La geografia augustea negli scritti di Roberto Almagià. Riflessioni e analisi sull'attualità dei suoi studi

THE AUGUSTAN GEOGRAPHY IN THE WRITINGS OF ROBERTO ALMAGIÀ.REFLECTIONS AND ANALYSIS ON THE ACTUALITY OF HIS STUDIES. – On the occa sion of the two thousandth anniversary of the birth of Octavian Augustus (1937),Roberto Almagià held at the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani, the conference TheGeographical Horizon in the Era of Augustus and Geographical Studies in Rome. Thescholar spoke about the difference between the Greek geography and the Roman geog raphy. The Greek geographical culture was born from a theoretical speculation, insteadthe Roman culture was a practical geography, obtained through the conquest of theRoman legions. The establishment of the principate, which effectively took place in 27B.C., had important results for literary and scientific output. Political developmentsunder Augustus favored the compilation of a map. The man to whom this task wasallotted was M. Vipsanius Agrippa and after the establishment of the principate hebecame Augustus’s right-hand man. The world map of Agrippa was set up in the colon nade named after him, Porticus Vipsania, in what is now the Via del Corso area ofRome. Agrippa’s world map represented new work of a practical Roman type, whichmust often have been based on data from the extensive network of Roman roads.