Decumanus Maximus
About
Volubilis grew along two separate street grids laid at different orientations, evidence of a town that expanded in phases from its Mauretanian core into a full Roman street plan. The Decumanus Maximus, the city's principal east-west thoroughfare, took its paved and porticoed form under Trajan and Hadrian in the early second century CE, lined with shops sheltering beneath covered walkways. It linked the city's northern gate to the forum at the town's heart. By 117 CE the street's early paving was already carrying the daily traffic of a prosperous provincial capital.
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 →