Via Flaminia
Roma to Ariminum
The route
Inside the city the road ran north across the Campus Martius on the line of today's Via del Corso and left by the Porta Flaminia, now the Porta del Popolo. About three kilometres out it crossed the Tiber on the Pons Mulvius, rebuilt in stone by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus in 109 BC. It then headed north past Saxa Rubra to Ocriculum at Otricoli.
At Narnia it crossed the Nera. The surveyed line then takes the older western branch, through Carsulae and Mevania at Bevagna; a later eastern branch, which the survey labels the Flaminia nova, went by Terni and Spoleto and rejoined it near Foligno. Beyond, the road ran by Nuceria Camellaria at Nocera Umbra and up to the Apennine pass at Scheggia.
On the Adriatic side it came down through Cales at Cagli and the narrow Furlo gorge, the station the Romans called Intercisa, then past Forum Sempronii at Fossombrone in the Metauro valley. At Fanum Fortunae it met the coast and turned north through Pisaurum at Pesaro to finish at Ariminum, where the Via Aemilia took travellers on across the Po plain to Piacenza.
The surveyed line
- Mapped length
- 310 km
- Mapped segments
- 6
- Line certainty
- Conjectured
Measured across every Itiner-e segment attributed to this road. A conjectured stretch is one whose course is inferred from evidence either side of it; that covers 100% of the mapped length here. This describes how precisely the line is known, not whether the road existed.
The road today
The SS3 Via Flaminia runs for about 284 km from Rome to Fano and stays close to the Roman road for much of the way. In Umbria, though, it takes the eastern branch through Terni, Spoleto and Foligno. The western branch drawn on this map, through Carsulae and Bevagna, is now mostly minor country roads. The modern road is signed SR3 in Lazio and SP3 across much of the Marche, where the state handed sections to regional and provincial authorities.
At the Furlo a four-lane expressway now bypasses the gorge in a tunnel more than three kilometres long, leaving the old road to local traffic. From Fano to Rimini the SS16 Adriatica takes the same coastal course as the Roman road.
Where to see it
The Furlo gorge, a state nature reserve between Acqualagna and Fossombrone, is the best single stop. Vespasian's tunnel, about 38 metres long, was cut in AD 76 or 77 beside a much smaller and older passage, probably Etruscan or Umbrian. The old road still passes through it.
At Carsulae, an abandoned town near San Gemini, the road survives as the main street with its kerbs and gutters and runs under the one standing arch of the gate known as the Arco di Traiano. Narni keeps a single surviving arch of the Augustan bridge over the Nera, about 30 metres high. Rimini's Arch of Augustus, dated to 27 BC, still marks the point where the road reached the town. Fano has a second Arch of Augustus, of AD 9, where it entered Fanum Fortunae.
Common questions
Is the SS3 a Roman road?
Largely. The SS3 runs from Rome to Fano on or near the line of the Via Flaminia, though in Umbria it follows the later branch through Spoleto rather than the original route through Carsulae.
Who built the Via Flaminia?
Gaius Flaminius, during his censorship in about 220 BC. He died in 217 BC leading a Roman army against Hannibal at Lake Trasimene. Augustus restored the road and most of its bridges in 27 BC.
Was the Battle of the Milvian Bridge fought on the Via Flaminia?
Yes. In AD 312 Constantine defeated Maxentius on the Via Flaminia just north of Rome, where the road crossed the Tiber on the Pons Mulvius. Maxentius drowned in the river during the retreat.