Italy for Ancient Rome Fans 2025: The Sites Beyond the Guidebook

How the Romans built their roads — and why they lasted 2,000 years

Roman road construction (via construction technique described by Vitruvius in De Architectura, c. 25 BC) used a layered system: the statumen (foundation layer of large stones, 30-45cm deep, set in a mortar of lime and sand), the rudus (intermediate layer of rubble cemented with lime mortar), the nucleus (fine gravel, lime mortar, and potsherds compacted into a smooth surface), and the summum dorsum (top surface of fitted stone or gravel, cambered to shed water). The cross-sectional shape (crowned in the center, with drainage channels at the sides) ensured that water ran off rather than pooling and undermining the foundation. The result: Rome's network of 85,000km of roads (of which 29 major roads radiated from Rome — all roads leading to Rome is accurate) was so structurally sound that many sections of Via Appia, Via Flaminia, and Via Aurelia survive as actual drivable or walkable surfaces 2,000 years later. The specific section of Via Appia between the Tomb of Cecilia Metella and the Casal Rotondo (4km southeast of Rome's Aurelian Wall) is intact and walkable on original Roman basalt blocks — the most direct physical contact with Roman infrastructure available without an excavation ticket.