Countdown to Open Beta - Tabula Orbis Terrae

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 07-11-2005, 14:18

Originally Posted by Berserker!

awesome stuff, but one thing. the baktrian capital ( by the looks of it ) is spelled wrong. you need a "i" in the middle of "r" and "a" .

The transliteration of the greek word would be Baktra. This is the capital we are talking about, not the satrapy/province/kingdom, which is still Baktria. But Baktra was the city itself, and it doesn't have an iota. Check a little more out on it here:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin...ut=&loc=bactra

You can see the word in parentheses after the initial (Latin) "Bactra" is "ta Baktra" which is the greek. It's a great website by the way! Hope this helps; I honestly am thrilled that there is a difference between the two - it has made referring to them a little easier than having both be the exact same.

**The Stranger** · 07-11-2005, 14:51

no need for me to check.

**Freeze** · 07-11-2005, 15:47

I agree with Superbus on the names, it is Mare Nostrum just like it is Pontus Euxinus. This is how I've always seen it in my 5 years of Latin. Next year will be my 6th year I do Latin so i'm pretty sure Superbus has a point.

**KingOfTheIsles** · 07-11-2005, 16:19

Wasn't the term "Mare mediterraneum" first coined by Saint Isidore of Seville in the 7th century, in any case? I've seen it referred to as mare mediterraneum more often than mediterraneum mare, but it seems somehow inappropriate to use this term in any case. Still, it's up to the team to decide on the correct terminology used.

**eadingas** · 07-11-2005, 16:21

It doesn't really matter anyway, you know, the names of seas don't appear in the game anywhere

**Moros** · 07-11-2005, 17:06

Originally Posted by eadingas

It doesn't really matter anyway, you know, the names of seas don't appear in the game anywhere

wasn't it your signature who said realism in everything

?

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 07-11-2005, 18:31

Anyone pay attention to the references I cited above?

I guess complaining about it without actually doing the research is ok, but when the research is presented and then things like "well, I think it's wrong maybe" or something like that are still being stated, it is frustrating.

I pick up a copy of the Oxford Latin Dictionary and see examples of both Sinus Persicus and Rubrum Mare, of Persicum Aruspicium and Sinum Persicum, of Persico Maro and Persica Braca all next to each other in the same entry. There are some rules guiding latin adjective/noun word order, but they are often broken for various reasons (which occasionaly are not even understood, but which sometimes are), and so if you want to complain that Juvenal and Catullus and Ovid and Horace and Pliny and Curtius are wrong, and that the BA researchers don't know what they were doing (when they cite all that they do and took a decade to make it), then you better have some good arguments. Is Sinus Persicus right? Absolutely. Is Persicus Sinus right? Absolutely. Am I perfectly content to use the names the Barrington Atlas uses, given the extensive references they provide and the highest level of quality and competency the scholar who have put it together have shown? Yes, of course.

What did the Romans call the Caspian Sea in 272BC? I have no idea if they even had a name for it then. Did they call it the Mediterraneum Mare in 272? The answer is definitely no. It isn't used till the seventh or eighth century AD as far as I've seen, but then we don't have extant maps from until something like the 12th century anyway and they certainly wouldn't have had anything like we're looking at here, so arguments about some of the niceties of this map (e.g., the latin version of names of seas) and a hardcore attitude about realism should dictate that we have no map at all, and if we do, they would dictate that we form it to fit 272bc pereceptions of geography, in which case it's some round image with regions heavily distorted from what we know them as today - and thus we get back to the 'why even have it' idea. gah.

A little inquiry about a "cartographic bonus" is totally fine, and I was happy to answer the first question on this particular topic, but I'm more than a little tired of all the subsequent bickering about the names of the bodies of water, especially when none of the arguments has shown that any of the names were wrong in the first place, just that other versions would also be acceptable (with which argument I totally agree). Especially considering that no one else has taken the time to look up the variances or at the B.A. reference entries or the O.L.D. or any of the other stuff that I did in an attempt to explain it.

I guess I should have just posted this instead: