Roman roads didn’t all lead to Rome, research suggests

A team of researchers, including Czech scientist Adam Pažout, analyzed the largest map ever created of the ancient Roman road network and found evidence that challenges existing understanding of how the Romans built their empire.

The study indicates that the saying “all roads lead to Rome” is inaccurate, as the empire maintained an efficient administration that wouldn’t logically funnel most roads to a single, centrally located city. Researchers discovered that provincial capitals often held central positions within regional road networks.

This suggests the Romans carefully planned the placement of these centers and the roads connecting them, both within provinces and across the empire, to support administration, taxation, and military presence. The team also found that Byzantium, later Constantinople, was a key center, possibly even more important than Rome itself, particularly after becoming the empire’s capital in the fourth century. The study also revealed that Roman roads weren’t uniformly built to the same high standard.

While the Romans were skilled engineers, they constructed roads to match the terrain, meaning not all were straight and meticulously paved like the famous Via Appia in Rome. Furthermore, the connection between Roman roads and modern roads is weaker than previously believed, with many ancient routes lost to time or altered after the Industrial Revolution.

The researchers acknowledge that mapping the full evolution of the road network over time remains a challenge due to incomplete data and varying research standards across the vast territory of the former Roman Empire.