was able to initiate a successful thrown in A.D. 476 can one consider Byzantium to have been acting entirely on its own. search for the manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geography.3 2. At its greatest extent Byzantium not only retained the eastern At the same time, there were other factors that weak­ provinces of the Roman Empire but also, as under Justinian (emperor ened this continuity of classical learning. These included 527-565), took over Italy, North Africa, and parts of Spain. the decline of the Byzantine Empire in the seventh and 3. For the Greek and Latin manuscripts containing celestial maps eighth centuries; the religious movement known as icon­ of the ninth and tenth centuries, see volume 3 of the History and Paul Lemerle, Le premier humanisme byzantin (Paris: Presses Universitaires oclasm, which may have resulted in the destruction of de France, 1971). some images relevant to cartography; the capture of 4. For Arab links with Byzantium see volume 2 of the present His­ Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204; and the re­ tory. moval of other manuscripts to western Europe by ref­ 5. In view of the large extant literature from the Byzantine period, ugee scholars. Thus the transmission of original Greek including much of a philosophical and technological nature, we may hope that a detailed search for cartographic material (which has not and Latin manuscripts through the centuries was far hitherto been undertaken) would yield further references to the exis­ from being a simple process. Literary and artistic cur- tence or use of maps. 258 Cartography in the Byzantine Empire 259 ping as it would develop in the eastern empire. On the ymous treatise Urbs Constantinopo!itana nova Roma, contrary, there was a conscious preservation of all things dedicated to Theodosius 11. 12 Nor is the more detailed Roman. The Byzantines called themselves not Byzantines description of Constantinople by one Marcellinus­ but Romaioi (Romans),6 and they liked to see themselves which lists the fourteen districts of the city and its most as heirs of the Roman Empire. In cartography there were important buildings-linked to any large-scale plan deliberate imitations of some of the maps of the earlier comparable to the Forma Urbis Romae.13 Moreover, era, especially where these were perceived as fulfilling even in matters where the emperor dealt with the legal imperial purposes, such as the glorification of the great­ organization and codification of lands within the empire, ness of Byzantium at a date when it was still possible to cadastral surveys and mapping do not seem to have been believe in the reconstitution of the Roman Empire as a undertaken, and certainly not in the manner recom­ whole. 7 mended in the Corpus Agrimensorum. There is a written The map of the Byzantine Empire that was issued on survey of property law, said to have been instituted by the orders of Theodosius II (emperor of the East from Theodosius II and to have dealt not only with a resurvey A.D. 408 to 450) can be interpreted in this light. The of the Nile valley but also with conditions in other prov­ map itself has not survived, but we know about it from inces of the Roman Empire,14 but again the surviving the poem that was attached.8 Although Greek was the part of the text makes no mention of maps. common language of the eastern empire, this poem is in To extrapolate from such scraps of evidence, it is pos­ Latin hexameters, Latin being at the time the official sible to suggest that while the Byzantine emperors re­ language of both parts of the empire. In the original text, tained maps for propaganda and (as will be seen) reli­ the date mentioned is the fifteenth fasces of Theodosius. gious purposes, the many practical uses for mapping so This does not mean, as the Irish geographer Dicuil (fl. characteristic of the western empire steadily declined. A.D. 814-25) thought, the fifteenth year of Theodosius's Such an interpretation is borne out by the periploi, books 9 reign but refers to his fifteenth consulship, A.D. 435. of sailing directions, which continued to lack accom- The poem may thus be rendered: This famous work-including all the world, 6. Browning, Byzantine Empire, 8 (note 1). Seas, mountains, rivers, harbors, straits and towns, 7. A representation of an orb or globe in an imperial context is Uncharted areas-so that all might know, associated with the colossal statue of an emperor erected in Barletta Our famous, noble, pious Theodosius and found in the sea off the town. Symbolizing Byzantine power in the West, it is two and a half to three times life size, with an orb in Most venerably ordered when the year the emperor's hand, but there are no markings on the orb. It has Was opened by his fifteenth consulship. traditionally been considered to be a likeness of Heraclius (emperor We servants of the emperor (as one wrote, 610-41); but according to an alternative theory it is of Valentinian I The other painted), following the work (emperor 364-75). See Enciclopedia italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti, Of ancient mappers, in not many months originally 36 vols. ([Rome]: Istituto Giovanni Treccani, 1929-39), Revised and bettered theirs, within short space 6: 197, col. 2 and photo 196. Embracing all the world. Your wisdom, sire, 8. Emil Baehrens, ed., Poetae Latini minores, 5 vols. (Leipzig: Teub­ It was that taught us to achieve this task. iO ner, 1879-83; reprinted New York: Garland, 1979), 5:84; Wanda Dicuil took these lines to indicate that two members Wolska-Conus, "Deux contributions a l'histoire de la geographie: I. La diagnosis Ptolemeenne; II. La 'Carte de Theodose II,'" in Travaux of the imperial staff were instructed to travel around the et memoires, Centre de Recherche d'Histoire et Civilisation Byzantines, empire. A more appropriate interpretation would be that 5 (Paris: Editions E. de Baccard, 1973), 259-79. the instructions were to edit and update a map and, 9. Dicuil De mensura orbis terrae (On the measurement of the earth) perhaps, a commentary. The latter would have been 5.4; see Liber de mensura orbis terrae, ed. and trans. James J. Tierney, almost certainly derived from Agrippa, always recog­ Scriptores Latini Hiberniae, no. 6 (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Ad­ vanced Studies, 1967); Tierney discusses Dicuil's errors of interpre­ nized during Byzantine times as the official source, rather tation in his introduction, pp. 23-24. than the works of Marinus or of Ptolemy.
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