The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: Via Appia) was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, Apulia, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius[1][2]:

Appia teritur regina longarum viarum "the Appian way is commonly said to be the queen of the long roads"

The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC during the Samnite Wars.

Origins

The need for roads

The Roman army depended for its success on the use of bases in which to prepare for battle and to refresh and re-equip afterwards. Bases allowed the Romans to keep a large number of soldiers in the field waiting for the opportunity to strike. However, the bases needed to be connected by good roads for easy access and supply from Rome. The Appian Way was used as a main route for military supplies since its construction for that purpose in the mid-4th century BC.

The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome.(this was essential to the Romans) The few roads outside the early city were Etruscan and went mainly to Etruria. By the late Republic, the Romans had expanded over most of Italy and were masters of road construction. Their roads began at Rome, where the master itinerarium, or list of destinations along the roads, was located, and extended to the borders of their domain - hence the expression, "All roads lead to Rome."

The Samnite Wars

Rome had an affinity for the people of Campania, who, like themselves, traced their backgrounds to the Etruscans. The Samnite Wars were instigated by the Samnites when Rome attempted to ally itself with the city of Capua in Campania. The Italic speakers in Latium had long ago been subdued and incorporated into the Roman state. They were responsible for changing Rome from a primarily Etruscan to a primarily Italic state.

Dense populations of sovereign Samnites remained in the mountains north of Capua, which is just north of the Greek city of Neapolis. Around 343 BC, Rome and Capua attempted to form an alliance, a first step toward a closer unity. The Samnites reacted with military force.

The barrier of the Pontine Marshes

Between Capua and Rome lay the Pontine Marshes (Pomptinae paludes), a swamp infested with malaria. A tortuous coastal road wound between Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber and Neapolis. The via Latina followed its ancient and scarcely more accessible path along the foothills of Monti Laziali and Monti Lepini, which are visible towering over the former marsh.

In the First Samnite War (343 BC-341 BC) the Romans found they could not support or resupply troops in the field against the Samnites across the marsh. A revolt of the Latin League drained their resources further. They gave up the attempted alliance and settled with Samnium.

Colonization to the southeast

The Romans were only biding their time while they looked for a solution. The first answer was the colonia, a "cultivation" of settlers from Rome, who would maintain a permanent base of operations. The Second Samnite War (327 BC-304 BC) erupted when Rome attempted to place a colony at Cales in 334 BC and again at Fregellae in 328 on the other side of the marshes. The Samnites, now a major power after defeating the Greeks of Tarentum, occupied Neapolis to try and ensure its loyalty. The Neapolitans appealed to Rome, which sent an army and expelled the Samnites from Neapolis.

Colonies alone apparently were not the answer. In 321 BC, a Roman army was trapped in the mountain passes north of Capua, at Caudium. At the Battle of the Caudine Forks they were kept penned in without supplies, especially water, until the Senate bought their release in exchange for a 5-year treaty the Romans considered humiliating, by which they provided hostages and gave up the colonies. Rome used the time to defeat the Italic tribes around Samnium. In 316 BC, at the end of the treaty, Samnium again opened hostilities against Rome, which was defeated at the Battle of Lautulae in 315 BC. By 312 BC, the situation was bleak for Rome and became bleaker when, in 311 BC, the Etruscans in Etruria and Campania defected to the Samnites.

Appius Claudius' beginning of the works

In 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus became censor at Rome. He was of the gens Claudia, who were patricians descended from the Sabines taken into the early Roman state. He had been given the name of the founding ancestor of the gens. He was a populist, i.e., an advocate of the common people. A man of inner perspicacity, in the years of success he was said to have lost his outer vision and thus acquired the name caecus, "blind".

Without waiting to be told what to do by the Senate, Appius Claudius began bold public works to address the supply problem. An aqueduct (the Aqua Appia) secured the water supply of the city of Rome. By far the best known project was the road, which ran across the Pontine Marshes to the coast northwest of Naples, where it turned north to Capua. On it, any number of fresh troops could be sped to the theatre of operations, and supplies could be moved en masse to Roman bases without hindrance by either enemy or terrain. It is no surprise that, after his term as censor, Appius Claudius became consul twice, subsequently held other offices, and was a respected consultant to the state even during his later years.

The success of the road

The road achieved its purpose. The outcome of the Second Samnite War was at last favorable to Rome. In a series of blows the Romans reversed their fortunes, bringing Etruria to the table in 311 BC, the very year of their revolt, and Samnium in 304. The road was the main factor that allowed them to concentrate their forces sufficiently rapidly and keep them adequately supplied to become a formidable opponent.

Construction of the road

The main part of the Appian Way was started and finished in 312 BC.

The road began as a leveled dirt road upon which small stones and mortar were laid. Upon this gravel was laid, which was finally topped with tight fitting, and interlocking stones to provide a flat surface. Some of the stones were said to fit so well that you could not slide a knife into the cracks.The road was crested in the middle (for water runoff) and had ditches on either side of the road which were protected by retaining walls.

Between Rome and Lake Albano

The road began in the Forum Romanum, passed through the Servian Wall at the porta Capena, went through a cutting in the clivus Martis, and left the city. For this stretch of the road, the builders used the via Latina. The building of the Aurelian Wall centuries later required the placing of another gate, the Porta Appia. Outside of Rome the new via Appia went through well-to-do suburbs along the via Norba, the ancient track to the Alban hills, where Norba was situated. The road at the time was a via glarea, a gravel road. The Romans built a high-quality road, with layers of cemented stone over a layer of small stones, crowned, drainage ditches on either side, low retaining walls on sunken portions, and dirt pathways for sidewalks. The via Appia is believed to have been the first Roman road to feature the use of lime cement. The materials were volcanic rock. The surface was said to have been so smooth that you could not distinguish the joints. The Roman section still exists and is lined with monuments of all periods, although the cement has eroded out of the joints, leaving a very rough surface.

Across the marsh

The road concedes nothing to the Alban hills, but goes straight through them over cuts and fills. The gradients are steep. Then it enters the former Pomptine Marshes. A stone causeway of about 19 miles led across stagnant and foul-smelling pools blocked from the sea by sand dunes. Appius Claudius planned to drain the marsh, taking up earlier attempts, but he failed. The causeway and its bridges subsequently needed constant repair. No one enjoyed crossing the marsh. In 162 BC, Marcus Cornelius Cathegus had a canal constructed along the road to relieve the traffic and provide an alternative when the road was being repaired. Romans preferred using the canal.

Along the coast

The via Appia picked up the coastal road at Tarracina. However, the Romans straightened it somewhat with cuttings, which form cliffs today. From there the road swerved north to Capua, where, for the time being, it ended. Caudine Forks was not far to the north. The itinerary was Aricia (Ariccia), Tres Tabernae, Forum Appii, Tarracina (Terracina), Fundi (Fondi), Formiae (Formia), Minturnae (Minturno), Sinuessa (Mondragone), Casilinum and Capua, but some of these were colonies added after the Samnite Wars. The distance was 132 miles. The original road had no milestones, as they were not yet in use. A few survive from later times, including a first milestone near the porta Appia.

Extension to Beneventum

The Third Samnite War (298 BC-290 BC) is perhaps misnamed. It was an all-out attempt by all the neighbors of Rome: Italics, Etruscans and Gauls, to check the power of Rome. The Samnites were the leading people of the conspiracy. Rome dealt the northerners a crushing blow at the Battle of Sentinum in Umbria in 295 BC. The Samnites fought on alone. Rome now placed 13 colonies in Campania and Samnium. It must have been during this time that they extended the via Appia 35 miles beyond Capua past the Caudine forks to a place the Samnites called Maloenton, “passage of the flocks.” The itinerary added Calatia, Caudium and Beneventum (not yet called that). Here also ended the via Latina.

Extension to Apulia and Calabria

By 290 BC, all was over for the sovereignty of the Samnites. The heel of Italy lay open to the Romans. The dates are somewhat uncertain and there is considerable variation in the sources, but during the Third Samnite War the Romans seem to have extended the road to Venusia, where they placed a colony of 20,000 men. After that they were at Tarentum.

Roman expansion alarmed Tarentum, the leading city of the Greek presence (Magna Graecia) in southern Italy. They hired the mercenary king King Pyrrhus of Epirus in neighboring Greece to fight the Romans on their behalf. In 280 BC the Romans suffered a defeat at the hands of Pyrrhus at the Battle of Heraclea on the coast west of Tarentum. The battle was costly for both sides, prompting Pyrrhus to remark "One more such victory and I am lost." Making the best of it, the Roman army turned on Greek Rhegium and effected a massacre of Pyrrhian partisans there.

Rather than pursue them, Pyrrhus went straight for Rome along the via Appia and then the via Latina. He knew that if he continued on the via Appia he could be trapped in the marsh. Wary of such entrapment on the via Latina also, he withdrew without fighting after encountering opposition at Anagni. Wintering in Campania, he withdrew to Apulia in 279 BC, where, pursued by the Romans, he won a second costly victory at the Battle of Asculum. Withdrawing from Apulia for a Sicilian interlude, he returned to Apulia in 275 and started for Campania up the nice Roman road.

Supplied by that same road, the Romans successfully defended the region against Pyrrhus, crushing his army in a two-day fight at the Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC. The Romans renamed the town from "Maleventum" (ill wind) to Beneventum (beneficial wind) as a result. Pyrrhus withdrew to Greece, where he died in a street fight in Argos in 272 BC. Tarentum fell to the Romans that same year, who proceeded to consolidated their rule over all of Italy.[3]