4 ms·

Ancient Rome's version of Google Maps: how long to reach the beach

67 points by gnabgib 3mo ago

brudgers 3mo ago
Tabla Peutingeriana at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana
- dolmen 2mo ago
  A map graved in stone in Rome wasn't too convenient for travelling...
dmurray 3mo ago
This part is clearly nonsense: > According to the planner’s calculation, the journey would have taken 43 days to cover 1,500 Roman miles. To put that into a contemporary context: the same route by road today can be completed in 14 days (340 hours) on foot, or 16 hours by car (source in Spanish). It would take 340 hours to walk, whether you do it today or in Roman times. Google maps is assuming you would walk for 24 hours a day, the planner is assuming you could walk for around 8.
- NotCamelCase 3mo ago
  Who'd walk the route more easily for 8h though? A random Western today or a random Roman then?
  - seri4l 3mo ago
    Probably a random Roman. People used to walk a lot, often barefoot. The random modern Westerner would get blisters within the first week.
  - fakedang 3mo ago
    Eh, I'd say it's equal. I've walked for 8 hrs before, wearing modern sneakers on roads with vehicular traffic, and travelled about the same distance estimated by Google Maps. I'd estimate the Roman would like be able to travel in the same duration, barring other extenuating factors (like Caesar staging a revolt against the Senate and crossing with his legion right in front of your planned route), with worse shoes but more walk-friendly roads.
    - watutalkinbout 3mo ago
      Cobblestones aren't walk friendly.
      - lstodd 3mo ago
        Asphalt/concrete isn't either. Gravel or packed dirt is way better. That said 30km/day is very real, even in mountain country. It takes 6-7 hours, the rest is resting/gawking/laying on a mountain watching the sky (or trying furiosly to find that effin trail on osmand). I walked that a few times a week when I lived in Montenegro, and that was 50/50 roads and mountain trails from sea level up to 700m-ish elevation and back. No fancy shoes, no prep but for a hat and couple bottles of water. After a third walk or so it isn't even exhausting.
        watutalkinbout 2mo ago
        Sure, but I'd imagine the average human could walk substantially further on flat modern roads in modern footwear than on cobblestone with ancient sandles. You use 10–20% more energy for just mildly uneven surfaces - probably more for roman cobblestone.
        lstodd 2mo ago
        Actually no. Uniform flat surface is tiring compared to a trail even in best shoes. Try walking 10 km on hardtop then compare to walking same distance on unpaved road. For shoes we also went not too far: Merrel sandals basically replicate roman caliga with modern materials. And it's not like you can use even halfboots in mediterannean unless it's winter - it's just too hot.
  - glimshe 3mo ago
    Probably the Westerner with better shoes, clothes, energy bars, hydration drinks, sunscreen etc. The only caveat since you said "random" is obesity.
  - embedding-shape 3mo ago
    > A random Western today or a random Roman then? Probably better to compare "A random Italian" rather than "A random Westerner", the Americans and other car-focused cultures kind of drag down the average a bit too much otherwise.
    - toyg 3mo ago
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y3151vydo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y3151vydo - "Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein - how Italian children became so overweight" Industry fucked us too, dude.
      - kakacik 3mo ago
        Hmm, thats a sad read. But I am not buying 'its the industry' in 2026, this is caused by folks who should and could do better but couldn't be bothered. Its also indicated in the article, young people know its junkfood and know long term effects but simply don't care. If wanting to point fingers aim them at society as a whole, junkfood was well recognized problem 10-15 years ago when these kids were being born.
        toyg 3mo ago
        Mine was a quip, but if we want to go deeper: like any phenomenon, it's obviously a combination of cultural, economic, and social factors; but it's hard not to take the marxist view that it's all about the economy when we get bombarded every second by advertising for food, the composition of which is largely dictated by considerations about profit margins. Even pasta is not produced in the same way as 80 years ago, not even from the same ingredients (half the wheat used in Italian pasta now comes from Canada and other places).
        kakacik 2mo ago
        Well, you are completely correct of course. That being said... even as an european, I prefer, forge myself and push on my kids a different path - don't wait for the system to make your life great, system is flawed to the core due to process we keep using to promote elites to full power (to make it short - nice good humans don't stand a chance in the race of power, society voted for loudest sociopathic assholes doing primitive sweet talk and thats enough, again and again). Take ownership of your life, and inspire others to do the same. Make choices, understand consequences as much as reasonable, and there is comparatively little to complain. When I look around since I am not the youngest, the most miserable people are those who just sit back in their 'comfort zone', and expect above to be fixed for them. It ain't coming, their life is a pale shade of what-could-have-been, health goes to crap, so does mood and everything else. Its not comforting place in any way, they are just too scared to experience any form of discomfort to move away from it, and often look for similarly-minded echo chambers where they went their endless frustrations from life they chose for themselves. I agree state and regulators should be doing their part, massively better, but so should all of us. Those that do have usually much better and longer and happier lives. What more reasons does anybody need.
  - dmurray 3mo ago
    Roman legions marched around 30 km/day [0], carrying their own supplies, food, weapons and armour, needing to spend time making and breaking camp each day. Modern European pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago seem to do about 20 km/day [1] and it's considered tiring but accessible by average people, not serious hikers. They carry less of their supplies and do not need to fortify their camp against barbarians. Roman soldiers were presumably fitter and better trained than the average Roman (though maybe not by much, since everyone worked manual jobs). Maybe that's enough to account for the difference. [0] https://www.quora.com/Did-Roman-legions-actually-march-20-miles-a-day https://www.quora.com/Did-Roman-legions-actually-march-20-mi... [1] https://caminoways.com/how-many-days-does-it-take-to-walk-the-camino-de-santiago https://caminoways.com/how-many-days-does-it-take-to-walk-th...
    - swasheck 3mo ago
      i’ve walked the via francigena and the italian section has quite a few sections of ancient roman road. they’re admittedly not contiguous, and are worn more extensively now, so i don’t get the same overall experience of treading on the stones for kilometers as they would have. i target 35km/day with a 40L pack and finish my segments within 6-7 hours. asphalt, dirt and grass, and hiking trails (rocks, roots, dirt, etc) are the most standard surfaces and, to be honest, they’re all exhausting in their own rights so a change in surface is always welcome. i can’t imagine marching most of this with near double body weight and then having to make camp.
      - toyg 3mo ago
        That's how they conquered all of their known world though, out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
      - nntwozz 3mo ago
        I'd like to add they were also doing all that wearing leather sandals. Imagine the Roman army with Adidas Ultraboost.
        Insanity 3mo ago
  - BrandoElFollito 3mo ago
    When I was in my late teens, I used to hike with a 15 kg backpack (with the technology of the late 80s). I could walk about 15 km in average hills over 8-10 hours. I was average, physical capacities wise.
- seri4l 3mo ago
  Yes, distance is about the same. 1488Km in Google and 1075 Roman miles in Omnesviae [0], that is ~1590 Km. [0] https://www.omnesviae.org/#OVPlace337_TPPlace1048 https://www.omnesviae.org/#OVPlace337_TPPlace1048
- watutalkinbout 3mo ago
  That said, as someone who has walked on cobblestone - a modern road in modern boots is different to an ancient road in ancient boots. I'd bet money the 'real' travel times would differ.
  - toyg 3mo ago
    > an ancient road in ancient boots Boots? That's luxury! Sandals more likely...
    - jordanb 3mo ago
      What you call sandals the Romans called boots. Their boots were open on the top but still heavily soled. This suited their climate and kept the foot cool and dry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligae
      - k3liutZu 2mo ago
        The wikipedia article names them in the first paragraph "sandal-boots". So maybe they were both (If I were to see someone wear them today, I would call them sandals)
      - odyssey7 2mo ago
        A modern alternative might be a pair of crocs?
        jordanb 2mo ago
        These were hob nailed thick soles leather boots where the uppers were a series of adjustable straps. I don't think there's anything modern that's comparable. The closest in terms of function would probably be the jungle boot, where the uppers have drains and fabric air circulation panels built in to keep the foot cooler and dryer. These boots were designed to allow the wearer to walk long distances without discomfort in the Mediterranean climate of the Roman empire
  - 3mo ago
- Insanity 3mo ago
  I think they generally take some approximations, but yeah the walking one is problematic. Horseback is also mentioned, but depending on wealth you could use regular stops across the road and swap your horse when it got tired. So travel times would depend not only on your horse but also your ability to swap horses and availability of stops along the way. Which in my mind is reminiscent of swapping your EV battery along roadstops lol. Either way, these are just approximations to give a general sense of travel speed. And no doubt nowadays the world feels smaller because we can much more easily travel between distant locations.
- redwood 3mo ago
  Not if cutting through dense bush, water, bog or rocky environments would be necessary.
  - echoangle 2mo ago
    I don’t think the Roman street system way covered in dense bush, that was kind of the point
    - dolmen 2mo ago
      Definitely. Oldest bridges in France are from the Roman era.
- reddguard 2mo ago
  It would take longer now because we have to wait at crosswalks and ask for a code to go to the bathroom
echoangle 3mo ago
> The tool is called OmnesViae (Omnesviae.org (source in Spanish)) I’m pretty sure the page is in Latin for me
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
comrade1234 3mo ago
Not including having to wait three months in the winter before attempting to cross the alps.
khanhnguyen8386 3mo ago
Open source code on Codeberg and historical data combined into a functional map—this is the kind of passion project the web was built for.
- FearNotDaniel 3mo ago
  I mean, technically it was built for "the management of general information about accelerators and experiments at CERN". The fact that it also supports a whole bunch of peoples' passion projects as well as a multi-trillion dollar commercial marketplace is just a bonus... https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
  - khanhnguyen8386 2mo ago
    Fair point! Though I suspect Tim Berners-Lee wouldn't mind a 43-day Roman road trip planner being part of CERN's ultimate legacy.
madhu_ghalame 3mo ago
[dead]
- toyg 3mo ago
  You start with that and then they will clamor for translations into vulgata, and before you know it we're all surrounded by bleeding christiani who don't know their Mars from their Mercurius...
tomassirio 2mo ago
The distances are sound, but the estimated times to get from point A to point B are a little bit sketchy. This year I walked from Utrecht to Compostela in 45 days. That was around 12 hours on the street each day, with the comfiest shoes humanity has ever made and a super market every 15 km at most. Even then, it was tough af

67 points by gnabgib 3mo ago

Tabla Peutingeriana at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana

dolmen 2mo ago
A map graved in stone in Rome wasn't too convenient for travelling...

dmurray 3mo ago

This part is clearly nonsense: > According to the planner’s calculation, the journey would have taken 43 days to cover 1,500 Roman miles. To put that into a contemporary context: the same route by road today can be completed in 14 days (340 hours) on foot, or 16 hours by car (source in Spanish). It would take 340 hours to walk, whether you do it today or in Roman times. Google maps is assuming you would walk for 24 hours a day, the planner is assuming you could walk for around 8.

NotCamelCase 3mo ago
Who'd walk the route more easily for 8h though? A random Western today or a random Roman then?
- seri4l 3mo ago
  Probably a random Roman. People used to walk a lot, often barefoot. The random modern Westerner would get blisters within the first week.
- fakedang 3mo ago
  Eh, I'd say it's equal. I've walked for 8 hrs before, wearing modern sneakers on roads with vehicular traffic, and travelled about the same distance estimated by Google Maps. I'd estimate the Roman would like be able to travel in the same duration, barring other extenuating factors (like Caesar staging a revolt against the Senate and crossing with his legion right in front of your planned route), with worse shoes but more walk-friendly roads.
  - watutalkinbout 3mo ago
    Cobblestones aren't walk friendly.
    - lstodd 3mo ago
      Asphalt/concrete isn't either. Gravel or packed dirt is way better. That said 30km/day is very real, even in mountain country. It takes 6-7 hours, the rest is resting/gawking/laying on a mountain watching the sky (or trying furiosly to find that effin trail on osmand). I walked that a few times a week when I lived in Montenegro, and that was 50/50 roads and mountain trails from sea level up to 700m-ish elevation and back. No fancy shoes, no prep but for a hat and couple bottles of water. After a third walk or so it isn't even exhausting.
      - watutalkinbout 2mo ago
        Sure, but I'd imagine the average human could walk substantially further on flat modern roads in modern footwear than on cobblestone with ancient sandles. You use 10–20% more energy for just mildly uneven surfaces - probably more for roman cobblestone.
        lstodd 2mo ago
        Actually no. Uniform flat surface is tiring compared to a trail even in best shoes. Try walking 10 km on hardtop then compare to walking same distance on unpaved road. For shoes we also went not too far: Merrel sandals basically replicate roman caliga with modern materials. And it's not like you can use even halfboots in mediterannean unless it's winter - it's just too hot.
- glimshe 3mo ago
  Probably the Westerner with better shoes, clothes, energy bars, hydration drinks, sunscreen etc. The only caveat since you said "random" is obesity.
- embedding-shape 3mo ago
  > A random Western today or a random Roman then? Probably better to compare "A random Italian" rather than "A random Westerner", the Americans and other car-focused cultures kind of drag down the average a bit too much otherwise.
  - toyg 3mo ago
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y3151vydo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y3151vydo - "Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein - how Italian children became so overweight" Industry fucked us too, dude.
    - kakacik 3mo ago
      Hmm, thats a sad read. But I am not buying 'its the industry' in 2026, this is caused by folks who should and could do better but couldn't be bothered. Its also indicated in the article, young people know its junkfood and know long term effects but simply don't care. If wanting to point fingers aim them at society as a whole, junkfood was well recognized problem 10-15 years ago when these kids were being born.
      - toyg 3mo ago
        Mine was a quip, but if we want to go deeper: like any phenomenon, it's obviously a combination of cultural, economic, and social factors; but it's hard not to take the marxist view that it's all about the economy when we get bombarded every second by advertising for food, the composition of which is largely dictated by considerations about profit margins. Even pasta is not produced in the same way as 80 years ago, not even from the same ingredients (half the wheat used in Italian pasta now comes from Canada and other places).
        kakacik 2mo ago
        Well, you are completely correct of course. That being said... even as an european, I prefer, forge myself and push on my kids a different path - don't wait for the system to make your life great, system is flawed to the core due to process we keep using to promote elites to full power (to make it short - nice good humans don't stand a chance in the race of power, society voted for loudest sociopathic assholes doing primitive sweet talk and thats enough, again and again). Take ownership of your life, and inspire others to do the same. Make choices, understand consequences as much as reasonable, and there is comparatively little to complain. When I look around since I am not the youngest, the most miserable people are those who just sit back in their 'comfort zone', and expect above to be fixed for them. It ain't coming, their life is a pale shade of what-could-have-been, health goes to crap, so does mood and everything else. Its not comforting place in any way, they are just too scared to experience any form of discomfort to move away from it, and often look for similarly-minded echo chambers where they went their endless frustrations from life they chose for themselves. I agree state and regulators should be doing their part, massively better, but so should all of us. Those that do have usually much better and longer and happier lives. What more reasons does anybody need.
- dmurray 3mo ago
  Roman legions marched around 30 km/day [0], carrying their own supplies, food, weapons and armour, needing to spend time making and breaking camp each day. Modern European pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago seem to do about 20 km/day [1] and it's considered tiring but accessible by average people, not serious hikers. They carry less of their supplies and do not need to fortify their camp against barbarians. Roman soldiers were presumably fitter and better trained than the average Roman (though maybe not by much, since everyone worked manual jobs). Maybe that's enough to account for the difference. [0] https://www.quora.com/Did-Roman-legions-actually-march-20-miles-a-day https://www.quora.com/Did-Roman-legions-actually-march-20-mi... [1] https://caminoways.com/how-many-days-does-it-take-to-walk-the-camino-de-santiago https://caminoways.com/how-many-days-does-it-take-to-walk-th...
  - swasheck 3mo ago
    i’ve walked the via francigena and the italian section has quite a few sections of ancient roman road. they’re admittedly not contiguous, and are worn more extensively now, so i don’t get the same overall experience of treading on the stones for kilometers as they would have. i target 35km/day with a 40L pack and finish my segments within 6-7 hours. asphalt, dirt and grass, and hiking trails (rocks, roots, dirt, etc) are the most standard surfaces and, to be honest, they’re all exhausting in their own rights so a change in surface is always welcome. i can’t imagine marching most of this with near double body weight and then having to make camp.
    - toyg 3mo ago
      That's how they conquered all of their known world though, out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
    - nntwozz 3mo ago
      I'd like to add they were also doing all that wearing leather sandals. Imagine the Roman army with Adidas Ultraboost.
      - Insanity 3mo ago
- BrandoElFollito 3mo ago
  When I was in my late teens, I used to hike with a 15 kg backpack (with the technology of the late 80s). I could walk about 15 km in average hills over 8-10 hours. I was average, physical capacities wise.
seri4l 3mo ago
Yes, distance is about the same. 1488Km in Google and 1075 Roman miles in Omnesviae [0], that is ~1590 Km. [0] https://www.omnesviae.org/#OVPlace337_TPPlace1048 https://www.omnesviae.org/#OVPlace337_TPPlace1048
watutalkinbout 3mo ago
That said, as someone who has walked on cobblestone - a modern road in modern boots is different to an ancient road in ancient boots. I'd bet money the 'real' travel times would differ.
- toyg 3mo ago
  > an ancient road in ancient boots Boots? That's luxury! Sandals more likely...
  - jordanb 3mo ago
    What you call sandals the Romans called boots. Their boots were open on the top but still heavily soled. This suited their climate and kept the foot cool and dry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligae
    - k3liutZu 2mo ago
      The wikipedia article names them in the first paragraph "sandal-boots". So maybe they were both (If I were to see someone wear them today, I would call them sandals)
    - odyssey7 2mo ago
      A modern alternative might be a pair of crocs?
      - jordanb 2mo ago
        These were hob nailed thick soles leather boots where the uppers were a series of adjustable straps. I don't think there's anything modern that's comparable. The closest in terms of function would probably be the jungle boot, where the uppers have drains and fabric air circulation panels built in to keep the foot cooler and dryer. These boots were designed to allow the wearer to walk long distances without discomfort in the Mediterranean climate of the Roman empire
- 3mo ago
Insanity 3mo ago
I think they generally take some approximations, but yeah the walking one is problematic. Horseback is also mentioned, but depending on wealth you could use regular stops across the road and swap your horse when it got tired. So travel times would depend not only on your horse but also your ability to swap horses and availability of stops along the way. Which in my mind is reminiscent of swapping your EV battery along roadstops lol. Either way, these are just approximations to give a general sense of travel speed. And no doubt nowadays the world feels smaller because we can much more easily travel between distant locations.
redwood 3mo ago
Not if cutting through dense bush, water, bog or rocky environments would be necessary.
- echoangle 2mo ago
  I don’t think the Roman street system way covered in dense bush, that was kind of the point
  - dolmen 2mo ago
    Definitely. Oldest bridges in France are from the Roman era.
reddguard 2mo ago
It would take longer now because we have to wait at crosswalks and ask for a code to go to the bathroom

echoangle 3mo ago

> The tool is called OmnesViae (Omnesviae.org (source in Spanish)) I’m pretty sure the page is in Latin for me

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

comrade1234 3mo ago

Not including having to wait three months in the winter before attempting to cross the alps.

khanhnguyen8386 3mo ago

Open source code on Codeberg and historical data combined into a functional map—this is the kind of passion project the web was built for.

FearNotDaniel 3mo ago
I mean, technically it was built for "the management of general information about accelerators and experiments at CERN". The fact that it also supports a whole bunch of peoples' passion projects as well as a multi-trillion dollar commercial marketplace is just a bonus... https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
- khanhnguyen8386 2mo ago
  Fair point! Though I suspect Tim Berners-Lee wouldn't mind a 43-day Roman road trip planner being part of CERN's ultimate legacy.

madhu_ghalame 3mo ago

[dead]

toyg 3mo ago
You start with that and then they will clamor for translations into vulgata, and before you know it we're all surrounded by bleeding christiani who don't know their Mars from their Mercurius...

tomassirio 2mo ago

The distances are sound, but the estimated times to get from point A to point B are a little bit sketchy. This year I walked from Utrecht to Compostela in 45 days. That was around 12 hours on the street each day, with the comfiest shoes humanity has ever made and a super market every 15 km at most. Even then, it was tough af