[00:01] I come from Chicago. Around here, 
we like to say that there are two
[00:05] seasons: winter, and road construction.
Every spring, orange cones appear along
[00:11] the highways, the lanes narrow, and big yellow 
machines set to work. They grind up the asphalt
[00:18] and batter down the curbs, and lay down endless 
loads of gravel and concrete. When their work is
[00:24] done, the highway’s a thing of beauty – for a few 
months. Then a new crop of cracks and bumps and
[00:30] potholes sprouts, and the cycle begins again.
Although most of America’s interstate highways
[00:37] are only 50 or 60 years old, virtually all 
of them have been rebuilt multiple times,
[00:42] and some – like those around Chicago – have to 
be almost constantly patched and resurfaced.
[00:48] When you compare the Roman roads, whose huge 
paving stones and elegant bridges seem untouched
[00:54] by millennia of wear and tear, it’s hard not 
to think that our modern methods are lacking.
[00:59] American expressways and Roman roads, of course, 
were built with fundamentally different materials
[01:05] for fundamentally different purposes. But 
if nothing else, comparison has the effect
[01:11] of accentuating the scale and achievements of 
the Roman road network. By the second century,
[01:17] there were well over 50,000 miles (that is, 80,000 
kilometers) of Roman roads, radiating out from the
[01:23] golden milestone in the Forum to every corner 
of the Empire. Conduits of trade, instruments of
[01:30] rule, monuments to the imperial order, they ran 
in uncompromising lines through every terrain.
[01:36] Roman roads skirted the burning edge of the 
Sahara, where sand drifted among the milestones.
[01:43] They ran through the marshes of northern 
Europe, suspended on wooden pilings
[01:47] over seas of mud. They cut through the 
heart of the Alps, grooved and banked to
[01:52] prevent wagons from hurling over icy cliffs.
Perhaps the best sense of the network’s scale
[01:58] comes from the so-called Peutinger Map, 
a medieval copy of a late Roman atlas.
[02:04] Though distorted to fit a narrow 
scroll, the map is remarkably detailed,
[02:08] featuring regions, peoples, and some 2,700 places, 
all connected by the red lines of the Roman roads.
[02:17] The distances between towns are carefully marked, 
as are the waystations along the highways.
[02:23] The Roman roads were equally impressive on the 
ground. Designed by legionary surveyors and
[02:28] engineers, and often built by detachments 
of troops, they were marvels of practical
[02:32] engineering. The most familiar method 
of constructing them, used for the great
[02:37] highways of central Italy, began with digging 
the roadbed down to a firm layer of subsoil.
[02:43] This trench was then filled with compacted layers 
of rubble and gravel, and capped with a pavement
[02:48] of local stone, which was crowned to shed 
water and wedged in place with curb blocks.
[02:54] There was always, however, a 
great deal of regional variation.
[02:59] Outside cities, roads were often surfaced 
with gravel or packed dirt instead of paving
[03:04] stones. In deserts, they might be little 
more than a simple track cleared of rocks.
[03:10] In swamps, on the other hand, they were 
supported with an intricate underpinning
[03:13] of beams and pilings. On the approaches to large 
cities and in the most hazardous mountain passes,
[03:20] ruts were sometimes carved into the pavement 
to control traffic and prevent accidents.
[03:26] The highways of Roman Italy were paved 
to a width of 14 Roman feet (that is,
[03:30] a little more than 4 meters), and often flanked 
by gravel paths for riders and pedestrians. Tall
[03:36] milestones stood along the shoulder, inscribed 
with the name and titles of the reigning emperor
[03:41] and the distance to the nearest town or landmark. 
Every few miles, a clump of trees might mark an
[03:47] inn or country shrine. And when tombs began to 
appear on the roadside, a city was never far away.
[03:54] The Roman road network was designed, 
first and foremost, for military use.
[04:00] Soldiers built the roads, guarded their 
strategic points, and used them constantly.
[04:06] In fact, the whole design of the roads, with 
their undeviating lines and long straight slopes,
[04:11] was shaped by a single aim: allowing infantry to 
march as quickly as possible from point to point.
[04:18] The roads were used, however, by all kinds of 
traffic. We might imagine a farmer and his mule
[04:24] bringing a load of vegetables to market, a woman 
walking to visit her mother in the next village,
[04:30] a wealthy man in a litter being carried to a 
fashionable healing sanctuary, a shepherd herding
[04:35] his flock along the roadside, and occasionally – 
galloping along the bridle paths – a rider of the
[04:41] imperial post, the Roman Empire’s swiftest 
and most secure way of sending messages.
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[05:53] Back on the road. Many aspects of the Roman 
highways seem modern. They had waysides. They
[05:59] had highway police. They had tolls. And 
they were characterized by feats of civil
[06:04] engineering that would not be excelled until 
the nineteenth century. Take, for example,
[06:09] the Roman road to the St. Bernard Passes of the 
Alps, which sprang over mountain chasms, drove
[06:15] through boulder-strewn slopes, and culminated 
in a spectacular rock cut more than 220 m long.
[06:22] The Roman roads were served 
by thousands of bridges.
[06:25] Hundreds of these have survived to 
the present, and a remarkable number
[06:29] still carry traffic. One of the most impressive, 
pictured in this video kindly sent by YouTuber
[06:36] unOrdinaryWorld, is located in Merida, 
Spain, the Roman Emerita Augusta.
[06:43] At 790 meters, this is the longest extant Roman 
bridge. It was used by traffic until 1991.
[06:52] Other bridges were even more impressive. 
The Bridge of Augustus at Narni,
[06:56] for example, was up to 33 m high, and featured 
a central arch 32 m wide. It seems to have stood
[07:03] more or less intact until the Middle Ages, 
when it was partly leveled by earthquakes.
[07:08] The Romans also carved road tunnels 
through dangerous mountain terrain.
[07:12] Perhaps the most famous example is in the Furlo 
Pass, where a tunnel 40 m long and wide enough
[07:18] for two lanes of wagon traffic carried 
the Via Flaminia through a high ridge.
[07:23] The tunnel was used by cars until the 1980’s.
Perhaps most awe-inspiring section of the entire
[07:30] Roman road network was located on what 
is now the border of Serbia and Romania,
[07:34] where the Danube rushes through the 
rugged gorge called the Iron Gates.
[07:39] Just below the Gates, Trajan erected the greatest 
of all Roman bridges, a kilometer-long leviathan
[07:45] supported by 20 immense piers. Upstream, 
Trajan’s engineers hacked a highway
[07:51] through the riverside cliffs, suspending part 
of the roadbed over the water on enormous beams.
[07:57] Roman roads were designed to carry the traffic 
of their day – riders, wagons, and (above all)
[08:03] marching soldiers – in any weather. They were 
meant to be both convenience and symbol, and
[08:09] served both purposes well. The sheer durability 
of the system, with its hundreds of still
[08:15] functioning bridges, is incredible. But the Roman 
roads, like any roads, were far from immortal.
[08:23] Milestones record numerous repairs and 
reconstructions of the major roads.
[08:27] The inscriptions sometimes mention damage 
caused by heavy rain or flash floods,
[08:32] but the most common causes given for 
repair are age and wear. The famous
[08:37] Via Appia, which ran from Rome to Brundisium, 
was repaired many times over the centuries,
[08:40] and repeatedly improved with new bridges 
and viaducts. One inscription notes
[08:45] the resurfacing of a worn-out section of 
limestone paving with hard-wearing basalt.
[08:51] Despite the awesome longevity of their bridges, 
most Roman roads vanished during the Middle
[08:55] Ages, their paving stones buried or were pulled 
up for reuse, their grassy beds and half-filled
[08:56] ditches running uncannily straight to nowhere.
Yet in the early modern period, when European
[08:59] engineers began to build new highways, 
they consciously imitated the Roman roads,
[09:03] sometimes to the point of trying to reconstruct an 
ancient road network. The pioneering road-building
[09:09] methods of John McAdam, likewise, were 
partly inspired by Roman techniques.
[09:16] Modern expressways, however, are very different 
beasts from Roman roads. First and foremost,
[09:22] they’re designed to carry motor vehicles, which 
are not only heavier than horse-drawn carts,
[09:27] but also far faster and much more numerous. 
In terms of sheer stress, a busy section of
[09:33] American highway probably takes more punishment in 
a single day than most Roman roads did in a year.
[09:39] Modern roads are engineered to handle those 
enormous stresses without being prohibitively
[09:44] expensive to build. In practice, that means a lot 
of reinforced concrete and asphalt. Though highly
[09:51] effective, and cost-effective, these materials 
begin to break down fairly quickly under heavy
[09:57] traffic. In this sense, and in the sense that even 
most expressway bridges in America are designed to
[10:03] last only a half-century or so, modern highways 
really are less durable than the Roman roads.
[10:10] All this means, of course, is that modern 
highways serve a different purpose from their
[10:14] ancient predecessors. The Roman roads weren’t 
better engineered; they’re just products of
[10:20] construction methods perfectly tailored to the 
traffic and terrain of the ancient Mediterranean.
[10:26] The fact that ancient and modern 
highways aren’t directly comparable,
[10:29] however, does nothing to diminish 
the achievement of the roads
[10:33] that were one of the greatest products and 
most enduring legacies of the Roman peace.
[10:39] If you enjoyed this video, please consider 
supporting toldinstone on Patreon. You might also
[10:44] enjoy my book, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, 
and War Elephants. Thanks for watching.