Roman Portable Sundials: The Empire in Your Hand

by Richard J.A. Talbert

Book Overview

In an unscientific era when maps were rarities, how did ancient Romans envisage their far flung empire? This was done by various means for certain, including with the aid of an ingenious type of portable sundial that has barely attracted notice. As the Romans understood before the first century BCE, to track the passage of the sun across the sky hour-by-hour one needed to know one's latitude and the time of year, and that, furthermore, sundials did...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0190273488
• ISBN13: 9780190273484
• Release Date: January 2017
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.5" x 9.3"