How would ancient greece react to an accurate map of the world?

[kclcmdr]

How would ancient greece react to an accurate map of the world?

As posted by a poster at SB.com

Let's say Archimedes wakes up one morning to find a fun size inflatable globe (10ft diameter) from the modern world by his bedside, unlabeled but accurate. How would he/Greece at large react and what would they do next?

What if Archimedes was indeed gifted with this wondrous Global Sphere Map of the World..


What if ...


A Roman Legionnaire in search of Loot, finds the home of Archimedes and not knowing whom he is ...

The Roman Soldier watches the famed Archimedes drawing circles on the ground while studying the strange globe and notices that he sees the land mass that he vaguely recognizes as Sicily and the land mass of Italia that Archimedes was tracing with his other hand's finger..

intrigued... instead of demanding where he had his his treasures and coins and causing the OTL Archimedes to probably cause his own demised...

The Roman Legionnaire looks for his Centurion and reports a strange man mapping circles on the ground and touching a huge globe that has the map of Sicilia and Italia..

The Centurion, aware of the orders from Legatus Marcellus that Archimedes is to be spared and sent forward to him..
He praises the Legionnaire in finding the man and orders him to stand guard near his home so that he can informed the Tribune to inform the Legatus that they have found the man that had held Rome away from conquering the City State of Syracuse for so long..

The Roman Legatus Marcellus and his bodyguards and Entourage enters the estate of Archimedes and the Legate sees the Globe that has the map of the Mediterranean Sea and all of the surrounding lands that Roma Dea was aware of near the shores...

With this great find... he lay hold to Archimedes and all of his property to be shipped to Rome intact and alive while he promotes the Roman Legionnaire that had found and spare him with a promotion to Optio as the second in command of his Centurion's Cohort...

Legatus Marcellus orders his scribes to map the lands and Oceanus upon that Global Sphere upon papyrus and parchment and he inquires with Archimedes how he came about this wondrous gift from the gods......



====


What would happen next now that Archimedes is still alive, his inventions and equations are still around for him to explain to those whom want to here and listen and now they have a possibly accurate portrayal of a Global Sphere Map of the Mediterranean Sea and all the landmasses and beyond....

 

[Tallest Skil]

Let's say Archimedes wakes up one morning to find a fun size inflatable globe (10ft diameter) from the modern world by his bedside, unlabeled but accurate. How would he/Greece at large react and what would they do next?

BEACH PARTY WOO!

And so Archimedes and Jimmy Buffet assembled the largest boat to boat party in history.

Anyway, it should be obvious; the Romans use it to make far more accurate maps than they could otherwise and it's used to plan further conquests. Can you say, "All of Europe"?

 

[Sian]

shouldn't this be tossed in ASB?

That said ... i doubt the relative size of the thing and the location from the equator is going to the any kind of a surprise, given that Greek scientist/philosophers already had gotten very close to guestimating the size of the earth.

 

[Qaa]

¡HI! ¡COOL! ¡INTERESTING!:eek

I like this idea. (But yeah, it should go in ASB)
With proper cartography the Romans will get a nice boost to trade, military undertakings and geography. I notice the map is topographic rather than true colour; when the romans figure that out it will help them understand ocean currents, an essential to an early arrival in America.
Didn't a roman attempt to circumnavigate Africa, eventually reaching Senegal?

 

[Just a Rube]

Going the other way: do the Greeks know it's a map of the world at first? Are they told, or do they just have to figure it out? I'm honestly unsure how easy the Greeks would be able to identify it; they obviously had decent geographers, but their knowledge of anything outside the Mediterranean world is somewhat sketchy, and even within it maps are tricky. Since that's a small portion of the globe, they might take a while to identify it. If the poor sod woke up staring at the Americas, he'd have no way of knowing what it was at first.

I'm mainly just having an image of someone poking it with a sword, poking a hole in it, and then having people cut it up for the strange material it's made of before anyone can piece it together.

 

[vultan]

Going the other way: do the Greeks know it's a map of the world at first? Are they told, or do they just have to figure it out? I'm honestly unsure how easy the Greeks would be able to identify it; they obviously had decent geographers, but their knowledge of anything outside the Mediterranean world is somewhat sketchy, and even within it maps are tricky. Since that's a small portion of the globe, they might take a while to identify it. If the poor sod woke up staring at the Americas, he'd have no way of knowing what it was at first.

I'm mainly just having an image of someone poking it with a sword, poking a hole in it, and then having people cut it up for the strange material it's made of before anyone can piece it together.

The OP mentions that it's given to Archimedes. I think he should be able to ascertain fairly quickly what he's dealing with.

 

[Elfwine]

The OP mentions that it's given to Archimedes. I think he should be able to ascertain fairly quickly what he's dealing with.

The trouble is convincing him that its accurate and of his world.

There is absolutely no reason for him to believe that it MUST be "an accurate map of the world" - and without knowledge beyond what the ancient Greeks had of the world outside the Mediterranean, there's no way to check this against what he knows.

And after that's taken care of, one way or another:

What about the Romans? Why are they going to believe it? Especially Lootin' Legionary, who probably wouldn't recognize the shape of Sicily - how much did the average Roman soldier actually know of geography? This isn't something that's quite as commonplace back then as it is now, when we have maps of the world everywhere you could reasonably expect and some places you couldn't.

I think it'd be regarded as a remarkable curiosity, but beyond that is more problematic.

 

[kclcmdr]

shouldn't this be tossed in ASB?

I like this idea. (But yeah, it should go in ASB)
With proper cartography the Romans will get a nice boost to trade, military undertakings and geography. I notice the map is topographic rather than true colour; when the romans figure that out it will help them understand ocean currents, an essential to an early arrival in America.

I wasn't too sure that this would be consider part of ASB..

If it does qualify as an ASB... can one of the MODs please punt this over, please... thank you..

As for noticing the topographical map...

As I had stated in SB.com...

With the Globe that Archimedes was 'gifted' with ...
then the Roman Republic can get their best Generals and acknowledgeable laymen to study the 'terrain' being shown on the Global Sphere and match them to known mountain ranges, rivers, valleys, etc...

and with Archimedes himself there to give good advice and comprehension of what the Global Map is showing...

The Roman Republic will undoubtedly gain an edge in knowing what the lay of terrain ahead of their merchants and Legions will be or at least a better chance of what is reachable in the near term....

 

[iori]

Didn't a roman attempt to circumnavigate Africa, eventually reaching Senegal?

I believe that was Carthage.

 

[mowque]

An educated man with an interest in geography would know it is a map. Greece and the islands are too distinctive to be missed. But the issue is, as mentioned above, they have no idea it is accurate. And it is a huge undertaking to really test it.

 

[Derek Pullem]

....and without a puncture repair kit the clock is ticking.........

 

[Mixxer5]

An educated man with an interest in geography would know it is a map. Greece and the islands are too distinctive to be missed. But the issue is, as mentioned above, they have no idea it is accurate. And it is a huge undertaking to really test it.

But what's the reason to actually doubt it? I mean- sure, they (Romans? Greeks?) can fear that's a lie created by their enemies to thwart their expansion. But it's not that hard to verify this data- to check if it's accurate in their immediate area. Because Romans had contact with China (although probably a bit later), they could compare their data with Asia. And western continents? What's sending few expeditions for huge, sprawling Roman empire, when they potentially can discover new lands?

 

[Just a Rube]

It's also worth noting that a modern map will look significantly different in places than the Roman World. For example, the Netherlands has reclaimed a lot of land since Hellenistic times; even a medieval map of the Netherlands looks very different from today. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

 

[iori]

It's also worth noting that a modern map will look significantly different in places than the Roman World. For example, the Netherlands has reclaimed a lot of land since Hellenistic times; even a medieval map of the Netherlands looks very different from today. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

In some places, but not that many, in fact their would be very few major differenes in geography, and at some point in the past the Netherlands was actually slightly larger, the shrinking down to what it was before the land reclemation actually happened within the last 2-2,500 years.

The only other differences in Europe I can think of are the reservoirs in Ukraine (which could be seen by the Romans as representations of the marshes) and Russia shown on the map that would'nt exist and the fact that the North Jutlandic Island would've been connected by a small bit of land to the overall peninsula.