Showing posts with label Roman Roads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Roads. Show all posts

Saturday, June 27, 2020

CASSIAN WAY

VIA CASSIA
Via Cassia

The origins are uncertain as rather uncertain is the identification of the public figure (curator or consul) who gave it its name
The two most likely “Cassius Longinus” may be the Cassius Longinus censor on 154 BC or the Cassius Longinus consul on 127 BC, the first one being more plausible than the other
The road used to link and connect various pre-existing Etruscan paths
Leaving the Fontinalis Gate of the Servian Walls, the first part, the Via Lata, was common with the Via Flaminia. The two roads parted after the Milvian Bridge
The Via Cassia separated from the Via Clodia at the ninth mile, where currently La Storta area is

Towards the tenth kilometer, in an area which is within the city today, there is the so-called Tomb of Nero, which also gives its name to the area, despite the sarcophagus roadside actually contains the remains of Publius Vibius Marianus prefect of the third Gallic legion
At the end of the second century BC it was extended to Florentia (now Florence) and then up to Luni through Pistoia and Lucca

Trajan (98/117) had a new stretch of the road built between Orvieto and Chiusi, which was known as VIA TRAIANA NOVA
After the year 774, the year of the defeat of the Lombards by the Franks, most of the road was used by pilgrims traveling between France and Rome and that’s when it took the name of VIA FRANCIGENA, the most important European street in the Middle Ages

AURELIAN WAY

VIA AURELIA
Via Aurelia

 241 BC for the consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta on a former Etruscan route

The VIA AURELIA VETUS was 134 km (83 miles) long starting in Rome from the Sublicius Bridge, leaving Rome through Porta San Pancrazio, to end up in Cosa, today's Ansedonia, in Tuscany. It was later extended to Pisa
After Pisa it deflected east toward Lucca avoiding the northern coast of Versilia, from Migliarino Pisano until Luni, for the presence of the warlike Apuan people which made the area a dangerous one

It was Julius Caesar in 56 BC to instruct Marco Emilio Scaurus to build the shortcut directly from Pisa to Luni, the current Sarzanese Provincial Road 
It was eventually extended to Genoa and Augustus (27 BC / 14 AD) had it extended until Massalia (modern Marseille) as the Via Julia Augusta
Antoninus Pius (138/161) had it extended to Arles (Gaul Narborense) coming to the length of 936 km (581 miles) and taking the name of VIA AURELIA NOVA

On the site of MALAGROTTA (Mola rupta), 12 km (7.4 miles) from Porta S. Pancrazio, were found paved stretches of the ancient Via Aurelia and the tower tomb called Monumentum Magnum Rotundum

Also along Via di Malagrotta, near the largest landfill in Europe, was found a necropolis, not far from the necropolis of Via Castel Malnome-Piana del Sole, where over 300 burials have come to light
The name Malarupta, later Malarotta and finally Malagrotta, derives from a grinding wheel on the Galeria River remains of which are still visible