How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
For an international team of researchers who have delved deep into the ancient Roman road system, the answer is – literally – every day. And now anyone can immerse themselves in a newly developed visualization tool covering 100,000 kilometers (about 62,000 miles) of newly identified routes and explore practically how the ancient Romans traveled.
At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from modern-day Britain to Egypt and Syria, and an impressive network of roads contributed to its successful expansion. A fascinating map of Rome’s road system around 150 AD. AD, spans more than 300,000 kilometers (about 186,000 miles) — enough to circle the Earth more than seven times, Dr. Pau de Soto. He is a professor in the Department of Ancient and Medieval History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
A fragment of a Roman stage built by the road Via Nova in Jordan. – Adams Pažoutas/Itiner-e
According to experts, the extensive map can help support future research into the impact of Roman roads on communication and migration, as well as the spread of disease and the long-term impact of these events on the empire.
Travel like the ancient Romans
Bullock carts or pack animals transport food along the roads connecting farms to cities. The image is presented in Itiner and taken from the animation. – Itiner-e/Artas Media/MINERVA
People living in the Roman Empire had many different modes of transportation: the Egyptians relied mostly on camels, while people in other areas of the empire rode horses or traveled by chariots and mules. Sometimes they rode in chariots or simply walked, said Dr. Catherine Fletcher, professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University in the U.K. and author of Roads to Rome: A History of Imperial Expansion.
In some areas, the roads were paved, and further away from civilization, they were covered with a layer of small stones. It is still possible to walk some of these roads, such as the Appian Way leading to Rome, she added.
“This data set brings together a number of studies to create a broader and more complete picture of the Roman road network than we had before. It also shows how much we still don’t know about the roads, despite their glory,” said Fletcher, who was not involved in the new study.
“The visualizations will be a great help for writers or filmmakers who want to imagine what travel in the Roman Empire might have been like, and will be fun for anyone who wants to explore the Roman road in their area or on vacation,” she added in an email.
A cart travels along a Roman road with directional lanes in the Itiner image taken from the animation. – Itiner-e/Artas Media/MINERVA
The map is a work in progress, de Soto said, and is still being added to. The authors hope to soon add sea and river connections and study the chronological evolution of roads, he added.
“The Roman (Empire) was the earliest example of an integrated political and economic unit on a continental scale,” said study co-author Tom Brughmans, associate professor of classical archeology at Aarhus University in Denmark. “This period fundamentally transformed transport infrastructure in the region on a scale not seen before the industrial revolution of the 19th century, and we now have a dataset to examine how ground mobility has changed over the (2000) years.”
Mapping Ancient Roman Roads
Itiner-e created a network of Roman roads. – Trip-e
To create the basis for the map, called Itiner-e, the researchers had to cross-reference many historical records, as well as satellite photos, historical aerial photographs and other data. The map makes it possible to estimate travel times between different locations and helps highlight gaps in scientists’ knowledge of ancient roads.
Brughmans said researching 200 years of Roman roads to create the visualization was like “a giant game of connecting the dots.”
“We know of hundreds of thousands of ancient sites, such as cities and villas, where the Romans lived and worked,” Brughmans added in an email. “However, roads are long linear features that cross the landscape and are difficult to excavate.
The authors found traces of these ancient roads by comparing historical evidence, such as objects found during excavations or historical travel records, with satellite images and topographic maps that show the time before dense urbanization. They’ve even uncovered roads that are currently hidden beneath dammed lakes using historic satellite photos that reveal what the area once looked like, Brughmans said.
However, while the map adds to scientists’ understanding of the ancient travel network, the authors noted that only 2.7% of the roads are definitely located. About 90% of the map is less precisely known, and the remaining 7% are only hypothetical paths.
“It was a huge surprise and a sobering realization: roads are one of the most mysterious subjects in Roman archeology and history, they were everywhere, we have proverbs like ‘all roads lead to Rome,'” Brughmans said.
“How is it possible that we only know the exact location of 3%?” he added.
The issue is a call to action for researchers to identify other lesser-known parts of the ancient empire, such as “areas where we know the road data is not very representative because there are many ancient sites that don’t have roads,” he said.
For now, the map provides visual data to help us understand how a civilization moved and developed, helping to identify routes for the spread of goods, the spread of disease or the spread of ideas, de Soto said.
The researchers published their findings Thursday in the journal Scientific Data.
Taylor Nicoli is a freelance journalist based in New York.
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