La costruzione delle strade nell'Italia romana

In the ancient world, Roman roads represented an event of exceptional political significance. Often they still constitute the support of the modern road network, not only in Italy and in the nations overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. but also in those of the hinterland of Europe, Africa and Asia. The viae publicae alone occupied a network of 120.000 km throughout the entire empire. The construction of such a wide network of roads, well organised and maintained efficiently for nine centuries during which Rome was at the centre of the entire civilised world, from the cold regions overlooking the North Sea to the blazing lands of the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, represented the structural means by which each public act was carried out and on which hundreds of thousands of people, means of transport, goods and ideas travelled. This network was not created suddenly, but developed throughout space and time. The building technique also changed, permitting the construction of more efficient roads. The reconstruction of this development is the topic of this paper, with particular reference to Italy, which represented the centre of the Roman world.