Study shows marvels of the Roman Empire’s road network
Researchers found Constantinople was more central than Rome in the empire’s road network, which stretched about 300,000 kilometers, the study said.
- On Tuesday, Aarhus University archaeologist Tom Brughmans published a study in Nature Communications debunking the adage that "all roads lead to Rome," finding the empire's road network was more broadly distributed than previously believed.
- While Rome served as a hub for Mediterranean shipping, researchers noted the "Italian Peninsula is an appendix to the empire's road network," with the city situated halfway down this geographic extension.
- Major cities like Antioch, Ancyra , and Corinth were "better located than Rome" for land travel, while Constantinople proved exceptionally central for overland movement.
- Contrary to popular belief, Roman roads were not always straight; construction depended on local topography, according to the paper analyzing roughly 300,000 kilometers of routes across the empire.
- Researchers utilized the "Itiner-e" digital atlas to map 186,411 miles of routes, though the team noted that continuous use of ancient paths for two millennia is an overstatement.
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11 Articles
Study shows marvels of the Roman Empire’s road network
Augustus, ancient Rome’s first emperor, placed a gilded monument called the Milliarium Aureum, or Golden Milestone, in the Roman Forum in 20 BC to mark the symbolic starting point for all roads in the sprawling empire. These roads indeed were the backbone of the world’s first continental-scale transportation system.
The most detailed analysis so far of the extraordinary road network built by the ancient Romans questions some of the more widespread ideas about its layout and argues that Byzantium, Antioch or Ankara were better connected to the rest of the empire than the capital Read
The analysis of 300,000 kilometers of Roman roads shows how straight and leveled they were and how modern roads follow their route
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