Omnes Viae: Digital Route Planner of the Roman Empire

Omnes Viae is a route planner with all main roads and cities of the Roman Empire. It is based on an ancient Roman map of which a copy survived that is now known as the 'Tabula Peutingeriana'. The interface is very similar to that of Google Earth. Omnes Viae is available at http://www.omnesviae.org

Here are some ideas from Latinteach listserv users for how to use this site:

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The way I hope to use Omnes Viae is to help students construct a "frametale" for the Storybook project they do for class. I think some students might be really excited to use a journey frametale to organize their stories, with Omnes Viae giving them some great details about just what a journey would have been like, with the four stories in their Storybook happening in four places along the way to Rome, real actual places where travelers might have stayed. There are always students who want to do Roman topics, and I bet the "GoogleMap" look-and-feel at Omnes Viae will really get their imaginations going.

If I were teaching a Latin class, what I would probably do would be to create a wiki and each student would choose their own town and write about it in Latin, finding pictures and writing captions for the pictures in Latin, etc. Then the class could write a collective story about some traveler, or group of travelers, and each student would be responsible for saying what happened to the traveler(s) while in their town.

Gibbs, L. [Latinteach] omnes viae. Latinteach listserv (latinteach@nxport.com, 25 Jul 2011).

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How about using this site with the Cambridge Unit 3 journey from Fishbourne to Deva?
or the LFA journey in 2nd year book of the 2 boys from Rome to Athens?
Or Aeneas's journey in AP?

A. Lukes. Re: [Latinteach] omnes viae. Latinteach listserv (latinteach@nxport.com, 26 Jul 2011).

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A few more uses:

-Journeys of Jason & the Argonauts, the adventures of Theseus, the travels of Hercules as he performed his labors, Odysseus.

-for Cambridge, the travels of Quintus from Pompeii to Athens to Alexandria to Britain to Rome. There was also mention that Caecilius had properties in Italy that Quintus visited after he left Pompeii. Students could make up a trip to where they think these properties may be.

-for the upcoming Julius Caesar inclusion into the AP syllabus, locations mentioned in the covered excerpts (or even his movements around Gaul & over to Britain)

-for Roman history --any movements of peoples or armies from one location to another ---Hannibal from Carthage to Spain to Italy, Pompey's flight from Italy to Egypt, Attila the Hun's path from the north to Rome, etc.

-for expanding students' horizons--have them plan a trip through Italy or Greece including the historical sites they would want to visit. Encourage them to save their itinerary for the day when they actually travel abroad.

A. Lukes. [Latinteach] More Omnes Viae suggestions. Latinteach listserv (latinteach@nxport.com, 28 Jul 2011).