There are roads and there are roads. There are roads that lead to a city, others to the sea, and yet others to the mountains. Some go up, others go down; wide streets and narrow ones, streets that go north, ones that go south. And there are streets that defy geometry and time and lead everywhere. They go forward and at the same time reach back in time. You look down to check your place – your feet are firmly planted on the path that you are treading, but already you realize that you are in another era, wandering in the mists of memory. The Appian Way is one of those roads that pass through the heart of the Infinite, an Infinite of endless horizons suspended between the branches of magnificent Roman pines. It is the Infinite of history, of days past, of men who stopped here to wonder at the marvels of the world and of time. And in a moment, a man draped in a black cloak rushes past us, and it seems that we have just been brushed by Julius Caesar, or Saint Paul, or Michelangelo Buonarotti.
The Appian Way was the first great road project, conceived of a simple but daring idea, and realized by radically innovative technologies. The idea was to link Rome and Capua, a Greek colony in the region of Campania and an important gateway to the Mediterranean and the East. The total distance was 195 kilometers (131 miles). Work began in 312 BC and was completed in barely two years. This first version was not properly paved, but simply had a bed of gravel. The first pavement, done in “saxo quadrato,” i.e., with rectangular stones placed side by side. It was completed in 296 BC and ran from the Capuan Gate at the walls of the city to the Temple of Mars, about one mile. According to Titus Livy, the Roman historian of the first century BC, three years later the pavement was extended to Bovillae, thus covering about twelve miles.
Before the construction of the ancient Appian Way, Romans could reach Capua via the Latina Way, a road that ran through the interior and up into the hills of the Lazio, rendering the voyage rather inconvenient. The idea ws to build a direct road, avoiding the hills and valleys, and running across the plains wherever possible. To accomplish this, the Roman engineers brought in loads of earth for landfill, built support walls, levelled small rises, and raised embankments to contain the excess waters of torrential rains. Incorporating the original portion, the first ninety kilometres of the new road ran in an unbroken straight line, with just a few bends and curves built to preserve temples and other inviolable spots. It was a colossal undertaking, stupefying by its technical audacity. The road was dubbed the Queen of All Roads and Mistress of All Adventures to Come. Certainly for travellers, this vista that ran on into infinity must have been the source of fantiastic dreams and deeds of great daring. We catch an echo of this even today as we try to fix our eyes on a horizon that shimmers in the heat between great pines, giving us an unexpected sense of vertigo.
The Appian Way was also the first road to run directly from its point of origin to its destination without passing through other cities along its way. With an incredible knowledge of the terrain, Rome’s engineers built the road to run not through the town of Velletri, for example, but rather only near it. It was then possible to reach the Appian Way by means of a simple access road, much the way that one might do with a modern interstate highway. But this road was not all road: for a stretch of some nineteen miles, the “road” was in fact a canal. The trip was continued aboard a raft pulled along by animals walking along the banks. This allowed for a direct route through the marshland, avoiding a long and time-consuming detour. There was one significant problem, however: mosquitoes. The writer, Horace, tells of travellers being swarmed and covered with bites. The emperor Trajan took matters in hand at the end of the first century AD, draining the marshes and completing the construction of this stretch in stone. And he did even more: in order to avoid curves and rises in the road near the town of Terracina, he had a series of spurs cut from the cliffs nearby, allowing the road to continue directly along the coast. In the meantime, the road had been lengthened considerably, reflecting the great military campaigns and the extension of Roman territory. In 268 BC, it was extended to Benevento, then on to Taranto and Brindisi, a clear indication of Rome’s determination to conquer the lands of the East. It was thus possible to go from Rome to Capua with horse-pulled carts in five or six days, and from Rome to Brindisi in about thirteen. Along the road were numerous stations for the changing of horses (mutationes) and small inns and lodges (mansiones) for eating, drinking, and resting.
What was the political situation in Rome in 312 BC that sparked this fantastic endeavor? Rome was embroiled in the Second Sannic War, fighting for control of the southern part of the peninsula. In 338 BC, Rome had won the war with the Latini, thus definitively securing their dominion over the peoples of the Lazio. In much the same way, the Sanniti originally from the hills and valleys of the central areas of southern Italy, had conquered a number of cities of Magna Grecia (that is, the great Greek cities of the south), with the exception of Taranto and Capua, which had remained independent. In the final confrontation between the two powers, Capua, threatened by the Sanniti, had requested the aid of the Romans, who, thrilled to have an excuse to advance into Campania, immediately placed them under the protection of the Republic. The Romans then had greater need than ever to be able to move troops rapidly from the city the war front. So there were strictly military reasons, supported by solid economic interests, which were growing constantly as trade increased with the Greek colonies, with Sicily, Africa, and with the East.
On the domestic political front in 312 BC, the roman Republic, already firmly established for over two hundred years, was led by various magistrates. It was one of these politicians, the censor Appius Claudius, who wished the road to be built, a road that carried his name. Even this was something entirely new. This same Appius, in the same year, had the first aquaduct built, a system that was given the name of Aqua Appia. It was a system of conduits, part above ground (great sections of which can still be seen today) and part underground, especially for the sections running inside the walls, bringing water into the heart of the city, into the Boarian Forum and the Circus Maximus. It is also worth noting that while most roads took their names either from their principal use (e.g., the Salarian Way, used mainly for the transport of salt) or from their destinations (e.g., the Prenestinian Way, which led to the town of Prenestina), the Appian Way was the first road to carry the name of the Roman magistrate who had had it constructed. It was the first of many and was a significant milestone in Roman history. It was in fact a time of great territorial expansion, but also one of important political and ideological developments.
It was during this period that the differences between the classes of Roman society became ever more accentuated. On the one hand, the aristocracy, whose wealth was founded on the possession of great tracts of land; on the other, the class of emerging artists and merchants, the so-called plebs, who, while having begun to amass great stores of money, had virtually no political relevance. A certain Appius Claudius, orator, writer, man of great culture, was possessed of far-seeing political vision. Although born into a patrician family, and thus tied to the aristocracy, enacted a series of important reforms that offered political rights to the plebian élite and opened the gates of the senatorial ranks to some of these freemen. In the history of literature and Roman politics, Appius Claudius was the first public figure of that we hold in memory , and it is no coincidence that it is during a time of significant Roman expansion, development, and affirmation of its influence. It is, in fact, the fourth century BC Republic that produced the splendid bronze bust with glass eyes, held in the Capitoline Museums and known as the Brutus Capitolinus. The emergence of the first political figure of the Roman world of whom we have real memory, marks the beginning of a seemingly inexorable progression toward what in the late Republic and early Empire will become a real cult of personality. We do not know the date of Appius Claudius’ death with any certainty, but it is probable that he was already quite advanced in years and nearly blind in 280 BC, when he delivered a celebrated oration in the Senate against Pirro, the king. Hence his being known to history as Appius Claudius the Blind.
The Appian Way through the Centuries: Because the Appian Way was raised to a height somewhat above ground level for most of its length, it offered splendid views of the surrounding countryside. Perhaps this also is one of the many often poetic factors that have contributed to the road’s eternal romance and appeal. Barely twenty years after its foundation, the great Scipio family erected its imposing family tomb at the beginning of the road. From that time on, Romans always considered it a sign of social prestige to have a family villa or tomb along the Appian Way. Over the centuries, these constructions increased in number and in beauty, and the road quickly became a symbol of greatness, simultaneously rendering honor to the living, the dead, and to the glory of their invincible city. Even up to the time of the collapse of the empire and into the medieval period, the Appian Way maintained an important role as the primary connection between Rome and Constantinople, the new capitol of what remained of the Roman Empire. In the High Middle Ages, though, the road was abandoned in favor of the old Latin Way during this time of great sacks, devastation and destruction.
Not until the Renaissance was the road rediscovered. At the end of the 16th century, Paolo Lancellotti, a representative of the Council, made an impassioned speech that led to the senatorial decree putting an end to the demolition of the imposing Tomb of Cecilia Metella. It was being dismantled at the orders of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, who planned to use the marble and other precious stones in the construction of his own sumptuous residence near Tivoli, the still impressive Villa d’Este of the infinite fountains. Nonetheless, the road appeared in the middle of the 19th century the way that it had appeared for hundreds of years. Little stretches of it surfaced here and there, often on private pastureland, or buried beneath or incorporated into other structures. In about 1850 the pontifical government commissioned the architect Luigi Canina to begin excavating the stretch of road between the fourth and eight miles. The road’s history continues today in the Parco Archeologico dell’Appia Antica and in excavations that continue to retrieve the past in an ongoing search for the lost road.
We invite you to take a journey along this road, this friend, with a light heart, a mystic abandon, filling your lungs with the air of an ancient past. Through half-closed eyes, among the rocks and the ruins, between temples and tombs, you can almost catch a glimpse of a cloaked rider, a weary pilgrim, a contented merchant, a soldier returning home, sillouhetted against a slice of an amber and azure sky. This is travelling in its truest sense, for every road carries us a bit further in space and time, and ever closer to ourselves than we had dreamed possible. And the journey never ends if this is the Mother, the Queen of All Roads, the Nobilissima, as the Romans called her… if the road carries the Infinite within her… Buona Passaggiata.
|
