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Roman road

The Romans, as a military, commercial and political expedient, became adept at constructing long straight roads. The Roman roads were essential for the growth of their empire in terms of being able to speedily move armies. The Roman emphasis on constructing straight roads often resulted in steep grades relatively impractical for most economic traffic. These lengthy highways were very important in maintaining both the stability and expansion of the empire.

The Roman roads often used deep roadbeds of crushed stone as a underlaying layer to ensure that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from the crushed stone, instead of becoming mud in clay soils. The legions made good time on these roads and some are still used millennia later.

A popular proverb says that "every road leads to Rome". Roman roads were designed that way to hinder provinces organising resistance against the Empire.

Table of contents

Some Roman roads

There are many examples of roads that still follow the route of Roman roads.

France

Greece

Italy

these (all active today) are called "consular" roads and their respective names come from the consul that ordered their construction.

Spain

United Kingdom

External link

  • http://www.viaeromanae.org
  • Roman Roads in Britain (http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Gazetteer/Periods/Roman/Topics/Engineering/roads/Britain/.Texts/CODROM/home) by Thomas Codrington, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1903



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
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