VIA: Cultural Lesson - Roman Roads

An image showing a Roman road.Roman Roads

So far, we've helped out Decimus as he was becoming a recruit. Now that Decimus is in the army, we've been working on learning some of the basic building blocks of Latin: verbs. Let's take some time to talk about one of the basic building blocks of the Roman Empire: their extensive system of roads.

First Steps - Decimus as a Recruit and the Basics of Roman Roads

Decimus and the new recruits are accompanied by a commanding officer. The officer oversees the recruits' basic military training. The soldiers must repair a small section of the Via Appia, the main road leading from Rome to Brundisium. The first order is to clear away the old road by digging a level ditch, called a fossa, down to the bedrock. Help Decimus complete his task by learning more about Roman roads.

At the height of the Roman empire, Romans had constructed more than 400,000 km of roads often built by the army and supervised by engineers. The roads were built to move armies, disperse communications and trade goods. Milestones radiated from Rome out along the Via Appia and other roads.

Making Strides - Decimus Continues Building

The soldiers, including Decimus, have a new task, now that they have dug the ditch. They must place large stones down to fill that ditch and make it level. The Romans preferred building straight roads. Engineers took great care to insure a straight and level road was achieved. They used a surveying tool called a groma.

The Via Appia was the first paved Roman road. It was built by Appius Claudius in 312 BCE. Its main purpose was to move military supplies throughout Italy. As Decimus and others continue to labor, repairing the Via Appia, let's help them by practicing our vocabulary terms for 1st conjugation verbs.

More on Roman Roads - Moving on Up!

Next up for Decimus and his fellow soldiers: laying a layer of gravel over the stones.

There were two types of Roman roads: public and private. The public roads were constructed and maintained with public funds. These major highways usually connected cities and seas. Often the public road was named after the person who ordered the construction or repair like the Via Appia named for Appius Claudius. Likewise, there were also private country roads funded by individuals which might be formally paved or left as earthen roads covered with gravel. Roads were a major engineering feat for Romans.

A diagram of a Roman road. The layers are numbered and described in the main text.Diagram of a Roman Road

The diagram and the description of each layer come courtesy of Wikipedia.

  1. Native earth, leveled and, if necessary, rammed tight.
  2. Statumen: stones of a size to fit in the hand.
  3. Audits: rubble or concrete of broken stones and lime.
  4. Nucleus: kernel or bedding of fine cement made of pounded potshards and lime.
  5. Dorsum or agger viae: the elliptical surface or crown of the roadmade of polygonal blocks of silex (basaltic lava) or rectangular blocks of saxum quadratum (travertine, peperino, or other stone of the country). The upper surface was designed to cast off rain or water like the shell of a tortoise. The lower surfaces of the separate stones, here shown as flat, were sometimes cut to a point or edge in order to grasp the nucleus, or next layer, more firmly.
  6. Crepido, margo or semita: raised footway, or sidewalk, on each side of the via.
  7. Umbones or edge-stones.

The Golden Milestone

An image showing the Golden Milestone in Rome.Decimus and his fellow cohorts have one last step in fixing the road. They must lay large paver stones to form the surface of the road.

Emperor Augustus constructed the milliarium aureum, the golden milestone near the Temple of Saturn in Rome (see image to the left). All Roman roads began from this monument. Each road contained numbered miles, radiating out from the milliarium aureum.

The modern word mile comes from the Latin phrase milia passuum, meaning 1000 paces.