A New Edition of the Marble Plan of Ancient Rome

Abstract

Few monuments of Ancient Rome can command more interest and fascination than the Marble Plan of the city of Rome. Early in the third century this colossal map was put up in panels on the wall of a building in the Forum Pacis at the behest of the Emperor Septimius Severus or his Praefectus Urbi. It is a unique document not only because no other plan of a major Roman city survives, but also because the city which it depicts is Rome, at the height of her development as the capital of the world. Although only a fraction of the Plan has come down to us, these fragments are invaluable for our knowledge of individual buildings as well as of the city as a whole; hence its appeal to students of architecture and urbanistics, of archaeology and history.