Editing Roman roads (section)

===Itinerary maps and charts===
[[File:Part of Tabula Peutingeriana.jpg|thumb|right|{{lang|la|[[Tabula Peutingeriana]]}} (Southern Italy centered)]]
Combined topographical and road-maps may have existed as specialty items in some Roman libraries, but they were expensive, hard to copy and not in general use. Travelers wishing to plan a journey could consult an ''[[itinerarium]]'', which in its most basic form was a simple list of cities and towns along a given road and the distances between them.<ref>[[Jaś Elsner]], "The ''Itinerarium Burdigalense'': politics and salvation in the geography of Constantine's Empire", ''[[Journal of Roman Studies]]'', (2000), pp. 181–195, p. 184.</ref> It was only a short step from lists to a master list, or a schematic route-planner in which roads and their branches were represented more or less in parallel, as in the {{lang|la|[[Tabula Peutingeriana]]}}. From this master list, parts could be copied and sold on the streets. 

The most thorough used different symbols for cities, way stations, water courses, and so on. The Roman government from time to time would produce a master road itinerary. The first known were commissioned in 44 BC by [[Julius Caesar]] and [[Mark Antony]]. Three Greek geographers, [[Zenodoxus (geographer)|Zenodoxus]], [[Theodotus (geographer)|Theodotus]] and [[Polyclitus (geographer)|Polyclitus]], were hired to survey the system and compile a master itinerary; the task required over 25 years, and the resulting stone-engraved master itinerary was set up near the [[Pantheon, Rome|Pantheon]]. Travelers and itinerary sellers could make copies from it.