If you’ve ever spent even a minute studying ancient history, you’ve likely spent the same amount of time looking at maps, trying to visualize trading routes, borders, or how cities were positioned. Since 2000, the award-winning Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World from the Princeton University Press has been one of the favorite map resources of professional and hobby historians.
Its gorgeous maps have helped explained history to many by re-imagining the modern world in an ancient landscape. But if you’ve wanted to peruse the maps found in this atlas, you had to have some deep pockets. The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World sells for a price as hefty as its bound collection of maps, $395.That’s a pricey book, but, thankfully, there’s an alternative. The Princeton University Press has turned the atlas into an equally comprehensive iPad app that is just $19.99.
The app has 102 interactive color maps and looks at the ancient world from what is now modern Britain to the Indian subcontinent and the time period between archaic Greece to the late Roman Empire. The maps have been optimized for the Retina display and crisply pop off the screen with great detail.
In addition to the maps, the app has an interactive gazetteer, which allows you to quickly locate more than 20,000 locations. Overlays of modern borders help bring the ancient world to life and it’s fun to look at the maps and imagine Hannibal’s trek across the Alps, the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, or the Visigoths push to Rome. An invaluable resource has been digitized and made available to us all for a fraction of its original price. Vivat, Magna Vitae!
Disclosure: GeekDad was sent a sample of this product.
Over at http://www.runningreality.org we’re showing changing national borders, city growth, battles, armies, ships, battles, etc over time from 3000BC to today — literally any day in history. We’re a small project team, but as we get data filled in it shows the growth and evolution of human civilization. We can’t match the Barrington Atlas for detail in the late Roman Empire, but we have the whole evolution of Rome plus China, the Arab world, native American peoples, etc.