INLAND ROADS

The uncertainties surrounding the Via Severiana have led to a further debate about the existence of a coastal road and about inland roads. In 1998 Paola Brandizzi Vittucci made important progress, elaborating earlier work by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti. She investigated distances in miles between cities and settlements on the Tabula Peutingeriana and the Itinerarium provinciarum Antonini Augusti, a copy of a Roman map and a Roman travel guide, both from the 3rd and 4th century AD (see the image on the starting page).

On the Tabula Peutingeriana the distance between Ostia (Hostis) and Laurento is 16 miles, the distance between Laurento and Lavinium (Pratica di Mare) 6 miles. We might think that with Laurento the Vicus Augustanus Laurentium, a settlement on the coast, is meant (it will be described in detail later). However, the 16 miles are then problematic. Starting in Ostia they take us far beyond the settlement, to Ardea. Similarly the distance on the Tabula between Rome and Laurento, 12 miles, is far too small to reach the coast. Brandizzi Vittucci notes that the 12 miles can be explained if we assume that with the Laurento of the Tabula an important three-way junction is meant, inland, near Castel Romano and Casale di Trigoria (she also notes that Trigoria may have been derived from the Greek tri-odia, the Latin trivium). No traces of a settlement have been found here, so Laurento would be a reference to the general area. The distance between the three-way junction and Lavinium conincides with the 6 miles between Laurento and Lavinium. Brandizzi Vittucci then suggests, that with the 16 miles between Ostia and Laurento the distance between Ostia and Lavinium is meant, composed of a coastal road and stretches of inland roads via the three-way junction Laurento.

Map with the suggested course of inland roads and the roads leading to Rome, Ostia and Antium.
Brandizzi Vittucci 1998, fig. 3.

A modern three-way junction in the Castel Romano area.

A second problem is that of the existence of a coastal road further to the south-east, whether it was called Via Severiana or not. The area from Tor Paterno to Antium and Terracina was no easy terrain. Geologists have established the existence in Roman times of lagoons in the area, separated from the sea by dunes. In the early first century AD Strabo describes the area as follows:

All Latium is blest with fertility and produces everything, except for a few districts that are on the seaboard - I mean all those districts that are marshy and sickly, such as those of the Ardeatae, and those between Antium and Lanuvium as far as the Pomptine Plain, and certain districts in the territory of Setia and the country round about Tarracina and the Circaeum.

Strabo, Geography V,3,5. Translation H.L. Jones.

So was there a coastal road between the suggested starting point of the Via Severiana (Tor Paterno), Antium and Terracina? Such a road could have passed between the sea and the lagoons, through the dunes. Archaeological remains have not been found, but an inscription suggests that it existed. It was found in the early 20th century in the Capocotta area, and informs us that in 190 AD Commodus "made and dedicated a bridge to avoid the risk of inundation". This may not have been a true bridge, but rather a viaduct, a raising of the road in the wet area. As to the stretch between Lavinium and Antium, Brandizzi Vittucci opts for a road close to the sea, passing localities Casale La Fossa and Tor San Lorenzo.

The inscription from 190 AD with the text pontem arcendae inundationis gratia fecit dedicavitque.
Photo: Cébeillac-Gervasoni - Zevi 2010, fig. 25.6.