Roman Roads Map: 22 Maps of Forts, Walls and the Empire

Search MapIndex for Roman roads and 419 maps come back; Hadrian’s Wall alone brings 431. Their makers cite like scholars. One gives the page in Margary’s book for every road in Britain, an Italian club photographs the Via Appia milestone by milestone, and a German road tracer reads lost routes out of field names such as “Millewiss”, the milestone meadow. Others follow a single legion through North Africa, a centurion from York to Dacia, or Hadrian himself from Antioch to Tarsus, day by day.

1. Roman Roads Map of Britain: Margary Routes, 116 Milestones

   Every road on this atlas carries its source: “Margary 1967 pp.287-8” for one of Codrington’s routes, “Viatores 1964 pp.179-85” for another. Margary’s main routes, principal branches and minor branches each get a layer, with the roads proposed by Codrington, Bishop and Cox beside them. The 116 milestones go by their number in the Roman Inscriptions of Britain: seven stones at Bitterne by Southampton (RIB 2222 to 2228), seven more at Crindledykes near Vindolanda, and the London Stone, marked “Uninscribed. Milliarium ?”. A layer of 64 inscribed lead pigs clusters in the Mendip Hills, and the maker, mikethebikeuk, adds 116 battlefields, from “?Natanleaga (508)” to Culloden in 1746.

   

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   1,432775 points, 657 lines

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2. Roman Empire Roads Map: 434 Routes From Town to Town

   5,361 stretches of road across 52 of today’s countries, sorted into 434 layers, and every stretch is named by the two towns it joins. Near Rome they come thick: Rome-Portus, Rome-Ostia, Rome-Ardea, Rome-Vicus Augustanus Laurentium. Further out the names alone tell the geography of the empire: Verulamium-Londinium and Londinium-Calleva in Britain, Ilici-Carthago Nova in Spain, Carthago-Hippo Regius in Africa, Apollonia-Antiochia in Pisidia in Anatolia.

   

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   5,36147 points, 5,314 lines

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   TürkiyeItalyFranceand 49 more

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3. Hadrian's Wall Map: Forts, Milecastles and Every Wall Mile

   “Broad Gauge wall, 10Rft (2.74-2.97m) wide, but reduced to only 6Rft (1.83m) wide immediately west of the Planetrees exposed length”: this map, drawn in 2006 for the Per Lineam Valli website, splits the wall into numbered wall miles and gives each one its width and a page in the Handbook. In the west the stone gives way to the Turf Wall, a turf rampart 20 Roman feet wide. Sixteen layers separate curtain wall, ditch, Vallum, Military Way, Stanegate, milecastles, turrets, gateways, quarries and temporary camps; forts carry their Latin names in capitals, Halton Chesters ONNVM and Great Chesters AESICA. The survey goes on past Bowness down the Cumbrian coast, milefortlet by milefortlet to Maryport (ALAVNA) and Moresby (GABROSENTVM), and even marks a “Milecastle 0?”, “Suggested by Hill 2001”. The line of the National Trail comes with a warning: not to be used “for navigation, obfuscation, or cogitation”.

   

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   694375 points, 302 lines, 17 areas

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4. Lost Roman Road Map: Reims to Cologne by Field Names

   A German road tracer follows the Roman road from Reims to Cologne and Trier as a cycling route, and lets the old field names do the talking. “Auf der Warth” on the Kalkberg probably marks a watch and signal tower; at Niederanven the “Millewiss” is a milestone meadow; near Luxembourg the “Leubesch”, a holy grove, “could point to a temple”. South of Tannay, Roman road packing lies as coarse stone in the field for a kilometre, and the field there is called “Grand Corvée”, the great drudgery. In southern Belgium the road is still “Le Grand Haut Chemin”, or “BruneHaut”.

   

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   461413 points, 48 lines

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   BelgiumGermanyFranceand 1 more

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5. Roman Empire Map: 45 Provinces Down to Pompeii's Odeon

   45 provinces from Achaea to Thracia, each a polygon with its history: Arabia Petraea was annexed “probably after 22 March, AD 106” after the death of the Nabataean king Rabbel II. Below them lie 5,979 objects sorted by what they were, not where: civic buildings, entertainment, funerary, industry and trade, homes, temples, the army, roads and walls. Towns give their modern name and founding date, Aquae Sextiae is Aix-en-Provence, 123 BC. Pompeii is mapped building by building, down to its brothels, the gladiators’ barracks and the small roofed Odeon of 80 to 75 BC that held 1,500 spectators.

   

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   5,9795,930 points, 2 lines, 47 areas

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   ItalyUnited KingdomTürkiyeand 40 more

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6. Varus Battle Map: Germania in 16 AD

   A wall with a ditch in front, found in the 2016 trench “Schneise 1” at Kalkriese, may belong to a marching camp for some 3,000 to 4,000 men, if further digging confirms its line; the map draws both the trench and the possible camp of Varus. Around it lies Germany during the campaigns of Germanicus: camps dated to the year (Hedemünden 11/10 to 8/7 BC, the main camp at Haltern 7 BC), the Roman town at Waldgirmes around 4 BC, and tribal areas after Tausend and Stangl, “estimates, not borders”. For the “pontes longi”, the battlefield of Idistaviso and the Angrivarian wall, every proposed location gets a pin with the scholar and the year, from Paul Höfner in 1885 to Wilm Brepohl in 2008.

   

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   143113 points, 9 lines, 21 areas

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   GermanyNetherlandsSwitzerlandand 4 more

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7. Hadrian's Wall Inscriptions Map: Altars of Coventina's Well

   In 1876 a well at Carrawburgh fort gave up altar after altar to the goddess Coventina, and this map places each stone with its Latin text and a translation. Aurelius Crotus, “a German”, fulfilled a vow; Maduhus, also German, set one up “for himself and his own”; two prefects of the First Cohort of Batavians dedicated theirs. A few metres away, three altars to Mithras came out of the mithraeum in 1949 and 1950. The 49 stones also include a tombstone for Longinus, trumpeter of the Batavians, one from the decurion Nobilianus for “a most dear wife”, Aelia Comindus, 32 years old, and a fragment “found 1964 when making the car park”.

   

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   4947 points, 1 line, 1 area

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8. Via Appia Map: A Road Club's Survey, Milestone by Milestone

   The Amici delle strade romane walk Roman roads and number what they find, each point with its height, municipality and photos. On the Via Appia, POI 057 marks the end of the first straight from Porta Capena, 24 km long; POI 094 the two milestones at Tor Tre Ponti, one of the emperor Nerva; POI 056 the viaduct at Ariccia, 230 metres long and 13 high. On the Via Flaminia “militare”, 1,132 m up on Poggio Castelluccio, two members study “the rediscovered route”, and on the third road, from Rennes to Carhaix in Brittany, POI 39 is a milestone of Septimius Severus.

   

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   461417 points, 44 lines

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9. Roman Scotland Map: 244 Camps, Forts and Coin Finds

   244 Roman temporary camps, each with its Canmore record and parish, are only one layer of this map of Roman Scotland. Others hold the Antonine Wall, fortlets, roads, harbours (some only possible) from Cramond and Carpow down to Richborough and Boulogne, and coins with their dates: fieldwalking outside the camp at East Mid Lamberkin produced an as of Vespasian of AD 71, “a surprising number of early coins”, and a coin of Honorius turned up at Campmuir. The museum layer rates what to expect: Annan has “friendly staff”, Cumbernauld a “small section on Romans”.

   

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   2,4051,145 points, 593 lines, 667 areas

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10. Roman Aqueducts Map: Rome's Water From Source to City

    Each aqueduct of ancient Rome is drawn from its source to its terminus with a short record: who built it, when, how many points the line has and which stretches were checked against GPS surveys and the heritage office. The Aqua Appia of the censor Appius Claudius in 312 BC; the Anio Vetus of 272 to 269 BC; the Aqua Alsietina of about 2 BC, which ran from Lake Martignano to the naumachia of Augustus in Trastevere; the Aqua Alexandrina of AD 226. Its 559 objects add the ruins, arch by arch, with their later history: at the arches of the Alexandrina a note recalls how Pope Hadrian I restored the main aqueducts to keep Rome’s churches supplied.

    

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    559258 points, 301 lines

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11. Roman Empire Map in Japanese: From Rome to Chang'an

    Written in Japanese, this map follows the Roman roads along modern routes, “not intended to be exact”, and then keeps going east: past Kara-Khoto and Ceylon to Chang’an and the Later Han, with the sea trade routes in between. The notes are long and local. Near Valence, the RN7 is built on the old Via Agrippa, and a crossroads there is still called Sept Chemins; at Luna, the Etruscan border town, the map explains who held the land before Rome arrived.

    

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    1,420649 points, 424 lines, 347 areas

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    FranceTürkiyeItalyand 123 more

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12. Roman Roads of France Map: 105 Milestones and Street Names

    Many of these roads are argued from names: “Chemin de la Calade”, a street called “Chemin de l’Oppidum”, a toponym on the IGN map. Where the line is guessed, the layer says so, as under the D140 at Weitbruch, “imagined” from the position of a milestone, the land registry and today’s boundaries. The 105 milestones carry the detail: one reused as the base of a cross still reads “to the emperor Titus Aelius Hadrian Antoninus… 31 thousand paces”; a “leugaire” counts the Gaulish league of 2,415 m instead of the Roman mile; four stones grouped at Roquefort-des-Corbières are called “surprising”. Many note whether they can still be seen.

    

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    2,3021,828 points, 473 lines, 1 area

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    FranceBelgiumSwitzerlandand 4 more

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13. Roman Legion Map: Legio III Augusta in North Africa

    One legion’s life story, pinned to the places where it happened and written in Italian. In 36 BC four legions desert Lepidus in Sicily; by AD 6 the Third is at Ammaedara, from AD 70 at Lambaesis; in AD 14 its men build the road from Tacapae (Gabès) to Theveste (Tébessa). Severus renames it Pia Vindex and has forts built in the desert at Ghadames, Gheriat el-Garbia and Gholaia; after the revolt of Gordian in 238 it is disbanded and its men sent to Germany, until Valerian restores it at Lambaesis in 253. The Fossa Regia, “the first stretch of the African limes”, runs through the middle.

    

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    7460 points, 11 lines, 3 areas

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    TunisiaAlgeriaLibyaand 7 more

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14. Roman Marching Camps Map: Scotland by Campaign and Acreage

    Andy_edinburgh sorts 27 temporary camps by the size classes archaeologists use to date them. The “165-acre chain” lines Dere Street, from St Leonards Hill at Lauder to Pathhead, for the Severan march of AD 208 to 211; the 120-acre class reaches Balmakewan and Muiryfold in the north-east; Keithock belongs to the “c.63-acre series”. The Flavian camps of Agricola’s time are told by their gates: Stracathro is the type site of the clavicula gateway, Dunning a c.117-acre camp tied to the first campaign season of AD 83 to 84, and the huge camp at Durno has been linked with Mons Graupius.

    

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15. Roman Soldier's Journey Map: York to Rome and Dacia

    Vederius Ligustus starts as second centurion of the Ninth Hispana at Eburacum and travels the length of the empire, one paragraph per stop. Londinium has changed completely in twenty years, with a brand new yellow-painted basilica; at Portus Dubris he remembers only the two lighthouses, visible in the evening “from four or five miles inland”; Bonna is “memorable only as the start of the limes”. Rome announces itself by smell before he sees it. The 38 places end in Dacia, with the routes of the Roman armies, the winter camp and the capital Sarmizegetusa, “built in a series of concentric rings”.

    

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    3835 points, 3 lines

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    RomaniaItalyHungaryand 7 more

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16. Roman Army Units Map: Cohorts, Fleets and Aerial Finds

    42,972 objects in 245 layers: one person’s map of ancient Europe, kept in German. Each auxiliary unit gets a layer of its own, from Cohors I Aelia Brittonum to Cohors I Thebaeorum, its inscriptions linked to the epigraphic database; the Classis Britannica layer holds an altar to Neptune set up by Lucius Aufidius Pantera, prefect of the British fleet. Around the Roman army lie the author’s other interests: old roads, the map of Abraham Ortelius of 1594, a “Belchen system” of sunrise alignments, and a layer of the author’s own aerial photo finds, linked to the Bavarian and Thuringian geoportals.

    

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    42,97230,209 points, 12,649 lines, 114 areas

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    GermanyFranceItalyand 83 more

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17. Mithraeum Map: 172 Temples of Mithras

    The temple under the Circus Maximus came to light in 1932, when a wing of the Palazzo dei Musei di Roma was rebuilt as a warehouse for the opera. Each of these 172 sites of the Mithras cult has a note like that. At Ostia, the Mithraeum of the Seven Gates is named after the doors in its floor mosaic, the seven planets the souls of the initiates must pass; the one in the Chapel of the Three Naves was linked to Mithras only recently, because its mosaic shows a pig. Santa Prisca has frescoes of initiates in procession, Carrawburgh on Hadrian’s Wall three building stages. A layer of Eastern Mithraea adds Garni in Armenia and Nemrut Dağı.

    

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    172172 points

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18. Roman Portugal Map: Roads, Mansiones and Camps of Lusitania

    The archaeology centre of Viseu maps Roman Portugal from the registered sites of the Endovélico database and beyond. The mansiones of the Antonine Itinerary between Lisbon and Mérida are placed with their doubts: Abelterium at Alter do Chão “next to the football pitch”, Ad Septem Aras with a question mark. Possible military sites carry their reasons: Alto da Cerca would have controlled the northern access to the Três Minas mining region, Alto dos Cacos at Almeirim sits on the road to Mérida. In Lisbon the remains of the aqueduct of Olisipo run parallel to the 18th-century one.

    

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    1,3631,213 points, 150 lines

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19. Hadrian's Travels Map: Antioch to Tarsus, October 117

    Hadrian leaves Antioch “around the 6th October” 117. This map reconstructs his road west day by day from the distances of the Itinerarium Burdigalense and ORBIS’s fastest route on foot: 16 miles to Pagrae on the 7th or 8th, Alexandria ad Issum on the 8th, Mopsuestia on the 10th, Adana on the 11th, Tarsus on the 12th and Mopsucrene on 13 October. Each station names its type, mansio, mutatio or civitas, and between them lie the Syrian Gates and the border between Syria and Cilicia.

    

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    2120 points, 1 line

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20. Roman Cities Map: Nearly 1,400 Towns by Size

    Carthage covered 343 hectares, the refounded Corinth 241, Nicopolis in Epirus 174, and Hadrianopolis in Albania just 18. Based on J. W. Hanson’s research, nearly 1,400 cities and towns of 100 BC to AD 300 each get the same record: ancient and modern name, province, size, whether they had significant monuments and whether they became a colonia, a municipium or a provincial capital. A second layer draws the empire at its height in AD 117.

    

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    1,3891,388 points, 1 area

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    ItalyTürkiyeGreeceand 32 more

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21. German Limes Map: Forts and Watchtowers Along the Frontier

    The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, fort by fort along its numbered ORL routes, from Kastell Zugmantel and the Saalburg in the Taunus to Eining-Abusina on the Danube, “80 AD - 5th century AD”. Some forts name their garrison, such as the Cohors III Bracaraugustanorum equitata at Theilenhofen; watchtowers go by their numbers, and at Wp 1/9 a reconstructed wooden tower now serves as a lookout. Points link Flickr photo albums, and Marköbel a post of the blog Following Hadrian on the year the army put up its wooden palisade, AD 120.

    

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    167162 points, 5 lines

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22. Roman Shipwreck Map: Agrippina's Night at Sea

    Made for a university seminar on Hans Blumenberg’s “Shipwreck with Spectator”, this map retells Nero’s attempt to drown his mother in the Bay of Naples. Agrippina sets out from Antium, meets her son at Baiae, where the rigged ship waits, survives its collapse and swims, wounded in the shoulder, until boats bring her to her villa; Tacitus is quoted in Latin. Another layer follows the Roman fleet of 255 BC, sent to take off the survivors of the battle of Tunes, to its catastrophe off Kamarina that July, citing Polybius and Livy; the last ones hold the empire’s trade routes and a selection of Roman shipwrecks.

    

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    13692 points, 44 lines

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    ItalyFranceGreeceand 13 more

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