ROADS

While many Roman cities that originated as military camps were laid out with a logical grid system of sheets meeting at right angles, the capital city had no such convenient organization. Its streets are a confusing jumble thaf reflects the organic and unplanned growth of the city. The famous roads connecting Rome with other parts of Italy and the empire were termed via. Of streets within the city limits, most were termed either a vicus if its course was more or less flat or a clivus if if wenf up or down a hill. A small number of particularly important or old streets that lay within the city possessed the via designation.

Due to the premium placed on space in the crowded city, Rome's streets were generally quite narrow by modern standards and were overhung by balconies projecting from fhe close-set buildings. There do seem to have been repeated attempts by the government, however, to ensure certain minimum widths. The ancient law code of fhe Twelve Tables dicfated that a via had to be at least 8 Roman feet wide on straight sections and 16 feet wide around curves (Varro, On the Latin Language 7.15). When Nero rebuilt the city after the Great Fire of ad 64, he widened fhe major fhoroughfares considerably. While this step had the utilitarian purpose of serving as a firebreak in future conflagrations, it drew criticism from the people, who complained that the streets were unbearably hot because they no longer lay within the shade of nearby buildings.

Early in Roman history, the urban roadways must have been simple dirt tracks. Eventually, this was probably replaced in key areas with gravel paving, and by 238 bc, there is evidence of stone paving. Livy reports that the censors of 174 bc were responsible for covering sheets all around the city with stone paving, and from this point on, urban streets probably followed this model (Livy, History of Rome 41.27.5-8). The most elaborate of fhese sfreefs were crowned in the center so that water flowed down

Figure 3.5 A section of urban Roman road showing paving stones, raised sidewalks, stepping stones, and ruts carved by wagon wheels.

Tovvard the sides and into gutters, which led to openings to the sewers. They also sometimes had raised sidewalks and, at key intersections, stepping-stones that could have been employed by pedestrians crossing even a partially flooded street. Such architecturally sophisticated urban roadways can still be seen in a number of well-preserved Roman towns, such as Pompeii,

The most famous street in the city was the Sacra Via, or the "Sacred Way," which ran from the Capitoline hill through the Roman Forum. A number of important religious and civic rituals included a procession along its course, and, since it lay at the heart of the city, it was the scene of many notable events. Other main thoroughfares ran along the valleys between the various hills. The Via Lata ran across the central Campus Martius, connecting the center of the city with the Via Flaminia, the main road heading north.

Maintenance of the city streets fell under the general jurisdiction of the urban aedile, although Roman legal texts suggest that property owners were at least in theory supposed to look after the section of street that abutted their property. One text states that "each person is to keep the

Public street outside his own house in repair and clean out the open gutters____They are not to throw excrement, dead animals, or skins into the

Street" {Digest of Roman Law 43.11.1.1). The ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the streets were properly maintained lay with the aediles, as evidenced by an incident when the emperor Caligula thought the streets were too filthy and therefore had his soldiers fill the unfortunate urban aedile's toga with mud taken from the streets as punishment for neglecting his duties.

Since the size of many of the city's thoroughfares was established before the city's population swelled, crowding in the city streets must have been quite severe. In addition to foot traffic, pedestrians would have had to contend with animals such as horses and cattle and wagons transporting food and other goods. To ameliorate these traffic problems, it was decreed that wagons transporting materials could only enter the city at night. While this may have alleviated crowding, it would also have made sleep more difficult for the city's inhabitants as the night air would have been filled with the braying of animals, the shouts of the drovers, and the creaking of the wagons. The poet Juvenal offers a vivid portrait of the dangerously crowded conditions that the unfortunate pedestrians in Rome's streets would have had to deal with: "Even though we might try to hurry, the surging crowd blocks our progress, and the dense mob crushes against us from behind. In the press, one man shoves me with his elbow, another sticks me with a pole, a third smacks a board over my head, and yet another cracks his wine jar up against my forehead. My legs become encrusted with stinking mud, from all sides big feet trample on me, and a passing soldier grinds my toes under the hobnails of his boots" (Juvenal, Satires 3.244-48). The already congested condition of Rome's streets became even worse during festivals and spectacles, when curious throngs from the surrounding areas flocked to the city to witness these events. When Julius Caesar staged three days of spectacular entertainments, people poured into the city, with many pitching tents in the streets themselves. The resultant crowding was so severe that large numbers of people were crushed to death, including even two senators.

The truly impressive Roman roads were the thousands of miles of roadway that linked Rome with the rest of the empire. This road system was made up of the best-built roads up until very recently. Roman roads were carefully constructed with foundations that went down one and a half meters and were graded to drain water off of them. The roads were also paved, and the Romans were proud of making their roads go straight even when this meant constructing long bridges over deep valleys or tunneling through solid rock mountains.

The first major Roman road was the Via Appia, which was begun in 213 Bc by the man who gave his name to the road, Appius Claudius. It connected Rome with Brundisium at the heel of Italy, which was a departure point for ships sailing to the east. By the end of the second century bc.

Additional roads such as the Via Flaminia and the Via Aurelia had been constructed running up and down the length of Italy and joining the cities of the peninsula by a web of well-built roads. As the Roman Empire expanded outside of Italy, the Romans doggedly extended their network of carefully built roadways into the provinces. Legions stationed around the Mediterranean spent much of their time constructing roads, and a typical Roman soldier spent far more time digging than fighting. These soldiers left records of their construction work with thousands of stone mile markers that proudly recorded the name of the military unit that built a particular section of road.

These roads served many purposes. They helped the Romans keep control of their empire by enabling troops to be rushed to trouble spots. They encouraged and facilitated long-distance trade and bolstered the economy. They sped up communication among the different regions of the empire, a function that was aided by an imperial messenger service. Finally, they served as a powerful symbolic marker that a territory was indisputably Roman. Like an animal marking its territory, Rome used the presence of roads as an unmistakable signal that an area belonged to the Roman Empire.

However, travel along these roads was fraught with dangers. Bandits were very common, and anyone venturing outside of large cities was literally risking his life. Roman literature is full of examples of people who simply disappeared, who set out on a journey and were never heard from again. Presumably they fell victim to bandits along the road. Rich Romans traveled with bodyguards and armed slaves, but even such protection was not proof against bandits. One senior magistrate and his entire party vanished only a few miles from Rome. The Bible even provides good evidence of the ubiquity of bandit attacks. The parable of the good Samaritan centers around a man who had been beaten and robbed. He was journeying during the daytime along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a distance of about 24 kilometers, along what was perhaps the most heavily traveled road in the province (Luke 10:25-37). A common phrase on tombstones is interfectus a latronibus, "killed by bandits." In a list of the duties of a Roman governor, the first thing mentioned was to suppress bandits.