Cartography as a Mathematics-Based Method of Organizing the World. Reconsidering Some Topics from Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum
Cartography as a Mathematics-Based Method of Organizing the World. Reconsidering Some Topics from Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum

Summary/Abstract: The right angle makes things right. This concept is upheld in many Roman writings, latter collected in what is known now as Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum. Using methods and instruments based on this geometrical fact, the Romans not only built famous aqueducts and roads or surveyed and mapped the land very accurately. They did much more than that. They advocated their world with unquestionable mathematical proofs. Even the Latin word for the right angle, rectus or normalis, means also ’fair’ or ’rule’. Thus, the mathematical order became a powerful tool to legitimize the Roman conquests. For example, taking possession of the land and replacing the irregularly shaped estates with well-defined centuriae was considered to be a matter of instituting an undeniable mathematical order, rather than an act of aggression. This paper is an essay about using the cartography for ideological purposes. It is an analysis of the Roman imperial ideology as it is reflected in the agrimensorial writings of Frontinus and Balbus. Later, fragments from agrimensorial writings were cited in early medieval Christian treatises. Their purpose was also an ideological one, the mathematical reasoning being invoked again, this time to endorse the order and harmony of God.

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