Via Appia

The road left Roma by the Porta Capena in the old Servian wall. When the Aurelian Walls went up in the third century AD the road's gate in the new wall was the Porta Appia, now Porta San Sebastiano. It climbed the Alban Hills past Aricia, then ran almost dead straight across the Pontine plain. In 37 BC Horace crossed the marshes here by night on a canal barge. At Tarracina, modern Terracina, the coast pinches against the cliff of Pisco Montano. Under Trajan, engineers cut the rock back to carry the road round it.

Beyond, it turned inland through Fundi at Fondi and the hills around Itri, met the sea again at Formia and crossed the Liris, today's Garigliano, at Minturnae. Appius Claudius's road ended at Capua, the modern Santa Maria Capua Vetere. The extension ran east through the Caudine valley at Caudium, near Montesarchio, and entered Beneventum over the Ponte Leproso.

From Benevento the survey follows the inland line over the Apennines: Aeclanum near Mirabella Eclano, then Aquilonia, then Venusia at Venosa, where Horace was born. It came down to Tarentum on the Gulf of Taranto and turned east across the heel of Italy by way of Uria, now Oria, to Brundisium.

Italy's SS7, the Strada Statale Via Appia, inherited both the name and much of the line. Created in 1928, it runs a little over 713 km from Rome to Brindisi, well over a hundred kilometres longer than the Roman road, because it bends to serve modern towns. In Rome itself traffic takes the Via Appia Nuova, laid out in 1784, while the old road runs parallel as the Appia Antica; the two meet again near Frattocchie.

The closest match is the Pontine plain. Between Latina and Terracina the SS7 sits back on the Roman alignment and runs straight for mile after mile. Beyond Capua it crosses the Caudine valley past Montesarchio to Benevento, close to the ancient line, before the two drift apart in the Apennines of Irpinia and Basilicata.

The Appia Antica south of Porta San Sebastiano is the place to walk it. Past the catacombs of San Callisto and San Sebastiano it reaches the Tomb of Caecilia Metella, a drum-shaped mausoleum of the late Republic, then runs between tombs and umbrella pines past the Villa of the Quintilii to the great round mausoleum of Casal Rotondo. Long stretches keep their original basalt blocks.

Further south, the paved road runs through the excavated town at Minturnae. In Terracina the Trajanic cut at Pisco Montano still shows its carved numerals, ending in CXX, 120 Roman feet, about a metre above the present road. At Brindisi a single Roman column stands at the head of the harbour steps, traditionally the end of the road. Its fallen twin was given to Lecce in the seventeenth century and now carries a statue of Saint Oronzo.