Via Severiana was an ancient

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

in central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

leading in

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whi ...

(modern

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

), running southeast from

Portus Portus was a large artificial harbour of Ancient Rome. Sited on the north bank of the north mouth of the Tiber, on the Tyrrhenian coast, it was established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. The archae ...

Tarracina Terracina is an Italian city and ''comune'' of the province of Latina, located on the coast southeast of Rome on the Via Appia ( by rail). The site has been continuously occupied since antiquity. History Ancient times Terracina appears in anci ...

(passing trought the

Isola Sacra Isola Sacra (the Holy Isle) is situated in the Lazio region of Italy south of Rome, near the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is part of the town of Fiumicino. Overview The area between Portus and Ostia Antica was transformed into an artificial island by Emper ...

), a distance of 80 Roman miles (c. ) along the coast. A restoration and reunion of existing roads was carried out with a work of lastrification in 198–209AD, during the reign of emperor

Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa (Roman province), Africa. As a young man he advanced thro ...

(from which the road would have taken its name), in order to connect more quickly the maritime towns of Ostia,

Lavinium Lavinium was a port city of Latium, to the south of Rome, midway between the Tiber river at Ostia and Antium. The coastline then, as now, was a long strip of beach. Lavinium was on a hill at the southernmost edge of the ''Silva Laurentina'', a ...

, Ardea,

Antium Antium was an ancient coastal town in Latium, south of Rome. An oppidum was founded by people of Latial culture (11th century BC or the beginning of the 1st millennium BC), then it was the main stronghold of the Volsci people until it was conquere ...

and the routes that came there from Rome. Thomas Ashby said that it would have run along the shore only at first: just behind the line of villas which fronted the sea – which are now some inland – or even upon its edge (for an inscription records its being damaged by the waves); farther southeast the road would seem to have kept rather more distant from the shore, and it probably kept within the lagoons below the Circean promontory. Although the remains of the via Severiana are scanty, there are traces of at least two

Roman bridges The Ancient Rome, ancient Romans were the first civilization to build large, permanent bridges. Early Roman bridges used techniques introduced by Etruscan civilization, Etruscan Immigration, immigrants, but the Romans improved those skills, deve ...

along the road: on the border between

Laurentum Laurentum was an ancient Roman city of Latium situated between Ostia and Lavinium, on the west coast of the Italian Peninsula southwest of Rome. Roman writers regarded it as the original capital of Italy, before Lavinium assumed that role afte ...

and Ostia there was one, which according to an inscription was restored by the emperors

Carus Marcus Aurelius Carus (c. 222 – July or August 283) was Roman emperor from 282 to 283. During his short reign, Carus fought the Germanic tribes and Sarmatians along the Danube frontier with success. He died while campaigning against th ...

and

Carinus Marcus Aurelius Carinus (died 285) was Roman emperor from 283 to 285. The elder son of emperor Carus, he was first appointed ''Caesar'' and in the beginning of 283 co-emperor of the western portion of the empire by his father. Official accoun ...

, and the second one is located in the area of

Torre Astura 260px, The medieval coastal Tower of the Frangipani. Torre Astura, formerly an island called by the ancients merely Astura (Greek: ), is now a peninsula in the ''comune'' of Nettuno, on the coast of Latium, Italy, at the southeast extremity of the ...

(ancient Astura). The

Tabula Peutingeriana ' (Latin Language, Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire. The m ...

, a map considered datable to the 4th century AD (or ca. 250 AD ), shows an anonymous Roman road that crossed several stations (stationes), including Hostis (Ostia, the starting point), Laurentum, Lavinium, Antium, Astura and Tarracina (Ardea is not present). According to an orientation, the road represented in the Tabula would be only apparently coastal (it was considered that the stretch that ran from Lavinium to Antium would have been internal), therefore unidentifiable with the Via Severiana,Paola Brandizzi Vittucci, ''Antium: Anzio e Nettuno in epoca romana'', Roma, Bardi Editore, 2000 (in Italian). which instead, according to a theory, never detached from the sea. It was also believed that the name Severiana attributed to the road would be actually a modern conception.

References

External links

Page about Via Severania excavations
Severiana, Via Septimius Severus {{Italy-road-stub

See also

References

External links