The roman way, Part. 1

To -400, Romain used runways to move of Rome towards the surrounding cities.  The raid of the  Gauls of Brennus, which will turn out disastrous for Romain in -390, will so be the first revelation of the ineffectiveness of the defensive system of Rome, owed mainly to the slowness of progress of the troops on the paths of the period. The necessity of a better defense allied to a will of expansion and hegemony on Italy leads a Roman Republic still fragile and threatened from the outside to set up a network of robust stone and relay roads, better adapted to its needs. These axes allowed a faster and easier circulation for the storekeepers), but also the quick transfers of the troops.

The first way was built in -312 by Appius Claudius Caecus to connect Rome to Capua : the  Via Appia, the Appian way. At the end of the Roman Republic, the whole territory of the Italian peninsula was provided with these main trunk roads, every road bearing the name of the consul which had created it. These ways were paved only exceptionally: inside cities and in their neighborhoods ( excepted the  Appia way, who was gradually paved on all her route. Somewhere else sands and aggregates were taken in open quarries nearby. It seems that of the ground  was able to cover pavements to limit the discomfort. Somewhere else, these roads were made by sand or  by gravels, all this in a hole and covered with a stony paving stone.