A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind: Visualising Geographical Knowledge in the Roman World

This study considers the relationship between geography and power in the Roman world, most particularly the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products: geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs.

A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind considers the relationship between geography and power in the ancient Roman world, and most particularly the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products, including geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs. As Rome broke its political bounds and headed towards empire the whole city became the centre and the Roman worldview changed with it. The Roman state then needed to present to the Roman people an easily digestible narrative about its imperial ambition and imperial possessions, in a way that went beyond the fact that servitude, enslavement, and misery for many underpinned this expansion. There needed to be a publicly guided discourse centred around the smoothing out of difference, rather than its obliteration or elimination, and the presentation of many different life worlds in a familiar way using geographical information. This marked a way of directing how change could be managed and of reimagining how the world might be and might work at the intersection between selection, knowledge, and insight. Reflection and communication sought to create a communal sense of belonging. If not actually doors, these geographical images were at least windows onto self-identity and otherness, letting light in on a sombre struggle against accidie.

Preface

Chapter One: Maps of the Mind

Chapter Two: Strangers in a Strange Land

Chapter Three: Rome in Rome

Chapter Four: A River Without End

Chapter Five: Staged Designs

Chapter Six: Landscape and Desire

Chapter Seven: An Unseen Ruler

Chapter Eight: Maps of the Body

Chapter Nine: Moving Away from the Pulsebeat

Chapter Ten: Slouching Towards Empire

Notes

Bibliography

Appendix

Index

Iain Ferris is an independent academic researcher and a former field archaeologist who has published three archaeological excavation monographs and ten books, the most recent of which Visions of the Roman North: Art and Identity in Northern Roman Britain was published by Archaeopress in 2021.

• By (author) Iain Ferris

"'Iain Ferris presents his readers with a beautiful, rich and stimulating book that offers essential answers to the questions of how the Romans thought about the(ir) world and how this impacted their identities in time. While reading, one has the impression of engaging with an academic periplus, as it were, whereby different shores introduce fresh perspectives on former strategies for visualising geographical information in the Roman world.' - Nikolas Hachler (2025): Journal of Roman Studies'A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind is a study about the relationship between geography and power in the ancient Roman world, and most particularly about the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products, including geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs.' - Epistula XXVII (2024)'This is a work that goes beyond the geographical. Although the author deals with geography and cartography, the work mainly analyzes the geographical information transmitted by all kinds of artistic material, mainly from the imperial period and located in Rome itself. The geography in most of the examples compiled has an intention that is more evocative than descriptive, transmits real landscapes, but above all awakens the imagination, suggests connections, frightens, baffles or even reassures. ... This approach goes far beyond the traditional perspective of ancient geography, which tends to focus on literary sources of a historiographical or geographical nature from an ecumenical point of view. ... In short, the idea a priori is very suggestive and worth developing.' - Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti (2025): B
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‘A Map of the Body, a Map of the Mind is a study about the relationship between geography and power in the ancient Roman world, and most particularly about the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products, including geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs.’ – Epistula XXVII (2024)

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‘This is a work that goes beyond the geographical. Although the author deals with geography and cartography, the work mainly analyzes the geographical information transmitted by all kinds of artistic material, mainly from the imperial period and located in Rome itself. The geography in most of the examples compiled has an intention that is more evocative than descriptive, transmits real landscapes, but above all awakens the imagination, suggests connections, frightens, baffles or even reassures. … This approach goes far beyond the traditional perspective of ancient geography, which tends to focus on literary sources of a historiographical or geographical nature from an ecumenical point of view. … In short, the idea a priori is very suggestive and worth developing.’ - Gonzalo Cruz Andreotti (2025): Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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'Iain Ferris presents his readers with a beautiful, rich and stimulating book that offers essential answers to the questions of how the Romans thought about the(ir) world and how this impacted their identities in time. While reading, one has the impression of engaging with an academic periplus, as it were, whereby different shores introduce fresh perspectives on former strategies for visualising geographical information in the Roman world.' – Nikolas Hächler (2025): Journal of Roman Studies

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‘There is certainly food for thought in what F. has put together, … readers will take something away from the book, which certainly offers much to think about.’ – Colin Adams (2025): The Classical Review

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