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The Beautiful Network of Ancient Roman Roads (2015)
- hourago 4y ago> Along these roads ran messengers, as a type of precursor to the American Pony Express a relay of horsemen could carry a message 50 miles a day. Is there any real connection between both? It sounds strange. Relay horses seems just an obvious solution to tired horses when you give more priority to speed than cost.
- bombcar 4y agoI think they're just pointing out that they use relay horses. I wonder how many times in history that's been both possible and needed - the expense is relatively high compared to sending a single rider.
- jmclnx 4y agoIf I remember correctly, from what I read, relay horses allowed the message to arrive faster. Horses get tired too, so after a certain distance the rider would get a fresh horse.
- ciupicri 4y agoBy the way see the Man versus Horse Marathon [1] which proves that horses aren't that fast on long distances, in this particular case 22 miles (35 km). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon
- ghaff 4y agoFor all its role in Americana, the Pony Express lasted something like 18 months having come in just prior to the telegraph.
- tomcam 4y agoZero connection. Just literary license.
- superb-owl 4y agoI recently came across a piece of a Roman road while hiking the Pyrenees. Astounding to see something that old, and to realize just how far the Roman empire extended.
- Lio 4y agoI was riding Peddar’s Way[1] in England last year. It was an old Roman road but I was told by someone on the trail it actually dates back to pre-Roman Britain. That blew my mind. To walk or ride roads so old and yet so unchanged. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peddars_Way https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peddars_Way
- trhway 4y agoThe quality of Roman road construction was very good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads#Via_munita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads#Via_munita
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Lio 4y ago> spanned from Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland Straight off the bat that’s wrong. Hadrian’s Wall is in England not Scotland. I guess they could be thinking of Antonine’s Wall but that’s a different story.
- ghaff 4y agoIn general, I agree. Although in the context of the actual quote, there was so much back and forth trading of land in northern England over the centuries that to say Hadrian's Wall was in at least partly in Scotland at one point isn't necessarily wrong.
- Lio 4y agoSorry but no. Common myth. The wall has never formed an England Scotland border.
- ggm 4y agoOne of those "technically true, the best kind" things. Raised north of the wall in Edinburgh, I was very aware how Northumberland was similar to my landscape and mentality of the locals. They have bagpipes. the TH in thumber leads to asking if its a T and Humber and it does refer to the river Humber, its the land north of the humber. It makes you think how Yorkshire leads there. Certainly the Jacobites didn't pause long at Hadrians wall heading south, the last time England was invaded at scale (They got as far south as Derbyshire) North of Hadrians Wall is sometimes treated as more Scottish than not. South is the other way round. So not a border, but instead perhaps, a boundary which encompasses Scotland more than not? The Border Reivers crossed the Tweed, the badlands north of Hadrians wall were part and parcel of a cross-border community which made its own laws, and in turn led to laws against them. The border was .. mutable. Hadrian's wall was not the border.
- dghf 4y ago> the TH in thumber leads to asking if its a T and Humber and it does refer to the river Humber, its the land north of the humber. It makes you think how Yorkshire leads there. IIRC, Northumberland was the only part of Northumbria that didn't get absorbed into the Danelaw (the swathe of north and central England conquered and settled by Vikings from the late 800s), which is why it retains the name of the former, much larger region.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoWe have many in the South of England. As a kid I walked and biked them. Most are dirt trails now, grown over. But if you look on maps it's clear they are the shortest, straight path between major towns. Modern roads twist and turn around them. I am showing my embarrassing ignorance of history here, but I don't know why that happened. Maybe something to do with land rights, and the "enclosures"? Anyway something important was lost in the communication systems of England between the Roman era and today.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoSee The Rolling English Road By G. K. Chesterton https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48212/the-rolling-english-road https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48212/the-rolling-eng... :-)
- nonrandomstring 4y ago"The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head." Thanks for that delight. So we shall blame alcohol? "The cause of and solution to so many of lifes problems." :)
- Rexxar 4y agoModern road don't only try to minimize the distance but also other factor like slopes. If you look at old railroads there is a very big constraints on slope and you will see very complex trajectories in hilly places.
- scythe 4y agoModern railroads typically have extremely tight restraints on slope. This allows trains to be longer and reduces overall shipping costs. In fact, the desire to make railroads less steep has led Americans to do incredible things, like building the Whittier Access Tunnel (and the port of Whittier at all) to avoid trains going uphill coming from Seward. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittier,_Alaska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_Glacier_Highway#Anton_Anderson_Memorial_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_Glacier_Highway#Anton_... https://www.cookinlethistoricalsociety.org/articles/opening-of-the-whittier-tunnel-1942-1943 https://www.cookinlethistoricalsociety.org/articles/opening-...
- jjtheblunt 4y ago> Via Appia was also the site where, in 71 BCE, around 6000 members of Spartacus’s slave army were crucified on the hillsides. Ignorant question: did Romans kill people on crosses before the Christian era?
- overkalix 4y agoThe cross became a symbol of Christianity because Jesus was crucified, not the other way around. Moreover, crucifixion is just a pragmatic approach to traditional public executions. Many societies have used trees and walls to hang, kill and display the executed their necks broken, beaten to death, lashed, lynched, asfixiated, left to die of thirst or exposure... the method doesn't really matter, the point is they are there for everyone to see.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoWith the added "benefit" of being an extremely slow and painful way to die.
- dudul 4y agoYes
- powerslacker 4y agoYes, death by crucifixion predates Jesus. The Ancient Romans used it often.
- ch4s3 4y agoIt predates Rome entirely[1]. They either picked it up from Carthage, or the Greeks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#Pre-Roman_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion#Pre-Roman_states
- bergenty 4y agoYes, Jesus was just another guy that got crucified.
- polycaster 4y agoSomewhat related to the topic: ORBIS – The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World https://orbis.stanford.edu/ https://orbis.stanford.edu/
- april_22 4y agoThere are also some in West Germany, it's always astonishing actually seeing them
- sumy23 4y agoThe The Alcántara Bridge is very striking. Something about its simplicity is awe inspiring. It's almost 2000 years old and still absolutely amazing. I wonder what things built today will be around in 2000 years.
- charlieflowers 4y agoProbably a bunch of PHP :)
- ithkuil 4y agoIt also depends on what counts as "stands". How much maintenance and reconstruction is allowed? The bridge suffered many destructions due to warfare and has been fixed many times since construction
- dougmwne 4y agoYou will find this is true of almost everything ancient that was never lost. Things that aren't maintained are rediscovered a thousand years later under a dirt mound. Almost everything old in Europe is renovated every few hundred years or even more frequently.
- yobbo 4y agoHydro-power dams, nuclear fuel storage, bunkers, maybe some bridges/roads. I'm guessing/hoping most horrible concrete construction will be destroyed by humans.
- yobbo 4y agoSeems like engineers and artists were the same persons or worked together. Seems this held true up until the industrial revolution.