Customer Reviews

A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome

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With this magnificent work in hand one can read the ancient historians and understand what you are reading, street by street, site by site. New information and research has been presented in the 60 plus years since the last dictionary of ancient Rome, and it makes this new topographical tome so exciting. If you are going to Rome and have a strong arm as well as a strong interest in what was where and when, then this admittedly heavyweight book will not be too much to take along. Perhaps most fascinating are those wonderful maps which present past and present on sites long lost to the avid Roman visitor. You may not see what was there by looking at the present site, but you can understand what was there better with this book. For the college student who may be planning a career or a deep interest in classical Rome, this book will be worth the price many times over! Best of all is the list of all the classical references for each building, site, or even, in some cases, statues or adornments. This book is more than a gift of scholarship, it is a gift of love of the history of Rome and for all those who will come along in the future to study it.

I have lived in Rome for 12 years and have become an avid enthusiast of ancient Roman history. History is inextricably connected to physical locations. The Topographical Guide has proven to be invaluable. There is not one location in Rome that I have looked up that I did not find. The who, what, when, where and why of the location is concisely and clearly presented in a very easy reading style. I consider it a must for any student or enthusiast of Ancient Rome.

There is a wealth of fascinating textual information in this book, together with about a hundred illustrations, mostly architectural plans or fragments of the ancient marble plan. The author states that it was a deliberate decision not to include drawings or photographs, since these are available in Nash's Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome -- but that work is very rare and expensive. His decision is understandable, but it is harder to account for the complete absence of maps. A couple of flyleaf maps of the ancient and modern city would have been very helpful in orienting the reader.

A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome was published in 1992 and replaced the 1929 Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome which had become dated (the text of that is in the public domain). The book gives an excellent introduction to all of the monuments in the city of Ancient Rome.It has appropriate diagrams etc and an excellent bibliography. It - along with the Oxford Classical Dictionary - is a must for a library of those interested in Ancient Rome and is suited for both classical students plus interested lay readers.

This is definitely worth the money. It is a very, very detailed work with many references to things I'd never even heard of. I've successfully used it as a reference for several papers, and recommend it to anyone-- especially classicists who're interested in the finer points of Rome's architecture, geography, and history. This is an excellent way to learn more about less common aspects of Rome, as well as the big things like the Pantheon, etc.

All in all, it's an excellent reference and a great read as well-- I highly recommend it.