Ancient Roman Roads: Construction, Routes and the Military | Early European History And Religion

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ROADS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

road building in the Roman Empire

The Romans built over 85,000 kilometers (53,000 miles) of stone-paved roads, stretching from Scotland to East Europe to Mesopotamia in present-day Iraq to North Africa. It was the greatest system of highways that the world has ever seen until recent times. Roman roads were built primarily to facilitate the movement of troops and supplies. Roman legionnaires would not have been nearly as effective in their conquests if getting them supplies was difficult. The system was so well set up that commanders could accurately calculate how long it would take to get their armies from one place to another: from Cologne to Rome was 67 days, Rome to Brindisis, 57 days, and Rome to Syria (including two days at sea), 124 days. [Source: "History of Warfare" by John Keegan, Vintage Books]

Roman roads were one of the main factors that allowed the ancient Romans to build, maintain and defend such a massive empire. These roads were so well designed and well constructed that some are still in use today. The saying "All roads lead to Rome" may not have been totally 100 percent accurate but it wasn’t that far removed from reality. [Source: P. Andrew Karam, Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery, Encyclopedia.com]

The engineering skill of the Romans and the lavish outlay of money made their roads can not be overstated. They were mainly military works, built for strategic purposes, intended to facilitate the dispatching of supplies to the frontier and the massing of troops in the shortest possible time. Roads were also used for commercial purposes,but this was not as common as you might think as boats better served the needs of the Roman economy.

After the first important acquisition of territory in Italy the Romans built the Via Appia (Appian Way) in 334 B.C. As they expanded the Republic and the Empire, they built roads to keep pace. Jesús Rodríguez Morales wrote in National Geographic History: Rome’s earliest roads were built to connect the city on the Tiber with other cities on the Italian Peninsula. As Rome’s influence grew, their system of roads expanded too. They became arteries connecting new territories and their peoples to Roman civilization and eventually the Roman Empire. Some 30 roads from all points of Italy connected with Rome, many bearing the names of their builders, such as the Appian Way named for Appius Claudius, or the names of their destinations, such as the Ardeatina Way that led to Ardea, about 24 miles from Rome. [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

Roads were Rome’s “DNA” from the very beginning. Begun in 451 B.C. and finished a year later, the Lex XII Tabularum, or Law of the Twelve Tables, was the earliest set of written policies. Inscribed on 12 bronze tables, they spelled out procedures for trials, property ownership, crime and punishment, and civil rights. They also included rules for the road, setting a standard width of eight Roman feet for straight roads and 16 for curved ones (one Roman foot is slightly longer than a foot in the modern Imperial system).

Major Roman Roads

Roman roads radiated out from a golden milestone in the Forum in Rome. The first road, the Appian Way (Via Appian), was built from Rome to Capua in 312 B.C. to connect Rome with its colonies on the Adriatic. Other roads crossed the Alps, linked Europe to Asia and traversed sections of the Sahara. Major routes were linked to ports. In A.D. 21, under the orders of Augustus, a map of the world based on the empire's road system was produced and displayed near the Forum in Rome. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]

Roman road in Liya

At the peak of Rome's development, 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometers (250,000 miles) of roads, of which over 80,500 kilometers (50,000 miles) were stone-paved. The construction of these roads was a great advantage for communications. A courier on horseback on a Roman road could travel at speeds of up to 121 kilometers (75 miles) a day. [Source Wikipedia]

The Via Augusta in Spain was named after the Emperor Augustus and goes from from Cádiz in Andalusia north through the modern-day Coll de Panissars in Catalonia to the Pyrenees. There it joins the Via Domitia, and goes on to Rome, where all roads meet. [Source ByNational Geographic Staff, April 3, 2019

The Via Egnatia goes from Albania to Turkey. According to National Geographic: The Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Crusaders, Venetians, Ottomans, and Austrians have all used this astonishing road across the mountains of the Balkan peninsula. Roman proconsul Gnaeus Egnatius built it in the first century B.C. to link the Adriatic with the Aegean Sea and the Bosporus.

The route the German Blitzkrieg used to move into France in 1940 through the Ardennes forests and over the River Meuse more or less followed Route Nationale 43 , which in turn followed the old Roman road laid out not long after Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century B.C.The Romans didn't make the first paved roads. The Assyrians built the first aqueducts and paved roads. [Source: "History of Warfare" by John Keegan, Vintage Books]

History of Roman Roads

P. Andrew Karam wrote: Roads have existed in some form for nearly 4,000 years. They were mostly used for trade and, in general, were no more than frequently followed paths with some sort of improvements at river crossings, swamps, and other difficult stretches. In some cases, branches and logs were laid on the ground to ease walking or horse-riding, but little more than this was standard. Different cultures made their own unique contributions to road building: the Egyptians were master surveyors, the Greeks excelled at masonry, the Etruscans developed cement-making and paving, and the Cretans were also skilled at paving. [Source: P. Andrew Karam, Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery (2000), Encyclopedia.com]

The Roman contribution was twofold: they first built drainage ditches alongside their early roads to help maintain them in passable condition in any weather conditions, and they recognized the advances of others. This second contribution was the most important; the Romans were not above borrowing technology from others, and they were the first to incorporate all the technological innovations noted above into a single network of roads. By doing so, and adding their own innovations as time went on, the Romans were able to construct a system of roads that remained unequalled for centuries.

After the Appian Way was built around 334 B.C., Roman roads were built to all corners of their empire. Twenty-nine of these roads were military roads, designed to rapidly convey the Roman legions to the frontier for offense or defense. Perhaps the chief innovation, however, lay in the roads' design, in particular the military roads. Made to last for centuries, the roads were usually wide, well drained, and built of several layers of rock, gravel, and concrete. In fact, not only did the roads allow travel at up to 75 miles (121 kilometers) per day, but they lasted for over a millennium and served as Europe's roads during the Renaissance.

Who Built Roman Roads

Ancient scholars of the Roman Republic have left detailed accounts of how roads were built, including contracts and construction order. Roman historian Livy described how second-century B.C. censors Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and Lucius Postumius Albinus “were the first to award contracts to pave roads in the city with stone, with gravel on the sides, and to build curbs as well as bridges in many places.” [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

Jesús Rodríguez Morales wrote in National Geographic History: First-century A.D. Greek biographer Plutarch’s biography of Gaius Gracchus, one of the Roman Republic’s most significant politicians, offers rich insights into roadbuilding. A plebeian tribune in the second century B.C., Gracchus made road-building his main focus, joining utility and beauty in roads that traversed the land in a straight line, without turns or detours, and foundations made of cut stone, reinforced with layers of sand or compacted gravel. The depressions were filled and bridges were built over the rivers and streams, the two sides at the same height and always parallel, so that the entire work had a uniform and beautiful appearance. In addition, he measured the entire road and at the end of each mile, or roughly 5,000 feet, he put a stone column that served as a signal to the travelers.

During the republic, road construction was the responsibility of the censors (so-called because they maintained a census of Roman citizens). In the event of urgently needed road repairs, a curator could be appointed to supervise the work; in 67 B.C., for example, Julius Caesar was curator of the Appian Way. After his victory over Mark Antony in 31 B.C., Emperor Augustus took charge of repairing all the damage that a century of civil wars had caused roadways. After becoming superintendent of roads and in 20 B.C., Augustus appointed magistrates (the curatores viarum) to supervise the roads, with the responsibility of awarding contracts and overseeing construction and maintenance work. The budget to carry out these works came from taxes, tolls, and private or imperial patronage, as was the case with the Via Traiana, financed by the emperor Trajan, which replaced the Appian Way as the main road between Benevento and Brindisi. The cities through which a road passed also had the obligation to contribute to its maintenance.

Historians of Roman roads rely on “itineraries,” Roman documents that catalog the layout of the Roman roads, with the names of towns, lodgings,and distances between them. The main one is the Antonine Itinerary, perhaps from the time of Diocletian (r. A.D. 284-305), which includes a “road map” of Roman Britain. Another key source is the Peutinger Table, a medieval copy of a Roman road map in 12 sections, one of which is missing.

What Roman Roads Were Like

Roads ran in lines as straight as possible between the towns they were to connect, with frequent crossroads and branch roads only less carefully constructed. The grade was always easy, because hills were cut through, gorges and rivers were crossed on arches of solid stone, and valleys and marshes were spanned by viaducts of the same material. |+|

P. Andrew Karam wrote: The typical Roman road was flanked by drainage ditches that helped to keep it dry during heavy rains or during the Spring snowmelt. Soil taken from the ditches was used to elevate the roadbed at least three feet above the surrounding terrain, further helping to keep the road dry. On top of that were spread layers of gravel, sand, concrete, and paving stones. The entire road might be as much as 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) thick. All of this made the roads smooth, dry, and exceptionally durable. These roads might be as wide as 15 feet (4.6 meter), allowing two-way horse and chariot traffic, and they would be heavily crowned (i.e., raised in the center to let rain drain to the side). On the sides were curbs up to 2 feet (0.6 meters) wide, and auxiliary side lanes up to 7 feet (2.1 meters) wide on either side of the road. The total width might be as much as 35 feet (10.7 meters) across on a fully developed, heavily traveled road. The roads also usually ran straight across swamps, plains, lakes, ravines, and (as much as possible) mountains. [Source: P. Andrew Karam, Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery (2000), Encyclopedia.com]

Milestones showed the distance from the starting-point of the road and often that to important places in the opposite direction, as well as the names of the consuls or emperors under whom the roads were built or repaired. The roadbed was wide enough to permit the meeting and passing, without trouble, of the largest wagons. For the pedestrian there was a footpath on either side, sometimes paved, and seats for him to rest upon were often built by the milestones. The horseman found blocks of stone set here and there for his convenience in mounting and dismounting. Where springs were discovered, wayside fountains for men and watering-troughs for cattle were constructed. Such roads often went a hundred years without repairs, and some portions of them have endured the traffic of centuries and are still in good condition today.

Adam Hart-Davis wrote for the BBC: “ I had always been told that Roman roads are straight, but I really had this rubbed in on the A68 north of Corbridge, where the road goes in a dead straight line for miles over the rolling hills. In fact it's rather dangerous for driving; because it is so straight you are tempted to drive fast. Nothing in the Roman world did more than say 20 m.p.h. (a galloping horse) and they built their roads up and down steep hills - sometimes as much as 1 in 6. The result is that not only are there some fierce hills to climb, but often there are blind summits, where you can't see oncoming traffic even 50 yards away. So if you drive too fast and try to overtake you are liable to meet someone else coming the other way. [Source: Adam Hart-Davis, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]

network of main Roman roads in the time of Hadrian (ruled 117–138)

Road Construction in the Roman Empire

Roman all-weather roads were built with a great degree of sophistication. There were three levels of substructure under the roads, which bulged slightly at the center to allow rainwater to run off them. On steep hills grooves were notched in the road so that people and horses could descend without slipping.In Italy roads were built at the cost of the State; in the provinces the conquered communities bore the expense of construction and maintenance, but the work was done under the direction of Roman engineers, and often by the legions between campaigns.

According to National Geographic: The different phases of building a road involved different kinds of labor. In the first stage, the terrain would be cleared. Engineers, using the groma (a Roman surveying tool), would determine the layout and mark the path of the road, keeping to a straight line wherever possible. Workers would dig down until firm ground was reached, and then the pit would be filled with medium-size boulders that would form a solid foundation. A layer of sand or gravel would be deposited on top to create a smoother surface for vehicles, pedestrians, and animals. Roads would only be covered with paving stones in exceptional cases, either because they passed through urban areas or because they traversed unstable terrain, which required an especially solid foundation and an upper layer with curbs. [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

To complete the work, cylindrical stone posts were placed at intervals of one Roman mile (measured by a thousand steps, or the milia passum). These milestones, which could stand over eight-feet high, marked the distances and gave credit to the person who sponsored the road’s construction.

Today it can sometimes be difficult to identify an ancient road as Roman; because their building techniques were so successful, they were adopted again in the 18th century. In Roman times soldiers, farmers, and traders often wore shoes called caligae, which had studs on the bottom to protect their leather soles. Often these studs would fall off and get stuck in the road, leaving behind a valuable clue for future archaeologists to help prove a site’s Roman origins.

Layers of a Roman Road

layers of a Roman road

Our knowledge of the construction of the military roads is derived from a treatise of Vitruvius on pavements and from existing remains of the roads themselves. The Latin phrase for building a road, munire viam, epitomizes the process exactly, for munire means “to build a wall” (moenia); and throughout its full length, whether carried above the level of the surrounding country or in a cut below it, the road was a solid wall averaging fifteen feet in width and perhaps three feet in height. A cut (fossa) was first made of the width of the intended road and of a depth sufficient to hold the filling, which varied with the nature of the soil. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) |+|]

The earth at the bottom of the cut (E) was leveled and made solid with heavy rammers. Upon this was spread the statumen (D), a foundation course of stones not too large to be held in the hand; the thickness of the layer varied with the porosity of the soil. Over this came the rudus (C), a nine inch layer of coarse concrete or rubble made of broken stones and lime. Over this was laid the nucleus (B), a six-inch bedding of fine concrete made of broken potsherds and lime, in which was set the final course (A) of blocks of lava or of other hard stone furnished by the adjacent country.

This last course (dorsum) made the roadway (agger viae) and was laid with the greatest care so as to leave no seams or fissures to admit water or to jar the wheels of vehicles. In the diagram the stones are represented with the lower surface flat, but they were commonly cut to a point or edge in order to be held more firmly by the nucleus. The agger was bounded on the sides by umbones (G, G), curbstones beyond which lay the footpaths (F, F), semitae or margines. On a subsoil of rocky character the foundation course or even the first and second courses might be unnecessary. On the less traveled branch roads the agger seems to have consisted of a thick course of gravel (glarea), well rounded and compacted, instead of the blocks of stone, and the crossroads may have been of still cheaper materials.”

How Roman Roads Were Built

Jesús Rodríguez Morales wrote in National Geographic History: When planning to build a road, engineers studied the local topography and gathered information from residents. They then plotted out the most logical course, prioritizing straightness and moderate slopes. When crossing flat land, the road was as straight as possible: the ancient Appian Way, between Rome and Terracina, includes an uninterrupted straight line 56 miles long. [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

In hilly terrain attempts were made to even out the elevation through cuttings, bridges, and viaducts. In mountainous areas the engineers made wide curves, adapting to the land to maintain uniform slopes. In high mountains they used tight turns and even tunnels. Whenever possible, the road was laid out on the eastern and southern slopes to take advantage of the greater amount of sunlight to prevent winter snowfalls from impeding travel.

Adam Hart-Davis wrote for the BBC: “Building roads in a straight line is not difficult - you merely have to plant two canes in the ground, walk ahead and plant a third in line with the first two, and so on. Sighting along canes gives good straight lines for miles. However, what really impressed me was how they managed to set off in the right direction. For example, when the Romans wanted to build a road from London to Chichester, they knew exactly where to head for, even though the distance is 65 miles, there are several hills in the way and they had neither maps nor compasses. [Source: Adam Hart-Davis, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]

“There's an old saying 'I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.' Roman road surveying was just like this for me. I learned and understood how to do it by surveying a route over high sand dunes from one flag to another that I could not see. I knew roughly which way to go; so I went to the high point on a sand dune not far from the route and put a beacon there. Then I walked on and planted another beacon at the next high point, from where I could see the goal. I went back to the first beacon and moved it to the straight line between the first flag and the second beacon by using a groma. |::|

Appian Way

“The groma was the standard Roman surveyor's instrument. It's an upright stick with a couple of bits of wood fixed to the top to make a cross. From each end of the cross hangs a little weight on a string. When the groma is stuck in the ground you stand behind it and twist it until you can sight along two of the strings to the starting point. Then you walk around the groma and sight the other way, to the second beacon. If the strings do not line up with the beacon then you move the beacon beside you in order to get more in line. Plant the beacon, plant the groma, and try again, until the strings line up with the start point in one direction and with the second beacon in the other. Then you know that the start point and the first two beacons are all in one line. |::|

“Repeat the whole process with the second beacon, then with the first again, and the second again, until the start point, the finish point, and both beacons are in the same line. This process would be much more efficient if one surveyor were standing at each beacon, ready to move it - and even better if they all had mobile phones! |::|

Labor and Materials Used to Build Roman Roads

Jesús Rodríguez Morales wrote in National Geographic History: After a public bidding process, private contractors would be awarded the project to build a road. They hired laborers but also relied on enslaved people and criminals sentenced to forced labor. Sometimes they used the army and military engineers to design or direct the work. Legions also built roads as part of military operations and in conquered areas. Sometimes, when a legion was inactive, the commanders, or legates, decided to put the soldiers to work on road construction, as did the consul Gaius Flaminius, for example, whose men built the Flaminian Way from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to Ariminum (Rimini) in 220 B.C.[Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

Ideally, the materials for road construction came from nearby quarries; if not, they might have had to be imported. The work began by clearing the ground of trees, rocks, and everything that could be an obstacle. The soil was drained, and rainwater runoff was diverted through channels and sewers. Then a ditch was dug and filled with large, loosely placed stones that allowed drainage. Medium-size boulders were added to compact the layer below and fill in large gaps, on top of which a layer of sand and gravel was spread to provide a more comfortable surface for carts. These layers, which elevated the road above the surrounding terrain, were then compacted and hardened with water, hand tampers, and a large stone roller. The road was then flanked with curb stones. To the sides of the curbs large ditches were dug to receive the runoff from rain, a road’s greatest enemy.

Appian Way

Jesús Rodríguez Morales wrote in National Geographic History: The Via Appia, or Appian Way, is perhaps the most famous Roman road. Paved with large basalt slabs, it was built in the fourth century B.C. at the direction of Censor Appius Claudius. At first, the road connected Rome to Capua, about 132 miles away in the Campania region of Italy. By 244 B.C. the road had been extended south more than 200 miles to reach the port city of Brundisium (modern Brindisi) on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy. [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

Because the road became the main conduit from Rome to the Adriatic ports and the Mediterranean, the Appian Way became a crucial component of Rome’s economy as well as its military. It was wide enough for two carts to pass in opposite directions or for five soldiers to march side by side. Building the Appian Way was a massive undertaking, but the excellent craftsmanship of the road was apparent for centuries. First-century A.D. Roman poet Statius called it longarum regina viarum (queen of the long roads).

Writing hundreds of years after its construction, the sixth-century A.D. Byzantine historian Procopius also lauded its engineering: It . . . is one of the most remarkable achievements because the stone, by nature very hard, did not exist in this part of the country and had to be transported from afar. The stones were smoothed and leveled, then cut into angular shapes and fitted one next to the other without the need to join them with bronze or any other thing. So they are so well nested and assembled that they have the appearance of a single compact mass . . . Despite the long period of time that has elapsed, and the continuous passage of so many carriages and beasts of burden, no stone has been displaced from its original position, nor has any been worn or lost its polish. [Source: Jesús Rodríguez Morales, National Geographic History, January 22, 2021]

Route of the Appian Way

The Appian Way is one of ancient Rome's most famous roads. It extends for ten miles within the city limits of Rome beginning at the Colosseum and heads southeast. Begun in 312 B.C. under orders of the Republican magistrate Appius Clauduius, it once extended 370 miles Brindisi and was the major transport route to Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. Along the way you can still find patches of huge, green-gray volcanic stones, called selces , that the Romans paved with, and kiln-shaped Roman tombs with classical entrances. Rich Romans had their tombs placed here in the belief that exposure to the thousand of people that traveled the Appian Way wound grant them immortality.

To the north of Terracina (about 50 miles southeast of Rome) the Romans built the Appian Way on a bed of rubble through a 30 mile section of marsh, an incredible engineering feat for its the time. Few other ancient people knew how to build road beds let alone in swamp. In another incredible undertaking Romans cut through 121 foot rock outcrop with only chisels and picks at Trojan's Cut. If you visit the sight you can still see Roman numerals that were used to mark the depth of the passageway.

Minturnae (about 100 miles southwest of Rome) boasts one of the more complete sets of Roman ruins along the Appian Way. The section of the Roman road here which consists of coffee table-sized cobblestones is in very good condition as are the remains of the forum, aqueduct, theater, and temple. In the ancient Roman bath there is a mosaic that shows a bunch of winged cupids stomping grapes into wine. Not too far from Minturnae is a massive 21 arch viaduct-Ponte degli Aurunci-that withstood the weight of tanks in World War and still supports traffic today.

Other Interesting Appian Towns include Alberobello (about 50 miles southeast of Bari), whose houses have stone beehive roofs, used to direct infrequent rains into underground cisterns; Gravina di Puglia (about 60 miles northwest of Taranto), a rugged little village built among rocky hills chilled by forested canyons; Ordona (between Bari and Benevento) which boasts the foundations of a grand temple, as well as an ancient bath and shops; and Egnazia (between Bari and Brindisi), an ancient resort on the Adriatic Sea, where a section of the Appia still contains the grooves of chariot wheels; and the port town of Bari.

Roman Military and Roads

Roads were crucial to the movement of troops and supplies. The legionnaires would not have been nearly as effective in their conquest if getting them supplies was difficult. The system was so well set up that commanders could accurately calculate how long it would take to get their armies from one place to another: from Cologne to Rome was 67 days, Rome to Brindisis, 57 days, and Rome to Syria (including two days at sea), 124 days. [Keegan]

Using its network of military roads, armies and munitions of war could be sent into almost very part of the Roman Empire. The first military road was the Appian Way (via Appia), built by Appius Claudius during the Samnite wars. It connected Rome with Capua, and was afterward extended to Beneventum and Venusia, and finally as far as Brundisium. This furnished a model for the roads which were subsequently laid out to other points in Italy. [Source: “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901)]

The Latin Way (via Latina) ran south into the Samnite country and connected with the Appian Way near Capua and at Beneventum. The Flaminian Way (via Flaminia) ran north through eastern Etruria and Umbria to Ariminum. From this last-mentioned place, the Aemilian Way (via Aemilia) extended into Cisalpine Gaul as far as Placentia on the river Po. Another important road, the Cassian Way (via Cassia) ran through central Etruria to Arretium, and connected with the Aemilian Way in Cisalpine Gaul. Along the western coast of Etruria ran the Aurelian Way (via Aurelia). These were the chief military roads constructed during the time of the republic. So durable were these highways that their remains exist to the present day.

Streets in the Ancient City of Rome

If the disentangled the jumble of the Roman streets were laid end to end, they would have covered a distance of 60,000 passus, or approximately 89 kilometers according to the calculations and measurements carried out by the censors Vespasian and Titus in 73 A.D. When we consider the actual layout of Roman streets, we find them forming an inextricably tangled net, their disadvantages immensely aggravated by the vast height of the buildings which shut them in. Tacitus attributes the ease and speed with which the terrible fire of 64 A.D. spread through Rome to the anarchy of these confined streets, winding and twisting as if they had been drawn haphazard between the masses of giant insulae. [Source: “Daily Life in Ancient Rome: the People and the City at the Height the Empire” by Jerome Carcopino, Director of the Ecole Franchise De Rome Member of the Institute of France, Routledge 1936]

The streets always smacked of their ancient origin and maintained the old distinctions which had prevailed at the time of their rustic development: the semita which were tracks only for men on foot, the actus, which permitted the passage of only one cart at a time, and finally the viae proper, which permitted two carts to pass each other or to drive abreast. Among all the innumerable streets of Rome, only two inside the old Republican Wall could justly claim the name of via. They were the Via Sacra and the Via Nova, which respectively crossed and flanked the Forum, and the insignificance of these two thoroughfares remains a perpetual surprise. Between the gates of the innermost enclosure and the outskirts of the fourteen regions, not more than a score of others de erved the title : the roads which led out of Rome to Italy, the Via Appia, the Via Latina, the Via Ostiensis, the Via Labicana, etc. They varied in width from 4.80 to 6.50 meters, a proof that they had not been greatly enlarged since the day when the Twelve Tables had prescribed a maximum width of 4.80 meters.

The majority of the other thoroughfares, the real streets, or vici, scarcely attained this last figure and many fell far below it, being simple passages (angiportus) or tracks (semitae) which had to be at least 2.9 meters wide to allow for projecting balconies. Their narrowness was all the more inconvenient in that they constantly zigzagged and on the Seven Hills rose and fell steeply hence the name of clivi which many of them, like the Clivus Capitolinus, the Clivus Argentarius, bore of good right. They were daily defiled by the filth and refuse of the neighbouring houses, and were neither so well kept as Caesar had decreed in his law, nor always furnished with the foot-paths and paving that he had also prescribed.

Caesar's celebrated text, graven on the bronze tablet of Heraclea, is worth rereading. In comminatory words he commands the landlords whose buildings face on a public street to clean in front of the doors and walls, and orders the aediles in each quarter to make good any omission by getting the work done through a contractor for forced labour, appointed in the usual manner of state contractors, at a fee fixed by preliminary bidding, which the delinquent will be obliged forthwith to pay. The slightest delay in payment is to be visited by exaction of a double fee. The command is imperative, the punishment merciless. But ingenious as was the machinery for carrying it out, this procedure involved a delay of ten days at least which must have usually defeated its purpose, and it cannot be denied that gangs of sturdy sweepers and cleaners directly recruited and employed by the aediles would have disposed of the business more promptly and more satisfactorily. We have, however, no indication that this was ever done, and the idea that in this case the State should have taken the authority and responsibility off the shoulders of the private individual could not possibly have entered the head of any Roman, though he were gifted with the genius of a Julius Caesar.

If the streets of Imperial Rome had been as generally paved as they suppose, the Flavian praetor of whom Martial writes would not have been obliged to "walk right through the mud" in using them nor would Juvenal in his turn have had his legs caked with mud. As for foot-paths, it is impossible that they lined the streets, which were becoming completely submerged under the rising tide of outspread merchandise until Domitian intervened with an edict forbidding the display of wares on the street. His edict is commemorated in the epigram: "Thanks to you, Germanicus, no pillar is now girt with chained flagons,... nor does the grimy cook-shop monopolise the public way. Barber, tavern-keeper, cook, and butcher keep within their own threshold. Now Rome exists, which so recently was one vast shop."

At night when there was no moon its streets were plunged in impenetrable darkness. No oil lamps lighted them, no candles were affixed to the walls; no lanterns were hung over the lintel of the doors, save on festive occasions. In normal times night fell over the city like the shadow of a great danger, diffused, sinister, and menacing. Everyone fled to his home, shut himself in, and barricaded the entrance. The shops fell silent, safety chains were drawn across behind the leaves of the doors; the shutters of the flats were closed and the pots of flowers withdrawn from the windows they had adorned. If the rich had to sally forth, they were accompanied by slaves who carried torches to light and protect them on their way. Other folk placed no undue reliance on the night watchmen (sebaciarii), squads of whom, torch in hand, patrolled the sector too vast to be completely guarded.

Juvenal sighs that to go out to supper without having made your will was to expose yourself to the reproach of carelessness; and if his satire goes too far in contending that the Rome of his day was more dangerous than the forest of Gallinaria or the Pontine marshes, we need only to turn the leaves of the Digest and note the passages which render liable to prosecution by the praefectus vigilum the murderers (sicarii), the housebreakers (effractores), the footpads of every kind (raptores) who abounded in the city, in order to admit that "many misadventures were to be feared" in her pitch-dark vici, where in Sulla's day Roscius of Ameria met his death.

Slime Molds and Computer Models Follow the Routes of Roman Roads

Samir S. Patel wrote in Archaeology magazine: Can an acellular slime mold mimic the Roman road network in the Balkans? It’s not a riddle, but the subject of a study by researchers in Greece and the United Kingdom. That slime mold, called Physarum polycephalum, consists of a single large membrane around many cell nuclei, and has drawn the attention of a wide range of scientists because of its uncanny ability to solve almost impossibly complex computational problems. [Source: Samir S. Patel, Archaeology magazine, July-August 2015]

“Through rhythmic contractions of its membrane, called shuttle streaming, the slime mold grows out in search of food. If you put a P. polycephalum into a maze with two food sources in it, over a few days the organism will grow toward the food sources and retract from everywhere else except the shortest path between them. Mathematicians and network analysts call this the “shortest path problem.” When presented with additional food sources, the slime mold forms ever more complex and efficient networks. These “Physarum machines,” as they are known, may help in the understanding of communication, road, and transport networks, which also, over time, come to balance complexity and efficiency.

“The study applied the power of a Physarum machine (and a computer program that simulates its behavior) to landscape-scale archaeology, specifically Roman roads in the Balkans. Researchers placed a P. polycephalum in a petri dish containing 17 little bits of food representing 17 urban centers in the Balkans from the Roman imperial period. The slime mold “imitated rather spectacularly the two main military roads of the area, the Via Egnatia [across Macedonia] and the Via Diagonalis [from central Europe to Constantinople],” says archaeologist Vasilis Evangelidis of the Hellenic Ministry of Education. This was a test case, but future experiments with P. polycephalum might reveal previously unobserved patterns in complex networks of human settlement, trade, and migration.

In 2015, to explore the question question "do all roads lead to Rome," Benjamin Plackett wrote in Live Science, "three researchers at the Moovel Lab — a now-defunct German urban design team — dropped a uniform grid of almost 500,000 points across a map of Europe. These points didn't represent ancient or modern cities, but were simply random spots from which to start a journey to the imperial capital. The team then used an algorithm to calculate the best route to Rome using modern routes from each of those starting points. The more frequently a segment of a road was used across the different points, the bolder it was drawn on the map. Their results showed a mesmerizing web of roads that led to Rome, connecting other major cities along the way, such as London, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and Paris, which were also part of the ancient empire. [Source Benjamin Plackett, Live Science, October 12, 2021]

News of the map went viral, but it didn't actually prove that all roads lead to Rome. If the researchers had conducted the same exercise, but instead looked at the quickest way from those same 500,000 points to Berlin or Moscow, the map would show a similarly vast array of roads leading to those cities. "Our project didn't really answer the question whether all roads lead to Rome," said Philipp Schmitt, one of the designers behind the artwork. "It was a 99% playful exploration of the question."

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901) ; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932); BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Archaeology magazine, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, The New Yorker, Wikipedia, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopedia.com and various other books, websites and publications.

Last updated November 2024