Talbert received his education at The King's School, Canterbury and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he gained Double First Class Honours in Classics (1968), followed by a PhD (1972) directed by F.H.
In 1988 Talbert moved to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and accepted a commission from the American Philological Association to produce the first major classical atlas since the 1870s.
[4] A monograph by Talbert (2010), accompanied by extensive web materials, offers fresh thinking about the design and purpose of the Tabula Peutingeriana, the one surviving large Roman map (in a medieval copy).
Worldview is again the focus of his further monograph (2017) on a neglected type of portable sundial, one incorporating a list of cities and regions with their latitude figures (in Greek or Latin).
In addition, he has (co-)edited numerous volumes relating to space, travel, and communication not only in classical antiquity but also in other cultures worldwide at different periods.
For college faculty, Talbert co-directed (with Michael Maas) several National Endowment for the Humanities summer Institutes and Seminars at both UNC Chapel Hill and the American Academy in Rome.
As American Journal of Philology’s associate editor for ancient history, he co-edited two special issues: Classical Courts and Courtiers (2011), and Moses Finley in America (2014).