Via Severiana
Via Severiana was an ancient Roman road in central Italy leading in Latium, running southeast from Portus to Tarracina, a distance of 80 Roman miles along the coast.
A restoration and reunion of existing roads was carried out with a work of lastrification in 198–209AD, during the reign of emperor Septimius Severus, in order to connect more quickly the maritime towns of Ostia, Lavinium, Ardea, Antium and the routes that came there from Rome.
Thomas Ashby said that it would have run along the shore only at first: just behind the line of villas which fronted the sea – which are now some inland – or even upon its edge ; farther southeast the road would seem to have kept rather more distant from the shore, and it probably kept within the lagoons below the Circean promontory.
Although the remains of the via Severiana are scanty, there are traces of at least two Roman bridges along the road: on the border between Laurentum and Ostia there was one, which according to an inscription was restored by the emperors Carus and Carinus, and the second one is located in the area of Torre Astura.
The Tabula Peutingeriana, a map considered datable to the 4th century AD, shows an anonymous Roman road that crossed several stations, including Hostis, Laurentum, Lavinium, Antium, Astura and Tarracina. According to an orientation, the road represented in the Tabula would be only apparently coastal, therefore unidentifiable with the Via Severiana, which instead, according to a theory, never detached from the sea.
It was also believed that the name Severiana attributed to the road would be actually a modern conception.