Road Stories

Roman roads: 100,000 km of freeways built 2,000 years ago - the contribution of Augustus

Illustrations ©Authors

In our contemporary, postmodern world, a world where we are used to see all values and certainties crumble down or melt like snow in the sun, I feel I ought to start by providing the readers with a rock-like certainty: I am not a historian. I am just curious. And one day, out of my curiosity, I came across a map of the consular roads, the highways of ancient Rome. It was a map looking like the one below in illustration 1.

What would you say about that? Is it a déjà vu? Or is it just following the principle of "all over again" in history?