Random Orientation of Roman Camps

Peterson, John W.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-0092.2007.00275.x

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Archaeologists and historians do not usually have basic statistical analysis as part of their tool-kit, and so it is possible for papers without such statistical underpinnings to appear archaeological and classical journals because the basic problems simply are not recognised. [23] Therefore research using statistical tools needs to be published either in a forum used by statistically minded scholars, or else in an open-access environment where they can access and critique the work.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples

Salt

2009

PLoS ONE

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Despite its appearing to be a simple question to answer, there has been no consensus as to whether or not the alignments of ancient Greek temples reflect astronomical intentions. Here I present the results of a survey of archaic and classical Greek temples in Sicily and compare them with temples in Greece. Using a binomial test I show strong evidence that there is a preference for solar orientations. I then speculate that differences in alignment patterns between Sicily and Greece reflect differing pressures in the expression of ethnic identity.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples

Salt

2009

PLoS ONE

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“…The existence of astronomical orientations confirms statements made by many Roman writers themselves, and raises the problem of the symbolic meaning of the castrum layout in the Roman world. Recent investigations have shown a clear tendency for the layouts of Roman camps and forts to be oriented to the cardinal points, which is hardly justifiable on strategic grounds (see Richardson 2005; Peterson 2007; Salt 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3). Recent investigations have been carried out on the orientation of the Roman camps and forts (Richardson 2005) and, although precise indications are also in this case difficult to be obtained due to the relative low number of data sample (see Peterson, 2007, andSalt, 2007) there is a clear tendency to the orientation to the cardinal points which is hardly justifiable with strategic reasons. All in all, in the author's view it is highly desirable that future research may dispose of a complete database of orientations -including temples -in the Roman world, a huge task which however would be of fundamental help towards a re-assessment of the (usually neglected) astronomical knowledge among the Romans, as well as to a better understanding of his connection with the Roman religion and mentality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Orientation of Roman Towns in Italy

Magli

2008

Oxford J Archaeology

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As is well known, several Roman sources report on the existence of a town foundation ritual, inherited from the Etruscans, which allegedly included astronomical references. However, the possible existence of astronomical orientations in the layout of Roman towns has never been tackled in a systematic way. As a first step in this direction, the orientation of virtually all Roman towns in Italy (38 cities) is studied here. Non-random orientation patterns emerge from these data, aiming at further research in this field. The planning of a Roman townDuring the republican period and the first imperial period (roughly from the V century b.C. to the I century a.D.) the Romans founded many towns, or colonies. The foundation of a town was an efficient method in order to establish permanent control on a newly conquered land, and a consistent amount of people (up to 5000 families) was assigned to the new towns in accordance with a legal act called deductio. The urban plan of the settlements was always the same: the layouts of the newly founded towns were indeed planned in accordance with the so called castrum (i.e. military camp) structure.1 A colony could also be deducted "on" a pre-existing, non-Roman town, either conquered or allied; also in this case however, the layout was usually re-designed in accordance with the Roman standards (see e.g. Sommella 1988). The city boundaries of a castrum town formed a rectangle, usually not very stretched in one direction or the other, so that we can refer generally to this kind of town planning as to a squared one. The rectangle was delimited by the walls and the internal streets were organized in a orthogonal grid forming the inhabited quarters (insulae). As is well known, orthogonal town planning -which has been a common feature of many cultures, for instance the Hindu one -was theorized in the classical world by the Greek architect Hippodamus of Miletus around the half of the V century, and applied strictly in all Greek colonies (Castagnoli 1971). Beyond any doubts it was applied by the Etruscans as well, as it is shown by the excavations at Misa, the unique known Etruscan town which was conquered by the Celts and abandoned before the Roman expansion (Mansuelli 1965). Some authors believe that the Etruscans simply copied the orthogonal plan from the Greeks, but in any case it is reasonable to think that the Romans inherited the orthogonal layout from the Etruscans, rather than from the Greeks. In addition to the orthogonal layout however, the inspiring principle of the Roman castrum was based on the existence of two main orthogonal roads, called cardus and decumanus. Thus, in Roman towns, the orthogonal layout was actually quadripartite: at the end of the four main roads, four main gates were located, while the centres of the social and religious life (the Forum and the main temple or Capitolium, respectively) were preferably placed at (or near) the intersection of the main roads (see e.g. Rykwert 1999). To fix ideas about a Roman castrum town, we can look at Fig. 1, where, as an ...

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“…Although some of the first publications on this topic (Le Gall 1975;Peterson 2007) refused to accept the existence of any intentionality behind the orientation of Roman towns, a number of later studies suggested the presence of well-defined patterns of orientation in different regions across the Roman Empire (Orfila et al 2014;Richardson 2005). Furthermore, astronomy-based explanations for the orientation of many of the settlements in the studied samples were proposed by a number of authors (González-García and Costa Ferrer 2011;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Archaeoastronomy in the Roman World

Magli¹,

González-García²,

Aviles³

et al. 2019

Historical &Amp; Cultural Astronomy

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Several works have tried either to demonstrate or reject the notion that the orientation of the main axis of a Roman city was deliberate since its choice might add an extra sacred dimension to the entire urban space Magli 2008). There exist ancient texts that support the hypothesis of the existence of astronomical orientations, such as those of Frontinus (De Agrimmensura, 27) or Hyginus Gromaticus (Constitutio,I). In the case that these precepts were fulfilled: how to achieve it? Besides the astronomical hypothesis, some scholars have pointed to the use of a geometrical technique: the uaratio (Orfila et al. 2014). By this, the short sides of a regular triangle that are in ratios of integer numbers (for example 1:2, 2:3) are laid along the cardinal axes. In this work we present a comparison of the orientation of 81 Roman towns in the Iberian Peninsula, measured in situ, with uaratio angles with aspect ratios up to 12:12. By this exercise we want to discern whether the orientations were astronomical, purely geometrical, or if geometry could have fostered astronomical aims by using selected and well-known angles to trace lines that fitted the desired astronomical purposes. It is then, an attempt to shed more light to the issue of the orientation of Roman towns by combining two hypotheses that, in contrast to what it might seem, could be complementary but not contrary.

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Random Orientation of Roman Camps

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples

The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples

On the Orientation of Roman Towns in Italy

Archaeoastronomy in the Roman World

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