The great Roman roads are consular roads that have crossed Italy since ancient times. We still follow the ancient Roman roads. The consular roads are the tangible demonstration of the greatness of Rome and in particular of the ancient Roman civilisation.
From the ancient Romans, in fact, we inherit those that still today are functional urban connections, better known as consular roads. The Romans were the first to introduce the need for travel in their civilisation, which is why they created a dense network of roads that could reach every civilised and conquered town.
As the empire extended, the extension of the road network developed, which developed along a main ridge from which a myriad of secondary roads departed and served as an exchange route between the big cities and the peripheries.
Rome was becoming a great metropolis and needed to be reachable from every part of the empire. Therefore works of high engineering were necessary, some of which are impossible to comprehend due to the enormous amount of materials transported – all Roman roads were all paved with stone slabs complete with road edges. A Roman road has never collapsed; a fact that is still under study by geo-architects today.
But let’s go by order. The first roads built by the Romans had mainly military uses, in fact the primary requirement was to allow their legions to be adequately supplied and reached in a short amount of time, giving these works a legendary value.
Then the Romans moved on to building roads for political purposes, but this type of construction mostly concerned the small villages around Rome from the beginning, a source of political publicity for the senators of the time. Later the roads were better “interpreted” because they were targeted by businesses. Hence the opening towards an East full of infinite riches made trade for profit purposes possibile and no longer just barter aimed at basic necessities.
From a spontaneous birth of straight and baptised roads according to needs (for example, the route dedicated to the transport of salt), to a public work strongly desired by politicians (hence the name of censors and consuls) was a journey over centuries.
After all, in ancient Rome, building a road was very cheap. The workforce used was mainly slaves and soldiers and there little attention was paid to expropriation or even environmental impact, it was just built. The fundamental thing was that the road had to last forever and we can affirm without a shadow of a doubt that the objective has been fully achieved. Since after about two millennia, we still remember and use these great works of constructions.
The Roman roads: