The Appian Way

The story

The road that joined Rome to the sea

In 312 BC the censor Appius Claudius Caecus began work on a road that was destined to become famous throughout the ancient world. The censor was one of the magistrates of the Republic who counted the citizens and also looked after public works. Appius Claudius belonged to a great family, the gens Claudia, and the road took his name: the Appian Way.

In fact it did not start from scratch. The first stretch repaired and widened an existing route between Rome and the Alban Hills, the hills south of the city. Then the road was extended to Capua, in Campania, one of the richest cities of Italy at that time. In the following decades the Appian Way kept growing: in the middle of the 3rd century BC it reached Beneventum, which was then called Maleventum. Later it reached Tarentum and, around 190 BC, the port of Brundisium, where ships left for Greece and the East.

A road built to last

In the end the Appian Way from Rome to Brundisium measured about 540 kilometres. It was about four metres wide, that is, fourteen Roman feet, enough for two carts to pass each other without difficulty. On either side ran two raised pavements, the crepidines, for people on foot.

At first the surface was gravel, that is, small stones that let water through. From about 296 BC, with the intervention of the Ogulnius brothers, two magistrates, large slabs of volcanic stone, called basoli, began to be laid fitted tightly together, starting from the stretch near Rome. Underneath there was not bare ground: the Romans dug a kind of trench and filled it in layers of gravel and earth, so that rainwater drained away and the bed did not turn into mud. A road like this could bear heavy carts, marching legions and traffic for centuries.

The Appian Way was among the first roads to have milestones, stone columns placed at regular intervals to mark distances, like today's signs with kilometres. A Roman mile was about one and a half kilometres, and a traveller always knew how far it was to the next stop. Along the route there were towns and resting places, such as Aricia, Tarracina, Formiae, Minturnae, Sinuessa and Venusia.

Queen of roads

The Romans called it regina viarum, that is, “queen of roads”. For travellers of the time it was an impressive work. Soldiers, merchants, officials, pilgrims and messengers passed along the Appian Way. The government of Rome could move legions to the south in a few days and keep control of the conquered territories. News, goods and people travelled faster.

The road also has a place in the darkest memories of Roman history. In 71 BC, after the defeat of the revolt led by Spartacus, about six thousand captured rebel slaves were put to death along the stretch between Rome and Capua, as a terrible warning to anyone who thought of rebelling. It is an episode we remember with respect for the victims, and it reminds us that the road was also an instrument of power.

After the empire

Augustus, Vespasian, Trajan and Hadrian restored the Appian Way and extended it. Between AD 108 and 110 Trajan had a variant built closer to the coast, the Via Appia Traiana, between Beneventum and Brundisium. After the fall of the Western Empire, in AD 476, maintenance stopped and some stretches were abandoned. Even so, in AD 535, the Byzantine historian Procopius still described it as being in good condition.

In later centuries new roads were built with the same name: the Appia Nuova, by order of Pope Gregory XIII in 1574, and the Appia Pignatelli, opened in 1700. The stretch closest to Rome, the Via Appia Antica, has been very well preserved. Along it are bridges, monumental tombs and the catacombs, underground tunnels where the first Christians buried their dead: those of St Callixtus, St Sebastian and Praetextatus.

In 1988 the Lazio Region created the Appia Antica Regional Park, thanks also to the battles of Antonio Cederna, a journalist and environmentalist who had campaigned against the building of private villas along the road. In 2016 the Appian Way Archaeological Park was also created. In July 2024 UNESCO declared “Via Appia. Regina Viarum” a World Heritage Site, taking in the Appia Antica and the Traiana. Today the Appian Way can be travelled on foot, by bicycle or by car: in some stretches, such as in the Agro Pontino, it is still used by modern traffic.