{"id":8849,"date":"2023-11-15T11:35:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T10:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learnancientrome.com\/?p=8849"},"modified":"2023-11-15T11:35:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T10:35:14","slug":"what-is-the-longitude-of-ancient-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learnancientrome.com\/what-is-the-longitude-of-ancient-rome\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is The Longitude Of Ancient Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ancient Rome was the capital city of the Roman Empire, which ruled throughout the Mediterranean for centuries. It was located on the banks of the Tiber River and was surrounded by seven hills. But where was it? Ancient Rome was located on the same latitude as the city of Rome today, at 41 N 28 E. As one of the most important cities in the ancient world, its longitude is also well known. Roman geographers used the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean as the prime meridian for their maps, and today it is known that ancient Rome’s longitude was at 12 E. <\/p>\n

Ancient Roman cartographers used three main references when mapping. They measured distances in stadia, which corresponds roughly to 185 meters on land and 168 meters on water. They also measured angles in terms of degrees, which had a distance of approximately one Roman mile, which was roughly 1,850 meters. Finally, they measured time in hours and minutes. With these references, the scholars were able to calculate the longitude of Ancient Rome to be 12 E.<\/p>\n

Numerous ancient historians have written about the city of Rome and its longitude. The most important is the geographer Strabo, who wrote in his Geography of 23-19 B.C.: “The Roman people are situated in the same latitude as Athens, lying some twelve degrees east of Greece.” His observations are consistent with modern calculations of the longitude of Rome. Other writers, such as Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder, give similar accounts. <\/p>\n

From the time of Strabo, geographers have tried to provide more accurate maps of the area. In 1553, Gerhard Mercator created the famous Mercator map, which used the same method as Strabo and measured the longitude from a fixed prime meridian, the Mediterranean. The basis for this was the Ancient Greek Eratosthenes in 250 B.C. who proposed the Greenwich Meridian as a way of calculating longitude. In 1815, the world finally accepted the Greenwich Meridian as the international standard. This made the longitude of Ancient Rome to be 12 E.<\/p>\n