During its zenith under the reign of Septimius Severus in 211 C.E., the mighty Roman Empire stretched over much of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains and from modern-day Scotland to the Sahara or the Arabian Gulf. Crucial to maintaining dominion over such a large empire was Rome’s huge and intricate network of roads that remained unparalleled even a thousand years after its collapse.
It is estimated that the Roman road network was more than 400,000 kilometers long, out of which over 80,000 km were stone-paved. Like arteries, these marvelous feats of engineering ferried goods and services rapidly and safely, connecting Rome, “the capital of the world”, to the farthest stretches of the empire, and facilitated troop movements to hastily assemble legions for both border defense and expansion. Encompassing both military and economic outcomes, roads were truly central to Rome’s political strategy.
While the Romans didn’t invent road building, they took this Bronze Age infrastructure to a whole new level of craftsmanship. Many of these roads were so well designed and built that they are still the basis of highways that we see today. These include Via Flaminia and Britain’s Fosse Way, which still carry car, bike, and foot traffic. The answer to their longevity lies in the precision and thoroughness of Roman engineering.
