International Superhighways

Another major engineering feat of the Roman Empire was a system of international superhighways.  They are all over Europe.  I walked on Roman roads while I was in England, and while I was Milan.  The most famous, which I walked on while walking around the Forum, was the Appian Way.  It went all the way from Rome to Brindisi, which is interesting because it is one of the two major port cities from which you can depart by overnight ferry for Albania (among other destinations).  I almost went to Albania via Brindisi, but ended up leaving much further north, from Bari, because the schedule worked better.

This is a very excellent video talking about the Appian Way.  (It is 6:12 minute video by WorldSiteGuides.)  It discusses the pruposes for the roads, the impact on the spread and preservation of the Roman Empire, and a discussion of some of the historical sites along the Appian Way.


I also found three very interesting and relevant history channel video clips about Roman highways.  You have to watch ads to see them, but they are quite good.  The first discusses the origin and plan of the highways.  The second talks about the Appian Way and about the engineering aspects of road construction.  The third.  talks about the purposes for the roads and the size of the massive undertaking.  If you click on this link for the first video, all three videos will play in order.  Otherwise, you can also click on this link for the second video, and on this link for the third.

Catacombs and the Underground

One of the places I actually really, really wanted to go (even though I knew I wouldn't get a chance to do so) was the Catacombs.  These were the underground caves and tunnels which held the sewers and aqueducts of the Roman Empire, where Christians used to hide from persecution and used to bury their dead.  More recently, some of them have been used as temples for Catholic and pagan groups worshiping in death cults.

The reason that I knew that I wouldn't get to see the catacombs was because the main entrance to the catacombs was about  5 kilometers, or about a 40 minute walk away.  (In the map below, B is the Colosseum and A is the Catacomb entrance.)  Given the limited amount of time that I had there, there just wasn't any way to see this, but I thought that it would be a lot of fun.

You can see the some of the history of the catacombs in Rome, here, and of the Catacomb of Callixius--or San Callisto--which are the catacombs marked on the map above, here.

This is a picture of the catacombs from Wikipedia Commons.

In the interest of learning more about the catacombs though, I did a little research.  The video below is a tour of these same catacombs done by Rick Steves, who is a very famous travel guide and writer (in fact, my Italian lanaguage guide, which I took with me when I traveled, was written by Rick Steves).  The second half of the 5 minute video is about the Apian Way (which I will talk about later) but the first half is specifically about the Christian burials in the Catacombs and is quite interesting.


This is 3:50 video has a lot of the history of the Catacombs of Callixius and is quite interesting.


This little two minute video (which is also an advertisement for a book on this subject which seems very interesting) discusses the kinds of artwork that you can see in the catacombs, some of which illustrate Bible stories and some of which show scenes of contemporary life and with illustrations of the vocations of the people buried there.


This video (5:28 minutes) talks about a different set of catacombs, named after St. Steven--the one who was killed by being shot to death with arrows, as you can see from the statue of him below.


The History Channel actually has a couple of videos about the aqueduct--I think that they are clips of a larger show.  Also, one of them deals specifically with the Catacombs in Naples, not Rome, but, since I was also in Naples, I think it counts.  (The Catacombs at Naples were also on my list of things to see, but I could not figure out how to work them into my schedule.)  You do have to watch an advertisement before each video but I think that they are pretty interesting (they are both only about 2 minutes long).  This video talks about the history of the catacombs, from two thousand years ago through WWII, which was quite interesting (just as a warning, though, the host does swear a few times, so use discretion).  This video is about the actual engineering that went into providing a water supply for a large city--which is astounding--and the video is quite well done.

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is another iconic structure in Rome that shows up in all kinds of movies and TV shows.  It was finished in the late 18th century, although the planning and construction took over 200 years.  It is built on top of one of the ancient aquaducts that used to supply ancient Rome with water, until it was cut off by the Goths (one of the invading German tribes) in the 6th century.  You can see a 360 degree panorama of the square where the fountain is, right here.

The fountain is so famous that it has its very own website, which you can see here.  The website is pretty interesting as it has a history of the fountain, interesting facts about it, and stories about the statues and images used in the fountain and what they symbolize--the main statue, for instance, is of Ocean, flanked by Health and Abundance, which seem quite appropriate for the commemoration of a fresh water supply.

The fountain is built on the back of the Palazzo Poli, which used to be a center of social activities but which now houses a museum and a library.

(All pictures are from Wikimedia Commons.)