9,1:1 Stabium

The chart-maker rarely selected such a large number of routes that five of them would converge in a single town, as happens in the manuscript at Tavio. This consideration alone is grounds to be suspicious about the peculiar exit drawn from Tavium towards Amasia.

French 29 notes that the author could not find any traces of such a direct road, and this led the archaeologist to make two conjectures.

 The better of these is that there is an error on the Tabula: the road to Amasia leaves the well-documented Ancyra-Tavium road somewhat to the west of Tavium, perhaps in the area of Alembeyli at a place 24 m.p. from Tavium which is indicated by milestones. This road surface is also well documented by observable traces.

French's inferred fork somewhere near Stabiv is the basis of my emendation. Stabium's precise site cannot be located and no Stabium-Tavium distance is given on the TP, so this emendation is a delicate one lacking final evidence. French's alternative conjecture, setting up a theory of how the TP in this place might be right after all, is difficult to square with the facts and is not a sound fallback.

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