My favorite scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian asks what have the Romans ever done for us? "Well, obviously, the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they?" And to improve the utility of the roads, the Romans also gave us the itinerarium, arguably the first step in the evolution of the addressing system we all use today. The itinerarium was a list of villages, towns, cities, and mail stations of the Roman Empire, together with the distances between them. Travelers would use it much like our turn-by-turn navigation today. They knew to anticipate the next town or village along the road and how far away it was.
Interestingly, they didn't use maps at this time as a matter of sheer pragmatism –it was easier and cheaper to write a list of place names in order as they appeared on the road than to copy a map. Out of this first innovation that led us to the current addressing systems, we get the words itinerary to mean a detailed plan or schedule for a journey and itinerant to describe a person who travels from place to place, especially for work.
#AWM #History #Addressing
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Mike Ashmore
Senior Director Product Management
Precisely Software Inc.
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