Ancient Rome's Road System: The Rise and Fall of Rome

hello everybody welcome back to another brand new episode of megaprojects this video is brought to you by surf shark safety and security online are super important you can protect yourself online with surfshark get 85 off and three months for free through the link in the description below and let's get into it because today we're talking about roman rhodes the reason we're doing this one is because we did a video or i did a video about the roman sanitation system and for some reason it did insanely well so uh i thought we could explore the road system as well i in fact grew up on what i believe to be a roman road it was insanely long and straight i think my parents told me it was roman road at some point even if it wasn't it was super long and straight and well we're talking about that in today's video so let's just jump in [Music] the list of extraordinarily impressive achievements by the romans is a long one from the mighty coliseum and rome's famed sanitation system both of which we've covered here on megaprojects definitely check those videos out to the exquisite pantheon the romans certainly knew a thing or two about construction and yet something astonishing that is often overlooked does not tower majestically above you but lies directly below your feet the romans built a frankly astonishing 50 000 miles of hard surfaced roads throughout their empire that's enough to go around the earth twice by the way but that's just what we might call paved roads in total they constructed an estimated 250 000 miles worth of roads during their time which included everything from paved roads to simple dirt paths that's enough to travel to the moon and then go around the moon one and a half times so yes it's a lot of roads at its largest the roman empire was composed of 113 provinces stretching from egypt to scotland from portugal to syria all of which were interconnected by 372 great roads i'm going to go into much more detail about all of the road types later on but let's just call these great roads the ancient motorways for now alright so i know roads aren't exactly the most impressive achievements to the modern mind but well just consider that this was done roughly 2 000 years ago also the video about roman sewage is also not particularly revolutionary to the modern mind but for some reason you guys really liked it the roman system of travel that was implemented set the standard for what we use today from mile markers to early service stations from postal services to primitive motels these all emanated from the eternal city [Music] while the saying all roads lead to rome has developed a metaphorical meaning it does have a historical basis at its political peak 29 separate roads radiated out from the city of rome the via happier epione way was constructed around 312 bc and was thought to be the first great road it led southeast from rome to torrentium present day toronto a total distance of 162 miles but it was later extended to brudensium now brindisi on the adriatic coast the via papillia measuring some 321 miles ran from the capital to the straits of messina through calabria but was only rediscovered in 1844 when a milestone bearing the name pulius pobilius thought to be the man who oversaw the project was found near adria in northern italy the via aurelia extended northwest to genoa while the villa flamenia ran north to the adriatic and the via valyria east across the peninsula towards lake fukunus conca del fucino and i know i still screwed up some of those pronunciations but it took me like five minutes to get that one sentence done it's such a nightmare i'm gonna just stop there because we could probably do a whole video on these roads but it would mostly be me just screaming about the pronunciations so let's move on [Music] roman roads were primarily built for military purposes at least to begin with as their mighty legions spread out across europe into africa and east into asia so did their roads but as their provinces were brought under control the role of roads began to change with trade booming along the routes and in many ways it was these roads that united the giant empire in britain one of the most famous roman roads which is still mostly used today is wattling street known in the roman era as the slightly unimaginative route two the 276 mile route connected the kentish ports in the southeast with rockstar close to the welsh border in the west this had been a dirt track used by the ancient britons before the romans but with the invasion of britain in 43 a.d it received a major paved upgrade and became one of the most important roads in britain it was also the site though we aren't exactly sure where of the defeat of boudicca the iconic british celtic queen who led a mass revolt against the romans in 60 or 61 a.d a defeat that finally broke the british resistance of the roman invaders today the road falls under various names such as the imaginative a2 and a5 but sections still retain the name wattling street including a small section running through the city of london [Music] now you might assume that these ancient roads would be built somewhat haphazardly and you'd be absolutely wrong just like our modern standard for highways the romans had their own set of guidelines for the construction of roads and how to use them and these were included in the 12 tables legislation that set out the rights and responsibilities of roman citizens roads were required to be at least eight roman feet which is about 2.37 metres wide when traveling straight but twice that width on curves and yes most roman roads were straight but it's a common misconception that they were all straight on larger public roads which saw heavier traffic a width of 12 roman feet that's 3.5 meters was needed to permit two carts each standard four roman feet 1.2 meters in width to pass each other while still giving enough room for pedestrians and if you're wondering if the roman foot is different to the modern foot well it absolutely is and that's because the modern foot only became 12 inches in the 12th century under the reign of henry the first who may have had a 12-inch foot the roman foot was slightly smaller at 11.6 inches the rights to movement were also quite complex the right to use a road was known as servitus while the us under the right of going established a right to use an ita a footpath which crossed private land in britain today we actually have something similar the right to rome which is covered under the countryside and rights of way act 2000 essentially giving the public the right to cross private lands usually by marked paths although there are some exceptions to this law the eus agendai was the right of driving along an actus carriage track a standard via a major road combined both types of server tutez as long as it was the proper width which as we mentioned previously was a roman feet the romans were also pretty forward thinking in terms of congestion zones with the use of carts forbidden in urban areas except for married women and government officials on business commercial carts were restricted to nighttime access within the city or a mile outside of the city walls [Music] just like our modern road system the romans divided theirs into groups via public eye these were major public roads built and maintained through the taxes paid by roman citizens and would typically lead to the sea a town a river or another road these were placed under the supervision of a commissioner and repaired by contractors while all of these roads would have been named after their constructor so the via appia which i mentioned earlier as the first great road had a constructor by the name of appia constructors wouldn't actually have built the roads themselves but rather supervised the entire process via private eye these were secondary roads constructed by private individuals and usually led off from the via public eye this was typically vested land meaning it had been granted to the owner and it was down to them whether the public had access or not but it appears they normally got it via vicanales these were local roads often passing through villages districts or crossroads and were often not connected with other roads they could be either public or private but if constructed using private funds they became public once the owner had died and just before we continue with today's video i'd like to take a quick moment to tell you about our fantastic sponsor for this episode surf shark well do you use the internet well of course you do do you have personal information that you'd rather remain personal well i bet you have that as well well let me tell you something the internet can be all kinds of weird there are people out there who just want to ruin your day they want to take your details steal your identity which is a real pain in the ass surf shark though they have something called hack lock this searches database for your passwords which sounds like a bad 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back to the video the building of a roman road usually fell under military responsibility and they even came with a military name via mourinho which is the same that would have been assigned to a fortification for example while the government was responsible for the building of roads around the empire it was the province who were charged with maintaining them certain local officials known as curators viaram were given the unenviable task of raising funds to repair the roads this might be done through donations from citizens with an interest in the road or through largesse which was a format passed down from the ancient greeks in which richer citizens contributed to community projects think of it as sort of an early form of charity or it was done through taxes from the general public now technically travel along the roads was free but bridges towns and cities would have tolls which were dependent on how you were traveling and if you were transporting goods how large or how expensive they were as i said earlier there were guidelines set out for the size of the roads but in reality they measured anywhere between 1.1 meters for the most basic dirt track to 7 meters for the grandest roads that sometimes existed in major cities the romans had a habit of going straight up and down hills or mountains which may have been fine for the physically fit legionaries but it would have been a nightmare if you were dragging a cart it seems that the romans did begin to alter this practice later in the empire with more switchback roads appearing on hillsides curves certainly existed on roman roads but often a turn would be made as sharply as possible almost a right angle in order to retain the sense of directness that the romans apparently loved if you walk over a roman road today it's probably quite bumpy as a result of the concrete between the stones being worn out but it really didn't start like that a high-quality roman road aimed to be as flat and as smooth as possible much like we do today the construction of roman roads was a complex process a civil engineer would first determine roughly where a new road would be laid he was then followed by the surveyor who would mark out the road using metal rods the grommet titsy rodman would then place these rods along a line called the rigor which designated where the road would go the civil engineer would then look down the proposed route and direct the gramertitsy to move the rods when needed the liberators were the workers who would plow the surface down to the bedrock sometimes with the aid of legionnaires this was a process known as the fossa which is the latin word for ditch the depth of the ditch depended greatly on the terrain being excavated but as a rough estimate it would have been between 1 and 1.5 meters the ditch was then filled with numerous layers often depending on what was available in the vicinity the first layer would be small stones followed by rubber or pieces of broken concrete the third layer would probably have been a fine cement made of pounded pot shards and lime the top layer of the road was known as the dorsum and would have been an elliptical surface made of polygon or blocks of saxon quadrate travertine pepperino or whatever stone was native to the area the blocks that comprised the top layer often had their bottom surface cut with grooves so that they would grip the layer below it the surface would have been held together using a lime-based mortar first used by the egyptians around 6000 years ago the upper surface was designed to be water resistant like the shell of a tortoise so it sloped slightly downwards from its highest point in the center on larger more important roads drainage ditches would have been included on either side of the road next to the crepedo which was the pavement for pedestrian use it's difficult to get a good idea about the speed that these roads were built but the care that was taken with them meant that they often required little maintenance if anything they were often better quality than what is very quickly laid down today the ancient romans were also excellent bridge builders and provided some of the earliest large-scale bridges anywhere in the world we recognize the famous arch-shaped stone bridges because they are what has lasted but in reality many bridges would simply have been made of wood a study by the italian scholatorio galeazzo in the 1990s tallied 931 roman bridges across 26 different countries with 800 in europe 74 in asia and 57 in africa some of which are still in use 2 000 years after their construction the largest roman bridge ever constructed was the trajan bridge that spanned the danube though it was only fully functional for 165 years after its completion at 105 a.d it remained the longest bridge in the world for more than a thousand years stretching 1 135 meters in length in total it was composed of 20 masonry pillars and would have been roughly 19 meters high the practice of mile markers is something that continues in most countries to this day with the earliest roman examples appearing on the via appear sometime before 250 bc and elsewhere before 130 bc the panel at eye height would have shown the mileage from that spot to the roman forum as well as all information on the constructor milestones were either circular columns or rectangular and typically driven .61 meters into the ground but standing at least 1.5 meters in height the modern word mile originated from the latin miller parson which meant 1 000 paces and while our modern format for road signs has changed slightly the basic idea does remain the same what use is an incredible system of roads if you don't know where you're going it's very unlikely that many travelers would have been able to use an actual map as they were rare and incredibly expensive instead they would have consulted an itinerarium where we get the modern word itinerary from this was often a basic list of villagers towns and cities along a route with their approximate distances in 44 bc julius caesar commission the first master road itinerary to describe the vast network of roads within his empire three greek geographers were hired to survey the network a process that took them an extraordinary 25 years to complete at which point julius caesar was long gone the stone engraved itinerary was placed near the pantheon in rome where travellers and map sellers could make copies of it [Music] manciones or staying places were early weigh stations that were maintained by the government along the roads usually located about 16 to 19 miles apart the mancions were typically only places to sleep but cowponet inns where you could find refreshments were normally located nearby if the tales are true the manciones did not come with the best reputations and were often considered a good place to either be robbed or find a prostitute or well perhaps both in the early days of roman roads when services were still in their infancy by law houses nearby were required to offer hospitality these kinds of houses eventually grew into the tabernace which is where we get the modern word tavern from and again their reputation tended to be less than squeaky clean but over time these quickly grew and many towns and cities that we have today grew up around an original tabernacle complex two of the largest examples of which are located in the rhineland and alsas [Music] the ancient roman roads also saw one of the earliest forms of postal service the romans used two services one for public use and one for private the curses publicus founded by emperor augustus carried mail by relay throughout the roman road system as a very rough estimate the post would be carried along the routes at a rate of 38 to 62 miles per day though just like today if you have the money things could be significantly sped up with a lone rider in 193 a deal a letter arrived by postal service in alexandria egypt from rome a distance of roughly 2485 miles and was recorded to have taken 63 days to reach its destination while their roads certainly enabled the romans to rapidly build an empire it was also what contributed to their downfall enemy soldiers could use the roads just as the legionnaires could and as rome began to falter its adversaries could pour towards its towns and cities using the same roads that rome had used to defeat them in 476 a.d rome was once again sacked and the emperor was deposed what had once been the greatest empire the world had ever known came crumbling down but while the military presence was no more the roman transportation influence has remained monuments may have been torn down as the oppressed were finally free from the yoke of roman rule but their roads and indeed their system of using them has endured long after so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and do not forget to subscribe brand new videos just like this several times a week and please do 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Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 828,976

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Id: Ak29JrNbxuU

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020