A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome

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A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome is a work by Samuel Ball Platner, completed by Thomas Ashby after Platner's death, published in 1929, that describes monuments and buildings in the city of Rome, although by and large only if they belong to the classical period. It covers both remains that are still extant and buildings of which not a trace subsists, and collates source documents for each. For fifty or sixty years the standard reference in the field of Roman topography, in which rôle it superseded Rodolfo Lanciani's Forma Urbis, it has since itself been superseded by a reworking, L. Richardson, Jr.'s A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, but mostly by the new standard, a completely new work, Eva Margareta Steinby's Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae.

[edit] External links

Three versions of the work may be found online, each with its strengths and weaknesses:

  • University of Chicago: complete — but page images, not searchable.
  • LacusCurtius: searchable text fully cross-linked, with the sources linked, and errata folded in — but still incomplete.
  • Perseus Project: searchable text — but few links, and errata uncorrected.