Analysis busts myths of Roman road network — and offers insight into ancient world

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A new analysis of the road network of the Roman Empire has dispelled the enduring myth that all roads lead to Rome, showing instead that other important cities — such as Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul — were more central in the network.

“When we look at all terrestrial transport in the entire Roman Empire, there’s one path that is the most central path going through the empire itself, and that path doesn’t go through Rome,” said Tom Brughmans, an associate professor in the School of Culture and Society at Denmark’s Aarhus University and coauthor of the new analysis, published Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

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At its greatest extent , in AD 117, the Roman Empire spanned from Britain to the edge of the Sahara, covering parts of Europe, Asia and Africa over about 2.1 million square miles (5.5 million square kilometers). Rome was at the heart of the empire politically and economically, but geography made it more central to Mediterranean shipping than the road system.

“The Italian peninsula is just this land appendix sticking out into the Mediterranean,” Brughmans said, “so the most central path passed through the North African coast, then east through modern-day Turkey and cities like Antioch and Ankara, and then through Constantinople, before heading north of Rome, through Milan.”

In 324, the Roman emperor Constantine I moved the empire’s capital for strategic and economic reasons from Rome to Constantinople, which until then was named Byzantium, so it’s not surprising that the city was prominent in the road network.

The analysis by Brughmans and his colleagues is based on Itiner-e , a digital atlas of the Roman road network that was published last year and is accessible online.

Compiled using historical sources, excavation reports, satellite imagery and previous datasets, Itiner-e contains 186,000 miles (nearly 300,000 kilometers) of roads. However, within the atlas, the location of only 2.7% of the roads is known with certainty, with about 90% of the map less precisely known and about 7% simply hypothesized.

In the new analysis, which considered parameters such as the roads’ elevation, orientation and slope, the researchers also looked at other widely held assumptions about Roman roads. They demonstrated that these roads weren’t as straight as commonly thought, and that while some key modern-day routes follow the same path as ancient Roman roadways, many others — even if labeled as Roman — don’t.

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The proverb “all roads lead to Rome” dates to medieval times. It first appeared in writing in 1175 by the French poet Alain de Lille, who wrote the phrase “Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam” in Latin, meaning “A thousand roads lead men forever to Rome.”

The importance of the road network was very evident to the Romans themselves: In 20 BC, the emperor Augustus placed a “ golden milestone ” in the Roman Forum as a symbolic source of the main roads in the empire. The milestone is widely interpreted as having played a role in the rise of the myth, although the modern meaning of “all roads lead to Rome” is not literal, but rather that there are different ways to reach a goal or result.

“It’s a medieval proverb, not an ancient one, and it indicates the symbolic centrality of this massive capital for this continental-scale empire,” Brughmans said.

“Rome was on a nexus of major shipping lanes, and also where the government was, so it was definitely central. The unfortunate bit is the roads bit,” he added. “Perhaps what reinforced this myth is that there was a system of major roads that was used by the emperors to administer the regions and share information, like a communication network, and Rome was depicted as being at the center of that major road network. The persistence of this proverb is incredible, even though it’s demonstrably false.”

Stunning map of ancient roads will give you a good reason to think about the Roman Empire more often

The researchers also verified whether Roman roads were uniformly straight, noting that while there is some truth to this widespread assumption — as well as surviving examples of straight Roman roads such as the Appian Way in Rome — the Romans had to contend with terrain and technical limitations.

“If the topography allowed them to build straight roads, then they would build those straight roads,” Brughmans said. “But if the topography made it hard, then the roads would be wiggly.”

Where the landscape allowed, the Romans indeed built straight roads, especially in lowland regions such as Western Europe and North Africa. However, even these roads were not as straight as modern ones, mostly due to engineering constraints.

“We also proved a surprising degree of persistence between Roman roads and major modern roads,” Brughmans added. “It is absolutely exceptional that there is this ancient infrastructure that is still visible and that still determines the way in which people interact in the present day.”

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Examples include Via Augusta, which spans almost 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from Gades (modern-day Cádiz) in the south of Spain to the Pyrenees in France. In the city of Tarragona, in Spain, the ancient road crosses a triumphal arch called Arc de Berà, while a modern-built road runs to the side of it. This arrangement, Brughmans said, illustrates one of the ways in which ancient Roman passageways have survived, with contemporary, larger paved roads running roughly along the old path. In other cases, people can still walk along Roman routes, such as the Appian Way, which features some of the original volcanic stones that the Romans expertly laid .

However, most of the ancient road network has now disappeared or ended up being buried over the centuries. And not all “Roman roads” are actually Roman, according to Brughmans.

“Everywhere in Europe, in North Africa, in the Middle East, you’ve got roads that are called Roman Way — Römerstraße in German or Calzada Romana in Spanish — but so many of these are not really Roman roads,” he said. “This kind of demonstrates how persistent the idea is that the Romans had such an impact on infrastructure, the assumption being that if we see a straight road that is quite impressive and a bit old, it’s probably Roman, even though that’s not quite true everywhere.”

The results of the study are remarkable, but rather than revolutionizing earlier assumptions, they confirm and demonstrate mathematically something that had been previously described only in broad terms, according to Francesca Fulminante, a senior research fellow in the department of anthropology and archaeology at England’s University of Bristol. She was not part of the new analysis.

The dataset of the road network is not fully accurate in all regions, she said in an email, but the issue does not detract from the results and is quite common for such a large-scale project.

Brughmans also noted that while the Romans built many roads, they also inherited some from areas they conquered, meaning their control over the structure of the network was somewhat limited. The researchers behind the analysis said that their work isn’t finished and they plan to add river and sea connections to the network in the future.

The findings of the study are important because they provide a deeper understanding of the Roman road system as well as reusable data to improve future models, said Sarah E. Bond, an associate professor in the department of history at the University of Iowa. She also didn’t participate in the work.

“An improved reconstruction of the Roman road system continues to fill in gaps in our knowledge of the ancient world,” Bond said via email. “Roads provide us better insight into how other things — beyond just donkeys, wagons, merchants and the occasional camel — travelled along roads. Things like religious beliefs, philosophical ideas, and even disease hitched a ride on the vehicles used to move goods and peoples from place to place.”

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The analysis also allows for some myth busting, she added.

“Instead of blithely repeating the common notion that Roman roads were all uniformly straight, historians, archaeologists, and the general public can add a caveat,” she said.

“Yes, Roman road systems were most often straight when the topography allowed it, but were also reactive surfaces. Roman surveyors responded to elevation changes, dips into river valleys, topographical features like mountains, and the natural lay of the land.”

These findings were made possible through the work of previous digital projects that constructed maps of the ancient world before Itiner-e and “helped to blaze the trails within the field,” Bond noted.

“All in all, this is a fantastic project that will only spawn new and more accurate models of the ancient world.”

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对罗马帝国道路网络的一项新分析打破了“所有道路都通向罗马”这一由来已久的迷思，表明其他重要城市——如君士坦丁堡或现代的伊斯坦布尔——在道路网络中占据着更为中心的位置。

“当我们审视整个罗马帝国的所有陆路交通时，会发现有一条贯穿帝国的最中心路线，而这条路线并不经过罗马城，”丹麦奥胡斯大学文化与社会学院副教授、周二发表在科学期刊《自然通讯》上的这项新分析的合著者汤姆·布鲁曼斯说道。

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公元117年，罗马帝国疆域鼎盛，从不列颠一直延伸到撒哈拉沙漠边缘，横跨欧洲、亚洲和非洲的部分地区，面积约210万平方英里（550万平方公里）。罗马是帝国的政治和经济中心，但其地理位置使其在地中海航运中的地位比公路系统更为重要。

布鲁曼斯说：“意大利半岛就像一块伸入地中海的陆地附肢，所以最中心的路线穿过北非海岸，然后向东穿过今天的土耳其和安条克、安卡拉等城市，然后穿过君士坦丁堡，再向北穿过罗马，经过米兰。”

公元 324 年，罗马皇帝君士坦丁一世出于战略和经济原因，将帝国首都从罗马迁至君士坦丁堡。君士坦丁堡在此之前被称为拜占庭，因此这座城市在道路网络中占据重要地位也就不足为奇了。

Brughmans 和他的同事们的分析基于 Itiner-e，这是一个罗马道路网络的数字地图集，于去年出版，可在线访问。

Itiner-e地图集利用历史资料、考古发掘报告、卫星图像和以往数据集编制而成，包含18.6万英里（近30万公里）的道路。然而，该地图集中仅有2.7%的道路位置能够确定，约90%的道路位置不太精确，约7%的道路位置仅为推测。

在这项新的分析中，研究人员考虑了道路的海拔、方向和坡度等参数，并考察了其他一些关于罗马道路的普遍认知。他们证明，这些道路并不像人们通常认为的那样笔直，而且虽然一些重要的现代道路与古罗马道路的走向相同，但许多其他道路——即使被标记为罗马道路——也并非如此。

汤姆·布鲁曼斯/供图/路透社

“条条大路通罗马”这句谚语可以追溯到中世纪。它最早出现在1175年，由法国诗人阿兰·德·利勒用拉丁语写下了“Mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam”，意思是“千条路通罗马”。

道路网络的重要性对罗马人来说显而易见：公元前20年，奥古斯都皇帝在罗马广场竖立了一块“金里程碑”，作为帝国主要道路的象征。这块里程碑被广泛认为在“条条大路通罗马”这一神话的兴起中发挥了作用，尽管现代意义上的“条条大路通罗马”并非字面意义上的，而是指通往同一目标或结果有多种途径。

布鲁曼斯说：“这是一句中世纪谚语，而不是古代谚语，它表明这座庞大的首都对于这个横跨大陆的帝国具有象征性的中心地位。”

“罗马位于主要航道的交汇点，也是政府所在地，因此它无疑是中心城市。可惜的是，它的道路状况并不理想，”他补充道。“或许正是因为当时存在着一套主要道路系统，皇帝们利用这些道路来管理各个地区并共享信息，就像一个通信网络，而罗马被描绘成这个主要道路网络的中心，才强化了这种误解。尽管这句谚语显然是错误的，但它的流传至今仍然令人难以置信。”

这张令人惊叹的古代道路地图会让你更有理由经常思考罗马帝国。

研究人员还验证了罗马道路是否都是笔直的，并指出虽然这种普遍的假设有一定的道理——而且罗马的阿庇亚大道等笔直的罗马道路也确实存在——但罗马人不得不面对地形和技术上的限制。

布鲁曼斯说：“如果地形允许修建笔直的道路，他们就会修建笔直的道路。但如果地形不允许，那么道路就会蜿蜒曲折。”

在地形允许的情况下，罗马人确实修建了笔直的道路，尤其是在西欧和北非等低地地区。然而，即使是这些道路，也远不如现代道路笔直，这主要是由于当时的工程技术限制。

布鲁曼斯补充道：“我们还发现，罗马道路与现代主要道路之间存在着令人惊讶的延续性。这些古代基础设施至今仍然可见，并且仍然决定着人们在当今的互动方式，这绝对是非同寻常的。”

雷莫·卡西利/路透社

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例如，奥古斯塔大道（Via Augusta）从西班牙南部的加的斯（今西班牙加的斯）一直延伸到法国的比利牛斯山脉，全长近1600公里（1000英里）。在西班牙的塔拉戈纳市，这条古道穿过一座名为贝拉拱门（Arc de Berà）的凯旋门，而一条现代道路则在其旁边延伸。布鲁曼斯表示，这种布局体现了古罗马通道得以保存至今的一种方式，即现代的、更宽阔的铺砌道路大致沿着古道延伸。在其他一些地方，人们仍然可以沿着罗马古道行走，例如阿庇亚古道（Appian Way），这条古道上至今仍保留着罗马人当年精心铺设的火山石。

然而，大部分古代道路网络如今已消失或被掩埋在历史长河中。而且，布鲁曼斯指出，并非所有“罗马道路”都确为罗马时期的道路。

“在欧洲各地、北非、中东，到处都有被称为‘罗马大道’的道路——德语叫Römerstraße，西班牙语叫Calzada Romana——但其中很多并非真正的罗马道路，”他说道。“这在某种程度上表明，人们根深蒂固地认为罗马人对基础设施产生了巨大影响，他们想当然地认为，如果我们看到一条笔直、气势恢宏且略显古老的道路，它很可能就是罗马道路，尽管这种说法并非在所有地方都成立。”

这项研究的结果令人瞩目，但据英国布里斯托大学人类学与考古学系高级研究员弗朗西斯卡·富尔米南特（Francesca Fulminante）称，它并没有颠覆之前的假设，而是用数学方法证实并证明了一些之前仅被粗略描述过的现象。她并未参与这项新的分析。

她在电子邮件中表示，道路网络数据集并非在所有地区都完全准确，但这个问题不会影响结果，而且对于如此大规模的项目来说，这种情况相当普遍。

布鲁曼斯还指出，虽然罗马人修建了许多道路，但他们也继承了一些来自征服地区的道路，这意味着他们对道路网络结构的控制在一定程度上是有限的。负责这项分析的研究人员表示，他们的工作尚未完成，未来计划将河流和海洋连接也纳入到道路网络中。

爱荷华大学历史系副教授莎拉·E·邦德表示，这项研究的发现意义重大，因为它不仅加深了我们对罗马道路系统的理解，还提供了可重复使用的数据，有助于改进未来的模型。她本人并未参与这项研究。

邦德在电子邮件中表示：“对罗马道路系统的改进重建不断填补着我们对古代世界认知的空白。道路让我们更好地了解除了驴、马车、商人和偶尔出现的骆驼之外，其他事物是如何沿着道路传播的。宗教信仰、哲学思想，甚至疾病都搭乘着用于运送货物和人口的交通工具，从一个地方传播到另一个地方。”

埃曼纽尔·钱卡利尼/盖蒂图片社

科学家称，罗马建筑为何能保存如此之久的谜团已被解开。

她补充说，这项分析还有助于破除一些迷思。

“与其轻率地重复罗马道路都是笔直的这种普遍观点，历史学家、考古学家和普通民众可以补充一点，”她说。

“是的，罗马道路系统在地形允许的情况下大多是笔直的，但路面也是会根据地形变化而变化的。罗马测量员会根据海拔变化、河谷的凹陷、山脉等地形特征以及地势的自然走向来规划道路。”

邦德指出，这些发现得益于之前数字项目的工作，这些项​​目在 Itiner-e 之前构建了古代世界的地图，“帮助开辟了该领域的道路”。

“总而言之，这是一个非常棒的项目，它只会催生出更多、更精确的古代世界模型。”