An international research team has created a new map of the Roman Empire — and it expands the ancient road network by more than 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers).
The saying goes, of course, that "all roads lead to Rome." But while it's true that many of the Empire's major cities were linked via main roads to the capital, the secondary roads in the network had not been studied in depth, said Tom Brughmans, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and co-author of a study describing the roads that was published Thursday (Nov. 6) in the journal Scientific Data.
"The 200-year research history on Roman roads has focused strongly on these Roman 'highways' if you will, at the expense of our knowledge about the unnamed roads, the 'country lanes,'" Brughmans told Live Science in an email.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member