Roman Roads: reading answers

The long straight roads built by the Romans have in many cases become just as famous in history as their greatest emperors and generals. Building upon more ancient routes and creating a huge number of new ones Roman engineers were fearless in their plans to join one point to another in as straight line as possible whatever the difficulties in geography and the costs in manpower. Consequently roads required bridges tunnels, viaducts and many other architectural and engineering features to create a series of breathtaking but highly useful monuments which spread from Europe to eastern parts of the Roman Empire.

The Romans did not invent roads, but as in so many other areas, they took an idea which went back as far as the Bronze Age and extended that concept daring to squeeze from it the fullest possible potential. The first and most famous great Roman road was the Via Appia or Appian Way. Constructed from 312 BCE and covering 196 kilometers it linked Rome to ancient Capua in Italy in as straight a line as possible and was appropriately known to the Romans as the Regina Viarum or ‘Queen of Roads’. Much like a modern highway it bypassed small towns along the way and it largely ignored geographical obstacles. The road would later be extended to 569 kilometers in length.

The network of public Roman roads covered over 120,000 kilometers. Besides permitting the rapid deployment of troops and more importantly the wheeled vehicles which supplied them with food and equipment, Roman roads allowed for an increase in trade and cultural exchange. Roads were also one of the ways Rome could demonstrate its authority. For this reason, many roads began and ended in a triumphal arch, and the imperial prestige associated with a road project was demonstrated in the fact that roads were very often named after the officials who funded them; for example, the Via Appia takes its name from the Roman magistrate Appius Claudius Caecus.

To achieve the objective of constructing the shortest routes possible between two points, all manner of engineering difficulties had to be overcome. Once extensive surveying had been carried out, to ensure the proposed route was actually straight and to determine what various engineering methods were needed, marshes had to be drained, forests cut through, creeks diverted, bedrock channelled, mountainsides cut into rivers crossed with bridges, valleys traversed with viaducts and tunnels built through mountains. When all that was done, roads had to be levelled, reinforced with support walls or terracing and then, of course, maintained which they were for over 800 years.

Major roads were around a standard 4.2 metres wide, which was enough space for two vehicles to pass each other. First a trench was dug in the earth, and a layer of large stones was used to form the foundation. This was followed by a substantial deposit of smaller broken materials – often crushed brick was used for this purpose, and on top of this, a layer of fine gravel was added. This upper section of the road was referred to as the nucleus and was then surfaced with blocks or slabs. Mountain roads might also have ridges running across the surface of the slabs, to give animals better grip, and have ruts cut into the stone to guide wheeled vehicles.

Roads were purposely inclined slightly from the centre down to the kerb to allow rainwater to run off along the sides. Many also had parallel ditches that collected the runoff and formed a drainage canal on each side of the road. A path of packed gravel for pedestrians typically ran along each side of the road, varying in width from 1 to 3 metres. Separating the path from the road were the kerb stones, which were regular upright slabs. Busier stretches of main roads had areas where vehicles could pull over, and some of these had services for travellers and their animals. Milestones were also set up at regular intervals along the road and these often recorded who was responsible for the upkeep of that stretch of the road and what repairs had been made.

Lasting symbols of the imagination of Roman engineers are the many arched bridges and viaducts still standing today that helped achieve the engineers’ straight-line goal. The Romans built to last, and the piers of bridges which crossed rivers, for example, were often built with a resistant prow-shape and used massive durable blocks of stone, while the upper parts might be built of stone blocks strengthened with iron clamps. Perhaps the most impressive bridge was at Narni; 180 metres long, 8 metres wide and as high as 33 metres, it had 4 massive semicircular arches, one of which, stretching 32.1 metres, ranks as one of the longest block-arch spans in the ancient world. Recently hit by earthquakes, it is now having to undergo restoration work to repair the effects.

Such was the engineering and surveying skill of the Romans that many of their roads have provided the basis for hundreds of today’s routes across Europe and the Middle East. Many roads in Italy still use the original Roman name for certain stretches, and some bridges, such as at Tre Ponti in Venice, still carry road traffic today.