Cardo Maximus Gerasae
About
Gerasa's spine ran some 800 metres from the oval plaza to the north gate, colonnaded in the late first century CE with Ionic shafts. Chariot ruts still score paving laid at a diagonal to grip iron-shod wheels, and manholes along the kerb drop into a sewer running the full length. In 117 CE shoppers walked the Ionic version. The taller Corinthian colonnade and the widening of the roadway both came later in the second century.
What happened here
The surface is cambered, drained on both sides, and built to be repaired rather than to last forever. Milestones give the distance to the nearest town and the name of the emperor who last paid for resurfacing. Traffic is mostly feet and hooves; wheeled freight is slow and heavy and, in some towns, banned during daylight. Official messengers use the state relay and change horses at posting stations set roughly a day apart, which is what makes the empire governable. Everyone else walks about twenty miles a day and stops at an inn of doubtful quality. Tombs, shrines and roadside bars line the approaches to any town. Bandits are a real risk on quiet stretches and the army patrols the worst of them.
Sources
Nearby
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Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →