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A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome

book by Samuel Ball Platner

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ1999241 ↗
Source-derived summary

A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome is a reference work written by Samuel Ball Platner (1863–1921).

The first edition was published in 1904; the second edition ('revised and enlarged') was published in 1911 (both: Allyn and Bacon, Boston).

The book was completed by Thomas Ashby after Platner's death and published in 1929 by Oxford University Press. Referred to as 'Platner and Ashby', the volume describes the ancient monuments and buildings in the city of Rome, although by and large only if they belong to the classical period. It covers both remains that are still extant and buildings of which not a trace remained, and collates source documents for each. This volume was, for fifty or sixty years, the standard reference in the field of Roman topography, having superseded Rodolfo Lanciani's Forma Urbis Romae (1893–1901).

Platner and Ashby has since itself been superseded by a reworking, L. Richardson, Jr.'s A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, but mostly by the new standard, a completely new work, Margareta Steinby's Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (six volumes, 1993–2000).

See also

Topography of ancient Rome

List of ancient monuments in Rome

History of Rome

References

External links

A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome at Perseus Project.

A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome at LacusCurtius.

A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, EOS at The University of Chicago Library – The University of Chicago Library.

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“A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome” enters the record as book by Samuel Ball Platner. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Topographical, Dictionary and Ancient can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1863, 1921, 1904, 1911—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Topographical, Dictionary and Ancient.
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“A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Topographical, Dictionary and Ancient provides the most credible route into that argument.

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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1999241. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1863, 1921, 1904 and 1911.

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This entry incorporates text from “A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.