Pathways of Pompeii

 An amateur road nerd's impression of the roads of Pompeii

Jake Graham.

The second day of the Roman history study abroad trip led our class to the ancient site of Pompeii. The sight of ancient dwellings and public spaces such as the amphitheater and the forum were mesmerizing. However, I couldn't help but notice that the thing that connected all of these wonderful places within Pompeii together was being overlooked by nearly all tourists who passed by me. Infact these people were stepping, running, jumping, and spilling water bottles on it! 

What is this archaeological masterpiece that I'm referring to you might wonder? It is the roads of Pompeii itself. The thing that I find fascinating is the fact that these roads are nearly 2000 years old and still serve a purpose for Pompeii to this day through modern tourism. These same roads that facilitated the hustle and bustle of a city full of Romans is still facilitating the swarms of tourists who flood the streets daily. To me this is a testament to how long lasting and reliable Roman roads are compared to the contemporary roads that I'm used to near my home that break apart in under five years.

These roads look pretty good for being almost 2 millennia, don't they?

Photo by Jake Graham

Scholarship admits that there is a lack of technical treatises uncovered on how Roman roads were built (Michele Matiazzi, 167). Alas, not all is lost since it is pretty straightforward to dismantle a road to examine its materials and stages of construction.

Graphic on Roman Road construction (Michele Miazzi, 168).

As somebody who has worked in modern road construction, this graphic shows that the complexity of the Roman process was similar to that of modern-day practices. I did notice some wear and tear on the stone surface of the roads in Pompeii which is not to say that they are bad roads. These roads lasted for nearly two millennia which is incredibly astounding. 

The wear and tear on the roads can actually tell us a lot about the city around them. I encountered wheel indentations on nearly all roads in Pompeii which demonstrates the commercial capacity of Pompeii. Another thing that I noticed about the wheel ruts is that they are in such positions that suggest that the wagons followed a defined path on the roadways. I do not recall seeing two sets of different wagon ruts beside each other. I am no archaeologist of course and was only at the site of Ancient Pompeii for one day but my amateur tourist impression is that wagons followed a designated path on the roads, rather than all willy nilly.

Wheel ruts on the streets of Pompeii. Photo by Jake Graham.

Something that I found particularly interesting is that Pompeii had crosswalks for people in the form of leaping stones to cross roadways. The fact that Pompeii had sidewalks and rudimentary designated crosswalks blew my mind away. 

In future posts I plan to compare and contrast Roman roads throughout different locations. I am interested in this topic because it is fascinating to see how something that connects us to an abundance of commodities and ease of travel to destinations was functionally the same as today for the Romans 2000 years ago.

Here I am overjoyed with a road in Pompeii. Roads are cool.

 Bibliography

Matteazzi, Michele. “Road Building in Roman Times: an Insight from Northern Italy.” The Journal of The Roman Roads Association 3, (June 2023): 167-194. (PDF) Road Building in Roman Times: an Insight from Northern Italy (researchgate.net).