4 ms·

Something I've noticed, there doesn't appear to be any roads in Greece. Is this because the Romans didn't build any roads there and just used the Greek roads?

• hayksaakian 12y ago
  Missing data I presume?
  • bloat 12y ago
    I also couldn't see the little Gaulish village we know so well.
• thaumasiotes 12y ago
  Well, there are some relevant "stylized facts" about Greece... - Greece has lots and lots of coastline - The interior of Greece is largely mountains So you'd be crazy to transport anything over land in Greece if you had the option of using water. That said, I'm sure there were some roads.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • NAFV_P 12y ago
    To add to the logistical difficulties, ancient Greece was covered in thick forest.
  • davidweir 12y ago
    Transporting goods inland was hard because no way had yet been found to use horses to provide motive power without strangling them, hence "It remained cheaper to transport heavy goods in bulk from one end of the Mediterranean to the other than to haul them without a river-way for seventy miles inland." Source: The Classical World, by Robin Lane Fox http://books.google.com/books?id=nqKpSKq0v6oC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22the%20classical%20world%22&pg=PT172#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=nqKpSKq0v6oC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22...
    • wnewman 12y ago
      "Transporting goods inland was hard because..." I think it should be something like "was even harder than you would think because..." Sure it was harder before efficient harnesses, but even after efficient harnesses were invented, indeed even in good terrain, horses and carts were very expensive. Note that not only were railroads and trucks a lasting revolution in commerce, they were a radical improvement on another (less enduring) radical improvement before that, extensive artificial canals (very famously the Erie Canal, but there were many others, some successful). Rivers and canals were central to inland commerce in Europe and America because even with good harnesses, enthusiastic breeding of suitable strains of horses, and various other refinements horses and carts are still expensive per ton per mile.
    • pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      Ancient "Greeks" seemed to have pretty good horse collars by about 1000BC, http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/chariots.htm http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/chariots.htm, suitable for pulling double chariots. It seems they could provide some motive power without strangulation at least, via what is now termed a breast-collar harness. However this http://www.machine-history.com/sites/default/files/images/horseTraction.jpg http://www.machine-history.com/sites/default/files/images/ho... shows the issue, some of the artwork from Greek times seems to match with part 2. of that image, some not far from part 5. So it was, it seems, seen that the burden needed to be pulled from the horses chest and not from the neck per se. www1.hollins.edu/faculty/saloweyca/horse/h_tack.htm describes the issue in detail and makes the same claim for the Greeks; again stating that the Chinese developed the horse shoulder harness in about 300 BCE. An interesting subject, thanks for your citation.
      • arethuza 12y ago
        Perhaps they lost that technology during the "dark age" between collapse of the Mycenaean culture (i.e. "Homeric" times, although Homer lived much later) and the rise of Classical Greece?
• antman 12y ago
  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Egnatia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Egnatia Large roads were used for government purposes and private citizens had to get a permit. Commerce was conducted through shipping mostly. When Egyptian grain stopped, Thracian regions supported Rome so the roads in northern Greece improved. But that was right before the end...