Via Sacra
About
This paved street ran the full length of the city as its main north-south axis, linking the Temple of Athena at one end to the two temples of Hera roughly a kilometer away. Roman surveyors laid it out fresh when they founded the colony in 273 BCE, cutting through ground that had carried no road under the Greeks. Wheel ruts worn into its paving stones still mark the routes carts took past the forum on market days. It remained the city's main thoroughfare in 117 CE.
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
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 →