"The Queen of Roads."--_Statius._
The Appian Way was the great southern road from Rome. It led through
Capua to Brundusium, which then as now was the port for the East. It
was first made as a regular roadway in B.C. 312. "The censorship of
Appius Claudius and Caius Plautius for this year (A.U.C. 441) was
remarkable; but the name of Appius has been handed down with more
celebrity to posterity on account of his having made the road, called
after him the Appian" (Livy, ix. 28). But a road existed here before
this, for at least part of the way, evidently to Capua (A.U.C. 414).
"They came in hostile array to the eighth stone on the road which is
now the Appian" (Livy, vii. 39).
Statius gives some particulars as to how it was made. "First they cut
two parallel furrows to indicate the width of the road, and then they
cut down between those until they came to the hard bottom, and then
began the levelling. As the construction proceeded, the road assumed a
slightly convex shape. The middle or top was called the _dorsum_, or
back-bone of the way; or, as it is called in Virgil, "in aggere viæ."
Roads that were left in the rough material were said to be _munitæ_,
but when covered with cut polygonal blocks they were called _stratæ
viæ_."
Procopius, the secretary of Belisarius in the sixth century, thus
describes the Appian Way:--"To traverse the Appian Way is a distance
of five days' journey for a good walker; it leads from Rome to Capua.
Its breadth is such that two chariots may meet upon it and pass each
other without interruption; and its magnificence surpasses that of all
other roads. In constructing this great work, Appius caused the
materials to be brought from a great distance, so as to have all the
stones hard, and of the nature of mill-stones, such as are not to be
found in this part of the country. Having ordered this material to be
smoothed and polished, the stones were cut in corresponding angles, so
as to bite together in jointures without the intervention of copper or
any other material to bind them; and in this manner they were so
firmly united, that on looking at them we would say they had not been
put together by art, but had grown so upon the spot. And,
notwithstanding the wearing of so many ages, being traversed daily by
a multitude of vehicles and all sorts of cattle, they still remain
unmoved; nor can the least trace of ruin or waste be observed upon
these stones, neither do they appear to have lost any of their
beautiful polish. And such is the Appian Way."
The road was lined with temples, villas, and tombs; for it was the
custom of the Romans to bury their dead on either side of the
principal roads leading from the city. It was against the law to bury
inside the walls, which was seldom permitted, and then only as a great
honour.
"When thou hast gone out of the Capena Gate, and beholdest the
sepulchres of the Colatini, of the Scipios, of the Servilii, and of
the Metelli, canst thou deem the buried inmates wretched?" (Cicero).
_Passing under the_ Arch of Constantine, _down the_ Via Triumphalis
(Via d' S. Gregorio), _we turn to the left_; passing a rope walk, _the
first gate on the left admits to a vineyard_. The cottage is erected
on the site of