Expositio totius mundi et gentium ("A description of the world and its people") is a brief "commercial-geographical"[1] survey written by an anonymous citizen of the Roman Empire living during the reign of Constantius II.
While he mentions numerous Greek writers (Berossus, Manetho, a mysterious Apollonius, Menander of Ephesus, Herodotus and Thucydides), he shows little sign of any real influence by them,[8] or indeed of any meaningful education,[9] possibly only being aware of them through his familiarity with Against Apion by Josephus,[10] whom he refers to as the "teacher of the Jews".
[13] However, the text shows no interest in the churches or holy sites documented by the later Christian itineraria, and is more likely to note a city's "gripping games, good wines and pretty women", while displaying an "obvious affinity" for pagan cults and rituals.
[14] One of the surviving translations, from which the more well known title of Expositio Totius Mundi & Gentium is derived, is now also lost but was preserved by Jacques Godefroy's 1628 printing of his book "Vetus Orbis Descriptio".
The other, from a manuscript held in a Benedictine monastery in Cava, near Naples, was published in 1831 by Angelo Mai and bears the title Descriptio totius mundi.