Maps¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter presents a series of six cartographic plates designed to orient the reader to the geographical and territorial evolution of Rome, from its mythical foundations to the peak of its imperial reach. The maps function as a visual backbone for the accompanying historical narrative, tracing the spatial logic of Roman power across successive epochs.
The first map, "Rome under the kings," reconstructs the earliest urban nucleus. It delineates "Square Rome" (Roma Quadrata), the city of Romulus, alongside the Comitium and the Sabine City, before overlaying the later Servian Wall. This cartography anchors the narrative in the contested, semi-legendary origins of the city, showing a settlement confined to the Palatine and its immediate environs. The second plate, "City of Rome during the reign of Augustus," provides a stark contrast: the same site has swollen into a monumental imperial capital. The map, sourced from the Swanston Map Archive, charts the dense urban fabric, public buildings, and infrastructure of the Augustan city, illustrating the physical culmination of centuries of conquest and patronage.
The subsequent maps shift scale from the urban to the regional and then the imperial. "Italy" charts the peninsula’s cities and rivers that appear in the text, establishing the domestic theatre of Rome’s early wars and alliances. "Italian expansion" then visualises the process by which Rome subjugated the Italian peninsula, transforming from a single city-state into the hegemon of a confederated Italy. The final two plates, "The Mediterranean" and "Mediterranean expansion," complete the trajectory. They depict the inland sea not as a barrier but as a Roman lake, with the latter map tracing the outward thrust of legions and colonies that encircled the Mediterranean basin. The sequence of maps thus embodies a core argument: Roman history is fundamentally a story of spatial conquest and territorial consolidation, from a hilltop village to a world empire. The maps are not decorative; they are evidence of the material expansion that Marxist analysis would root in class struggle, the demands of the slave economy, and the competitive logic of the Roman ruling class. The chapter implicitly argues against any idealist or purely cultural explanation of Rome’s rise, insisting instead on the primacy of territorial control and the violent expropriation of land and labour.