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That's really well done! I have no comment on the accuracy but it really highlights just how the Romans integrated new areas into the central empire through transportation (goods, ideas, and armies). I will also call out the road in Africa called "Caeserea lol"
Sometimes I wonder if we've regressed in terms of attention to quality. Here in the US, I see lots of potholes on the streets and sidewalks. Meanwhile, the ancient cobblestone roads are still functional to this day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Horses would often be swapped out at stations when a wealthy person would have to travel very quickly across a long distance. Maybe this is an average since the speed with which horsemen could travel would depend on the rate at which they exchanged their horses. In an extreme example from the year 9 BC, the future emperor Tiberius traveled on the Roman Roads 330 miles (531 km) between northern Italy and modern day Ma…
So he rode really fast, reckless and sleep deprived to his brother who’d been injured in a horse riding accident?
Sometimes I wonder if we've regressed in terms of attention to quality. Here in the US, I see lots of potholes on the streets and sidewalks. Meanwhile, the ancient cobblestone roads are still functional to this day.
Bad roads are safer. We design our roads to be driven much faster than anyone should. Potholes and rough areas slow us down
None of that has any relation at all with potholes. Potholes are dangerous and may not be even noticeable at a distance.
There's a missing road in Sardinia that I'm aware of, connecting Karalis (today's Cagliari) with Turris Libisonis (today's Porto Torres, near Sassari).
My parents grew up in small villages that are adjacent to one of these ancient roads (via Tiburtina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Tiburtina) and the road basically still exists as a modern road.
I remember driving near Pescara with my parents in the 1990s--they had not been back to Italy in 35+ years and they were trying to find their way back to their home towns.
We stopped the car on the side of a main road and asked a woman who was walking, "Dov'e' la Tiburtina?" (where is the Tiburtina?).
The woman responded... "QUEST'E' la Tiburtina!" (This is the Tiburtina).
Sometimes I wonder if we've regressed in terms of attention to quality. Here in the US, I see lots of potholes on the streets and sidewalks. Meanwhile, the ancient cobblestone roads are still functional to this day.
And just FYI roman roads were maintained. We dont have documentation on this from the early imperial period. But from the Byzantine period we know that there were local people responsible for maintenance.
And we also know that even during Byzantine times many roads were reverting to nature. Road maintence was a real problem.
The organization was a different scale.
Fun fact: Some of the most famous battles in England in the middle ages, such as battle of Hasting, were basically 5k - 9k soldiers in each side. That's just one and a half Roman legion.
Rome, could field 12 legions at a time, and the scale was insane. I can see why the Roman Empire remained such a symbol of civilization for a thousand of years after its fall.