Roman roads


Roman roads were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and, later, the Roman Empire. They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials, civilians, inland carriage of official communications, and trade goods. Roman roads were of several kinds, ranging from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns and military bases. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage, and were flanked by footpaths, bridleways and drainage ditches. They were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations.
At the peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 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 of roads, of which over were stone-paved. In Gaul alone, no less than of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least. The courses of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads.

Roman systems

mentions some of the most familiar roads near Rome, and the milestones on them, at times long before the first paved road—the Appian Way. Unless these allusions are just simple anachronisms, the roads referred to were probably at the time little more than levelled earthen tracks. Thus, the Via Gabiana is mentioned in about 500 BC; the Via Latina in about 490 BC; the Via Nomentana, in 449 BC; the Via Labicana in 421 BC; and the Via Salaria in 361 BC.
In the Itinerary of Antoninus, the description of the road system is as follows:

With the exception of some outlying portions, such as Britain north of the Wall, Dacia, and certain provinces east of the Euphrates, the whole Empire was penetrated by these itinera. There is hardly a district to which we might expect a Roman official to be sent, on service either civil or military, where we do not find roads. They reach the Wall in Britain; run along the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and cover, as with a network, the interior provinces of the Empire.

A road map of the empire reveals that it was generally laced with a dense network of prepared viae. Beyond its borders there were no paved roads; however, it can be supposed that footpaths and dirt roads allowed some transport. There were, for instance, some pre-Roman ancient trackways in Britain, such as the Ridgeway and the Icknield Way.

Laws and traditions

The Laws of the Twelve Tables, dated to about 450 BC, required that any public road be 8 Roman feet wide where straight and twice that width where curved. These were probably the minimum widths for a via; in the later republic, widths of around 12 Roman feet were common for public roads in rural regions, permitting the passing of two carts of standard width without interference to pedestrian traffic. [|Actual practices] varied from this standard. The Tables command Romans to build public roads and give wayfarers the right to pass over private land where the road is in disrepair. Building roads that would not need frequent repair therefore became an ideological objective, as well as building them as straight as practicable to construct the shortest possible roads, and thus save on material.
Roman law defined the right to use a road as a servitus, or liability. The ius eundi established a claim to use an iter, or footpath, across private land; the ius agendi, an actus, or carriage track. A via combined both types of servitutes, provided it was of the proper width, which was determined by an arbiter. The default width was the latitudo legitima of 8 feet. Roman law and tradition forbade the use of vehicles in urban areas, except in certain cases. Married women and government officials on business could ride. The Lex Julia Municipalis restricted commercial carts to night-time access in the city within the walls and within a mile outside the walls.

Types

Roman roads varied from simple corduroy roads to paved roads using deep roadbeds of tamped rubble as an underlying layer to ensure that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from between the stones and fragments of rubble instead of becoming mud in clay soils. According to Ulpian, there were three types of roads:
  1. Viae publicae, consulares, praetoriae or militares
  2. Viae privatae, rusticae, glareae or agrariae
  3. ''Viae vicinales''

    ''Viae publicae, consulares, praetoriae'' and ''militares''

The first type of road included public high or main roads, constructed and maintained at the public expense, and with their soil vested in the state. Such roads led either to the sea, to a town, to a public river, or to another public road. Siculus Flaccus, who lived under Trajan, calls them viae publicae regalesque, and describes their characteristics as follows:
  1. They are placed under curatores, and repaired by redemptores at the public expense; a fixed contribution, however, being levied from the neighboring landowners.
  2. These roads bear the names of their constructors.
Roman roads were named after the censor who had ordered their construction or reconstruction. The same person often served afterwards as consul, but the road name is dated to his term as censor. If the road was older than the office of censor or was of unknown origin, it was named for its destination or the region through which it mainly passed. A road was renamed if the censor ordered major work on it, such as paving, repaving, or rerouting. With the term viae regales compare the roads of the Persian kings and the King's Highway. With the term viae militariae compare the Icknield Way.
There were many other people, besides special officials, who from time to time and for a variety of reasons sought to connect their names with a great public service like that of the roads. Gaius Gracchus, when Tribune of the People, paved or gravelled many of the public roads and provided them with milestones and mounting-blocks for riders. Gaius Scribonius Curio, when Tribune, sought popularity by introducing a Lex Viaria, under which he was to be chief inspector or commissioner for five years. Dio Cassius mentions that the Second Triumvirate obliged the Senators to repair the public roads at their own expense.

''Viae privatae, rusticae, glareae'' and ''agrariae''

The second category included private or country roads, originally constructed by private individuals, in whom their soil was vested and who had the power to dedicate them to the public use. Such roads benefited from a right of way in favor either of the public or of the owner of a particular estate. Under the heading of viae privatae were also included roads leading from the public or high roads to particular estates or settlements; Ulpian considers these to be public roads.
Features off the via were connected to the via by viae rusticae, or secondary roads. Both main or secondary roads might either be paved or left unpaved with a gravel surface, as they were in North Africa. These prepared but unpaved roads were viae glareae or sternendae. Beyond the secondary roads were the viae terrenae, "dirt roads".

''Viae vicinales''

The third category comprised roads at or in villages, districts, or crossroads, leading through or towards a vicus or village. Such roads ran either into a high road or into other viae vicinales, without any direct communication with a high road. They were considered public or private, according to the fact of their original construction out of public or private funds or materials. Such a road, though privately constructed, became a public road when the memory of its private constructors had perished.
Siculus Flaccus describes viae vicinales as roads "de publicis quae divertunt in agros et saepe ad alteras publicas perveniunt". The repairing authorities, in this case, were the magistri pagorum or magistrates of the cantons. They could require the neighboring landowners either to furnish laborers for the general repair of the viae vicinales, or to keep in repair, at their own expense, a certain length of road passing through their respective properties.

Governance and financing

With the conquest of Italy, prepared viae were extended from Rome and its vicinity to outlying municipalities, sometimes overlying earlier roads. Building viae was a military responsibility and thus came under the jurisdiction of a consul. The process had a military name, viam munire, as though the via were a fortification. Municipalities, however, were responsible for their own roads, which the Romans called viae vicinales. Roads were not free to use; tolls abounded, especially at bridges. Often they were collected at the city gate. Freight costs were made heavier still by import and export taxes. These were only the charges for using the roads. Costs of services on the journey went up from there.
Financing road building was a Roman government responsibility. Maintenance, however, was generally left to the province. The officials tasked with fund-raising were the curatores viarum. They had a number of methods available to them. Private citizens with an interest in the road could be asked to contribute to its repair. High officials might distribute largesse to be used for roads. Censors, who were in charge of public morals and public works, were expected to fund repairs suâ pecuniâ. Beyond those means, taxes were required.
A via connected two cities. Viae were generally centrally placed in the countryside. The construction and care of the public roads, whether in Rome, in Italy, or in the provinces, was, at all periods of Roman history, considered to be a function of the greatest weight and importance. This is clearly shown by the fact that the censors, in some respects the most venerable of Roman magistrates, had the earliest paramount authority to construct and repair all roads and streets. Indeed, all the various functionaries, including emperors, who succeeded the censors in this portion of their duties, may be said to have exercised a devolved censorial jurisdiction.