Richard John Alexander Talbert (born 1947) is a contemporary British-American ancient historian and classicist on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

, where he is William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of Ancient History and Classics. Talbert is a leading scholar of ancient geography and the idea of space in the ancient Mediterranean world. Connected to this spatial research is a major project on the Tabula Peutingeriana

Tabula Peutingeriana

The Tabula Peutingeriana is an itinerarium showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire. The original map of which this is a unique copy was last revised in the fourth or early fifth century. It covers Europe, parts of Asia and North Africa...

(Peutinger table), a copy of an ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 map preserved in a Medieval version.

Talbert received his education at The King's School Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

 and Corpus Christi College

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...

, Cambridge University

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, where he gained Double First Class Honours in Classics (1968), followed by a Ph. D. (1972). Cambridge granted him a Litt. D. in 2003. He is also a Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute. Talbert has been on the faculties of the Queen's University

Queen's University

Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...

, Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

 and McMaster University

McMaster University

McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...

 in Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He was Herodotus Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

, Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

 (1978-79). His study The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton University Press

Princeton University Press

-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...

, 1984) won the American Philological Association

American Philological Association

The American Philological Association , founded in 1869, is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization...

's Goodwin Award of Merit in 1985.

For 2000-01 Talbert was awarded a J.S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, an American Council of Learned Societies

American Council of Learned Societies

The American Council of Learned Societies , founded in 1919, is a private nonprofit federation of seventy scholarly organizations.ACLS is best known as a funder of humanities research through fellowships and grants awards. ACLS Fellowships are designed to permit scholars holding the Ph.D...

 Senior Fellowship, and the inaugural Robert F. and Margaret S. Goheen Fellowship at the National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center

The National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. It is the only major independent institute for advanced study in all fields of the humanities in the United States. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any...

 in North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

. Among his scholarly work is the compilation of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is a large-format English language atlas of ancient Europe, Asia, and North Africa, edited by Richard Talbert. The time period depicted is roughly from archaic Greek civilization through Late Antiquity . The atlas was published by Princeton...

(Princeton, 2000), which won the 2000 Association of American Publishers Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Multivolume Reference Work in the Humanities.

Publications

• Timoleon and the Revival of Greek Sicily (Cambridge, 1974).
• The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton U.P., 1984).
• Atlas of Classical History (Routledge, 1985).
• "Carl Muller (1813-1894), S. Jacobs, and the Making of Classical Maps in Paris for John Murray." Imago Mundi 46 (1994) 128-150.
• ed. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton, 2000).
• ed. with Kai Brodersen Space in the Roman World, its Perception and Presentation (LIT, Munster, 2004).
• trans. Plutarch on Sparta new ed. (2005).
• with M.T. Boatwright and D. Gargola The Romans: From Village to Empire (Oxford, 2004). A Brief History of the Romans, (2006).
• Rome's World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered (Cambridge, 2010). (ISBN-13: 9780521764803).

External links

• Ancient World Mapping Center
• Faculty profile