Roman Road System Essay

The Romans were not the first to build roads; the Greeks, Persians, and Etruscans had begun building roads long before the Romans. However, none of the roads built before the Romans were engineered to such a degree of skill that the Romans had employed when they began building roads, which took place as early as the fourth century BC and continued until well into the fourth century AD. Furthermore, no other nation at the time had a true system of roads that was available for everyone to use; the use of roads was typically restricted to certain individuals. Breaking this president paved the way for the Roman road system to make history through its various impacts, notably in how it provided solid unification and largely extended the life expectancy

To begin, the lines of where a road was to be placed was marked with a line called a rigor, which was then observed and corrected by a surveyor until it was “in line”. With the formation of the grid system of roads, a tool called a groma was used to measure right angles. This tool also aided in measuring out the straightness of roads, although straightness was not a primary concern to the Romans. In terms of defense, straight roads were not advantageous due to the ability for enemies to anticipate movements. In any case, due the hilly and often mountainous terrain throughout the Roman Empire, it was impossible to always make roads straight or perfectly aligned anyway. Rather, they used “directional straightness”, making the road as straight as possible under all circumstances (Wolfgang

For example, traffic congestion was a large issue that required much attention to regulate. Additionally, the overall maintenance of road conditions was brought to the forefront around the third and fourth centuries AD with increased foot traffic from armies travelling on the