Ancient Rome's Road System: The Rise and Fall of Rome

Factoid: Roman roads played an important role in WWII. U.S. General George S. Patton was a lifetime student of ancient warfare. He actually visited and walked many of the ancient battlefields to study the lay of the land and the ponder their tactics. Gen. Patton knew the names of the generals, what forces they had, what they did, and why they won or lost. He also knew where the old Roman roads were and he knew that although they didn't look like much to the modern eye, they were strong enough to hold modern tanks and military vehicles in bad weather while all other roads were a sea of mud. He put this knowledge to good use during the march on Germany, moving east when other armies were literally stuck in the mud.

I walked on the Roman road in Jordan as a child, even tied my shoes on remains of a pillar. Years later as an adult I wish I marveled at them

It is utterly mind blowing that with just 2 major but easily passable exceptions, the Bosphorus Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar, in 138 AD you could WALK ON THE ROADS around THE ENTIRE Mediterranean Sea and end up in Rome! 😳🤯😳🤯😳🤯

"....the video about roman sewage is not particularly revolutionary to the modern mind but for some reason you guys really liked it!" Hey man, its some interesting shit!!

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" - Reg

You guys should also do the Roman Aquaducts.

Holy crap 63 days for the post to arrive in Roman times?!? That's like ... 4 days faster than today's postal services!

1:00 - Chapter 1 - An empire of roads 2:50 - Chapter 2 - All roads lead to rome 4:10 - Chapter 3 - Foreign lands 5:25 - Chapter 4 - The laws of the road 7:20 - Chapter 5 - Types of roman roads 8:25 - Mid roll ads 9:55 - Chapter 6 - Cost & responsibility 10:55 - Chapter 7 - Building the roads 13:35 - Chapter 8 - Bridges 14:30 - Chapter 9 - Mile markers 15:15 - Chapter 10 - Maps 16:00 - Chapter 11 - Early waystations 17:00 - Chapter 12 - Postal service 17:40 - Chapter 13 - End of the empire

Here in Spain where the geography is a real problem into designing a road, the most important highways follow the way of the ancient Roman road. Even many bridges still in use

It's amazing that the aquaducts always had a 0.1 degree decrease in elevation so the water could flow perfectly

It’s incredible that a logistical/ public works system established over 2000 years ago was so well conceived that it’s still used around the world today.

Can you entertain us with a hypothetical break down of a space elevator? I loved the Dyson Sphere episode. PLEASE AND THANKS

Gotta love it. The Romans built roads that are still usable 2000 years later. The state of Illinois can't build a road that lasts more than 3 years.

"A beard you could hide a badger in" -Black Adder

Mandatory copypasta "The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End" A: Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. B: That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? A: Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. B: I see, but why did the English build them like that? A: Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. B: Well, why did they use that gauge in England? A: Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. B: Okay! Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing? A: Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. B: So who built these old rutted roads? A: The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since. B: And the ruts? A: The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. B: Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. A: And the motto of the story is Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. B: So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses. A: So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space? B: Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. A: The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.

When I was a child I lived near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, England. There was a wall stood next to the road outside the town. One day, somebody noticed it was Roman. It had stood there nearly 2000 years, never fell down, slightly weathered but solid as the day it was built. Astonishing builders the Romans. We still don't know how they made their cement.

The aqueducts in Rome are also really cool. Worthy of their own Megaprojects video! (btw Simon, the promo code is spelled wrong in the description and pinned comment!)

I find it interesting that the Romans dug down 1m - 1,5m to build the road foundation, and they weren't even dealing with the kinds of vehicle weights we do today. Especially where I live, roads fail and have to be rebuilt at an interval of between a year to 2-3 years due to frost damage, melting in summer heat, asphalt with too little tar in it (not up to standard), basecourse of a cheap gravel that breaks up and grinds into dust quite quickly, and poor drainage. Perhaps our engineers could learn a thing or two from the meticulous Roman constructors.

A episode on how the British dug out a mountain and turned it into a impenetrable fortress with submarine entrance. GIBRALTAR in Southern Spain 🇪🇸. Love your videos. Truly YouTube best Channels.

Can you do the Inca road system? Not only is it incredibly impressive in its own right, but it was built up in only century. And your pronunciation of Incan names will be terrible.