Were Roman Roads more Durable than Modern Highways?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- This video explores the famous Roman roads, and investigates why - after 2,000 years of wear and tear - they seem to be in better shape than most expressways in modern America.
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:59 The Roman road network
2:23 Building the roads
3:25 Traffic on the roads
4:48 StartMail
5:53 Cuts, bridges, and tunnels
7:58 Longevity of the roads
9:16 Comparing ancient and modern roads
10:39 Conclusion
Thanks for watching!
There's a Roman road running through a park near me, maybe a mile or mile and a half long. I always get a thrill walking along it thinking of Roman soldiers marching there. I feel I'm dipping my feet in ancient history. Certainly way better condition than local roads here in Birmingham which have more potholes than surface.
Hey live in Birmingham totally agree . Wish the US made roads like the romans . But then many people would lose their jobs in regards to maintaining the roads.
@@necromorph1109 I live in the original Birmingham in England Necro, I don't think the US has any "Roman Roads" 😃
@@jimfrodsham7938 I know that big park and I would go there, mainly for the road.
@@james.strong Yes James, I'm lucky enough to live within walking distance and go there often with my grandkids. When I was a kid we used to swim in the pools but sadly that's no longer allowed.
@@necromorph1109 a lot of us doubt the entire Roman empire story and we think the Romans moved into existing ruins and the megalithic toilets still flushed. It's about all they could accomplish with their notable lack of civilization support infrastructure, personnel and equipment.
From my civil engineering background, the difference in loads carried by Roman roads and modern interstates is hard to overstate. A modern semi-truck does 10,000x the damage to an asphalt road of an 1,800lb cart, and a typical 4,000lb car does ~25x more damage than the same cart.
These roads are incredibly impressive, especially considering the technology of the era, but they would melt under the loads modern freeways experience. Awesome video as always!
Not to mention the asphalt roads beings 100s of times cheaper to build than stone or brick ones which required intensive labor to build.
Not to mention that due to American city design, there is a never ending stream of cars and traffic and cars and traffic... These roads never get a break
Not to mention /most/ roads in America won't shatter your spine just for looking at them wrong. Those Roman roads look absolutely brutal.
@@timvvs Not to mention cities like Chicago freeze annually, yet the roads still get the same stress from traffic. That's what I would guess is the greatest cause for repair. Whenever I go down south, the roads(whether asphalt or concrete) are so smooth and without cracks.
Not to mention… you would have zero traction on Roman roads in the rain
The U.S. Interstate Highway system does share one aspect with the Roman network, it was established as a system of military roads. Eisenhower was very impressed with the military usefulness of the German Autobahn and championed construction of a similar system in the U.S.
Indeed. The original name of the system was the "Defense Highway System" or some such.
Interesting!
Maybe not. In 1919, Ike needed 62 days to drive from Washington DC to San Francisco. That lesson was firmly in mind when he saw the Autobahn.
@@pierrenavaille4748 -- Well, that was a simulated military movement. Simply driving on the roads necessary to place and repair railroad tracks would reduce that to, perhaps a week or two. By that time, of course, there was several trans-continental RR routes.
Eisenhower was such a good president. Wish we could have president's like that again.
one small thing to note: The actual surface of the roman roads wasn't those rocks. That would have absolutely wrecked horses and would be way too slippery to walk on. There was a surface or sand and clay that was compacted with stone rollers (yes, just like today's asphalt).
yes exact stop showing ancient roman roads constructed with stone slabs
that was not a small thing . It entirely changes how people perceive these roads.
You are correct Sir!
Exactly, everyone seems to forget that they were smooth when built
@@Rebecca-fu5hg yep the slabs and such were not the top layer
Just today a small bridge on the via Tiburtina was uncovered after been neglected for centuries..built two millennia ago, still standing today!
arches are incredibly durable especially if not used...
How can a bridge "hide" or did they just think it was much younger?
The nature of the terrain changes with the passing of the ages,the course of the road could have been rerouted..even small streams could have generated floods so powerful to alter the surrounding landscape.
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 easily. people dont use it for some time and than its overgrown but plants
@@aramisortsbottcher8201 here in prague theres a part of the city called můstek (little bridge) but there are no bridges there. People didnt know why it was called můstek until during the communist dictatorship when the metro was being dug they found the little bridge 29-30 meters underground smack dab in the middle of the projected metro stations vestibul.
I’ll elaborate further as a civil engineer. It’s all semi trucks. That’s it, if traffic was just passenger vehicles we could get build cheaper infrastructure that lasted much longer.
Yeah, try running semis on Roman roads and see how long they last.
Why do that when you can have trains!
True that,And also billions worth of paving slabs,where semi's mount the curb onto pavements ,for deliveries ect
Kinda sounds like you might not be a civil engineer and just a guy who watched a TH-cam video that was going around a couple weeks ago decrying semi trucks while neglecting the fact that the roads aren't built necessarily with the express purpose of private travel.
@@dread6554 lol, I’ve designed so many bridges I can’t even give you a number. Get back to me when you’ve read your AASHTO manual a few more times.
0:01 my condolences
KEKUSW
Just remember that today, your food and almost everything else gets to you by traveling in a truck that weighs up to 40 tons (about the same as WWII era Tank) going 70mph across possibly several thousand miles of highway.
Thank you. Every thing that modern life craves at 2am is in a truck. Oreos, medications, bbq bricks, cat litter, water from a spring in the Arizona desert, hair extensions and Gravity Falls stickers and living lettuce. My professor said if the Romans were to see American modernity they would love the Interstate highways, McDonald's and Walmart.
Before that it's hundreds of thousands of miles on a ship going across the oceans, then onto a cargo train across tens of thousands of miles on rail through countries
I do believe we should have a special road just for trucks tho, they should be regarded as important as ambulances in my opinion
@@constancemiller3753 was your professor a Roman? What he thinks is his own opinion
Yep but that's right in the developed countries, in the third world like mine could be a guy in a bike with a kind of trailer made it in wood carrying a lot of butane big tubes....so safety...🤔
Except for that which goes by rail, with less cost, pollution and risk to the public.
I think the Roman network of roads might be the biggest achievement that the romans ever made. That network of roads probably helped the romans generally to stay in power far longer than they otherwise would have. Those roads also werent just often walked pathways to other regions but actually well constructed pieces of engineering.
Exactly, you can clearly see the difference in quality between these roads and medieval ones. Near my house there were two stone bridges standing next to each other, for some reason, a roman one and a medieval one. A couple of years ago, a large pine tree (like 25m tall) fell on them during a storm. Needless to say, the medieval one collapsed instantly and filled the river with rocks. The roman one is still standing and the only damage done to it was that a couple of stones that made up the railing were broken, but they have since been replaced. I'll send a google streetview link soon so you can see what I'm talking about
@@Fred_the_1996 did you find it?
@@TS-jm7jm yes
@@Fred_the_1996 did they rebuilt the medieval bridge, would be shame if they just replaced it with ugly modernistic construction.
And the roads were also their downfall
I live on a roman road. All streets named " Via" in Barcelona, are built over roads that were built by the Romans 2000 years ago.
Some aqueducts that they built are still in use today.
Love it. I did a research report on Roman Roads in a college class on Engineering History at U of I Champaign. I wish I still had it so I could see if I was smart or stupid back in 1983.
We must have been at U of I at the same time. I graduated in 1983. Memorable times!
Spoiler! You're smart! Have a great day!
:-)
ILL baby
When I cycled down the Appian Way to the South of Rome, I was surprised to note that the grooves in the stones, left by many, many carts, didn't line up. Some at 90 degrees to the road direction. I assume that when the road was being rebuilt, surface stones were removed, put to one side, and then laid down on the refreshed base with no care for placement. Love to see a Quixotic project to jigsaw it all back - like they do using computers with broken pottery or scroll fragments. It would sure make it easier to cycle on. :+)
Sounds more like the road builders were trying to stop people using the grooves lol
Actually, I suspect it might have been done on purpose to make the road safer. A large cart wheel can roll over a rut perpendicular to itself with only a slight jolt. If it was in the direction of travel, the wheel could very easily slip sideways into it and break.
That comparison with american infrastructure was painful to watch.great content!
man I wish ai could be in Rome right now
Sounds right. I think in some cases they did maintain the groves, maybe even replaced stones pre grooved, I think in Pompeii after seeing it may of done that. They may of not attempted to fix the problem of grooves till after Pompeii's time. Would guess the formation of grooves would of had similar problems to street car track like with junk getting stuck in there, and a good part of that was probably from the horses.
It blows my mind that a Roman bridge was still being used until 1991. My god.
I bet a lot of them can still be used but traffic was stopped to preserve them for history
I think the Ponte Milvio bridge in Rome where Constantine's soldiers defeated those of Maxentius is not too different from the original constructed in 109 BC.
A good number of them were still used even for vehicular traffic nowadays
@@jcgabriel1569 bad move, cars will destroy those roads, roman roads are made for people, and an occasional horse carriage, not an car/truck.
@ckf9xo3j2bzo2 Who doesn't?!
One thing to keep in mind is that road wear follows a roughly exponential pattern regarding weight. 99% of modern road destruction is by vehicles so heavy it'd blow the Romans' collective minds; the "day to a year" comparison doesn't even come close to being in the same ballpark. You'd literally have to have a million people walk a road to do the same sort of wear on it as 1(!) decently heavy truck.
... doesn't mean Roman infrastructure wasn't even impressive and that I love that quite a bit of it is still around, one way or another.
yeah but roman roads are still used today by cars and trucks
@@eduardopupucon but they aren't busy and usually have a slow speed limit limiting wear
yeah, one fully loaded semi trailer would equal a legions entire supply train, including the prostitutes and camp followers. The romans would not know how to act with that much mobility.
@@eduardopupucon Not really, most of them are under protection, and those that arent are mostly used for very light traffic, if a semi would roll through these roads than it would sustain a lot of damage
@@eduardopupucon Dude, the stones themselves would have worn out in centuries, let alone millennia. Those roads are repaired and maintained. They didn't build roads out of adamantium.
I've walked the "Camino de Santiago" (to Santiago de Compostela, Spain) twice: first the 'Portuguese Way' (240 km S > N), and then the 'French Way' (320 km E > W). It is impressive to notice the roman bridges and original-paved road segments once in a while, and to see the cilinder-shaped 'mile mark' stones by the way. Just amazing.
É verdade, eu tb gostava de fazer essa rota, há algum sítio onde dê para a passar para um garmin ou telemóvel?
Sounds incredible! What a great way to touch history.
Bon Camino..! It's a fantastic walk; if you haven't already, try the Via Fancigina and you'll see even more...
On Hadrian's wall there is a fort by the name of Vindolanda where archaeologists have unearthed well over 1000 Roman writing tablets, the largest collection of Roman correspondence to have survived from the Western empire. One of these is a letter from a man called Octavius to one named Candidus with the first surviving contemporary description of a Roman road. He writes: .
"I have bought 5,000 bushels of grain, and unless you send me some money, I shall lose my deposit and be embarrassed. The hides which you write about are still at Catterick. I would have already collected them apart from the fact that the roads are so bad that I did not care to injure the animals”
So, what you're saying is complaining about the condition of the roads is a timeless tradition.
@@ccoder4953 pretty much
@terel morul I'm well aware that Romans wrote in books, they also carved inscriptions into blocks of stone but I didn't mention those either as that is not what I was talking about nor are they what this video is about.
so the romans had better writing and grammar skill than an american
To anyone that hasn't already, grab this guys book. Its highly enjoyable
That was sure nice, good Sir. I've about 100,000 hitch-hiking and I've walked across this continent. One thing that must have been nice for the folks was how water would sink in and be carried off so that mud & stink (manure) wouldn't be in-between the toes. Good for the horses and oxen also . . . the pebbles that get stuck in the hooves.
@Straw hitchhiking is getting rides from random travelers along the way.
Great topic. There are frequent posts on social media slamming today's engineers for 'inferior' roads and bridges, noting Roman roads as their examples. I've replied with ideas similar to what is in this video, but ToldInStone did a MUCH better job. Thank you!
haha, my first thought was "thank God I can just post this link instead of typing a paragraph every time I see that"
Dr. G I'm so impressed... 199,000 subscribers! I bet this is way more satisfying than lecturing.
Loved this video! Not just because the images of the Via Appia brought back fond memories of a day spent cycling along it and looking at and reading the gravemarkers. But also because we only recently had the topic of modern road construction with a friend who is a director at a construction company that builds roads. He sat down and gave us a rundown of methods, materials, costs as well as the sheer incredible traffic and its increase just in the last few decades. Especially trucks, vans, SUVs. With our 24-hour culture of overnight deliveries, just-in-time manufacturing, fresh food in the remotest supermarket, there is virtually no affordable (and therefore socially acceptable) way of constructing roads that last more than a couple of years before needing major repairs.
Unfortunately as a race we will always find some way to screw things up. The utilities contractor whose cheap repair to the whole he just dug in the road becomes a pothole almost instantly, the water company whose cut backs on maintenance and inspection flood the road through leaky pipes etc etc. I don't think the authorities directly responsible help either. Repairs are put off for so long a patch job becomes a resurface job. And so it goes on. We all need them and we all use them. Getting people to financially take responsibility for them has been a problem for thousands of years.
Our roads, especialy the autobahn, is used a lot too. We don´t need major repairs every few years either. In my humble oppinion you´re doing something wrong.
@@thequantumalchemist2965 Uhm, don't need major repairs? Are you talking about Germany? I still visit and drive regularly and they autobahns are more construction zone than "Freie Fahrt Für Alle". It's painful how bad it's become in the nearly 30 years since I left. 😭You can't even read any German media anymore - regardless of political leaning - that doesn't bemoan the disastrous state of road, rail, water infrastructure. After decades the country finally seems to investing, but the figures thrown about are utterly breathtaking.
That said, there most certainly *is* something wrong in the overall approach here: it's just "patch it for today, so some construction contractor can skim some more money tomorrow". I've stated more than once that they should airdrop some German road engineers down here. After all, it's not the skills missing in Germany but money. We've got the money (or at least are willing to spend it), but it's spent on rort.
@@michaelhoffmann2891 I don´t know in which paralel universe you reside, but where i´m from having used the autobahn multiple times in my life, *not once* did I need to take any detour or had to wait because of construction, nope. Because of "stau" aka congestion yes, about half a dozen times already. Not once because of construction however. And if some roads need repair after *decades of use + the extreme weather the past 10 years* then that´s indeed normal and that´s indeed nothing you can do about. Fact remains: Roads easily can last *decades* despite heavy use. If not, then sorry but you´re doing something wrong plain and simple. And it´s not just Germany it´s other countries too, especialy in extreme weather regions, their roads last for decades too. How come?
"You can't even read any German media anymore - regardless of political leaning - that doesn't bemoan the disastrous state of road, rail, water infrastructure." which is untrue yet again and in fact if anything our media still touts the fact that we have some of the best roads in the world which simply is a true statement. I see, is that what you americans tell yourselves to make you feel better about the disastrous state of your roads? Oh mann oh mann... really? If so then bruh, you´re more brainwashed then the soviets were under the KGB, a very merry congratulations on that one...
PS yet another fake german aka CIA paid troll of "Operation Earnest Voice".... man... no wonder your own roads are in such dire straits if you spent so much money on meddling in german and other international affair. I´m telling you to drop it and finaly start taking care of your very own people who are suffering instead. Also the sheer amount and sheer obviousness of y ou trolls lies... really, just stop for your own sake.
PPS and that´s also why more and more people in Europe are not only avoiding social media, but also turning their backs on the US as a whole. It´s really pathetic that even on a history/archeology channel I am faced with NED funded trolls who talk utter nonsense and obvious fakenews about my country. And I have to ask again: Do you really think using trolls to talk trash about other countries is in any way gonna fix the dire situation you face? Wake up.
@@thequantumalchemist2965 Indeed. One of us lives in another universe. I am going to guess it's the nutjob who pulls some crap about.. wtf? CIA? Are you for real or just off your medication?
Fascinating topic! It's common to joke about Roman roads that are usable to this day vs modern roads that last a couple years but it's usually meant facetiously. Asphalt is relatively inexpensive and wears quickly but it provides a much quieter road surface for high speed modern traffic. Concrete is more durable but more expensive and louder to drive on. Quarried granite would be more durable still but quite expensive and drivers would go insane from road noise.
It's not insanely loud to drive in granite roads, some of my local ones around the church were paved on it some 70 years ago, but, as a consequence, on irregular granite, you have to drive slow.
Those were made at a time when there were no cars around, so the road just not turning into a muddy sinkhole that takes two days to get your ox cart out of is a good enough compromise
@@riograndedosulball248 So it's not possible to drive at normal speeds on this granite road? Sounds like a bad road.
@@Industrialitis mind you, it's not cut and squared stones like Roman roads are. it's made of irregular granite pieces cobbled together. Of course it's not as good for modern vehicles as modern, well kept roads, but it is in no way bad. And it requires barely any maintenance to be ok. Good enough compromise.
@@riograndedosulball248 Sure, whatever.
@@riograndedosulball248 Even well maintained cobblestone roads ara a pain in the ass to drive or cycle on.
I live in Finland And seeing The pictures of The cities with skyscrapers And suburbs, i Have to wonder how you guys can live like that 😳 i dont mean to Be mean but i could never live in such cities
Chicago is especially hectic. I find very little beauty in the steel giants of industry and finance. Even beautiful European cities like Milan and Paris cannot escape the never ending climb to the sky. I wish I could just fly out of the Southern United States and live in Verona or Valencia.
It's just a different kind of forest. You just need to know the parts (neighborhoods).
You aren't off base. These cities arent built with people in mind anymore. Cities are more built with investment and real estate and more of a focus on infrastructure for cars rather than humans. It leads to a lot of boring architecture and spaces that are built with pedestrians as an afterthought.
The craziest part about all those skyscrapers? They are mostly empty. There is a lot of office space in there that obviously is empty right now (and will stay that way if people are allowed to work from home). If there is residential space in those buildings, it often gets bought simply as an investment. They might rent it out but frequently they just hold onto it as a place to park money for a few years.
cities would be better without multiculturalism
@@ilimes lol multiculturalism has nothing to do with the existence or prosperity of cities. Cities that are trade hubs are just likely to be multicultural
Hey fellow Chicagoan! Love watching the content on your channel!
I'm italian And we still drive cars on those stones nowadays... sometimes the municipality has to refill the gaps between the stones but other than that they're good to go, despite what some say about not neing able to withstand modern traffic.
Sure, they're not highways where huge trucks drive all day long, but still fine for city or local regional traffic.
Thanks for the feedback, may our Lord and saviour Jesus bless you
@@perryfroze lol
thats the thing though, people like to compare roads that are dirven by trucks daily with roads that trucks barely or never go through
really awesome! I heard recently scientists have figured out why Roman marine structures are so durable. pretty impressive civilization
I enjoyed this presentation. I intend to scroll back and rewatch your presentation on the Roman postal system. Your channel remains a preference and priority for me , for many reasons , including personal relaxation , sheer enjoyment , and western civilizational-educational value.
Best history channel on TH-cam, hands down. Been loving the upload frequency lately!
You’re so close to 200 000 subscribers! You’re videos are very informative and you deserve all the success that is coming your way.
200 000 now!
Became goosebumps just from seeing the picture of the via appia from the thumbnail. Walking this way during my visit in 2020 was so awesome. Thanks for the interesting video!
Dear toldinstone!
Please consider making a video on roman eagle standards. They are mentioned so often in Roman history, it was hard for me to believe that there is no video on youtube explaining their origin and significance.
Love your content, Sir!
oh there's *so much* roman military history on youtube. Having a channel that does something else is so refreshing.
I've learnt about them through a short. They're so important to the Romans, that losing them was more devastating than losing a battle as they had religious importance to the Romans.
"I'm from Chicago"
I'm sorry for your loss
Thank you for saying that the roads "radiate out from the Golden Milestone" and not "all roads lead to Rome."
All roads can lead to anywhere if you take the right turns. If you live in north America, my driveway is connected to yours.
I was born and raised in Chicago a Suburb "Downers Grove" and in Downers we had what seemed to us like ancients roads that were made of Brick. The City decided not to pave over the brick as it the brick gave downtown a sense of charm that can't be duplicated. So not all roads in the US fall apart after a few years and Downers has roads that date back to before WW2.
brick paved roads can hold up a long time if built right, and commercial vehicles dont go over them.
What always gives me a smile is the idea that Paul de Tarsus Apostle of Christ travelled these same roads over 2000 years ago. This is one of the most thorough short documentaries on the ingenuity and genius of the Legionary Engineers who constructed these works of art out of the rudimentary materials they had on hand or were obligated to manufacture on site. Thanks for posting this Dr. it is much appreciated.
Is “Christ” a name?
@@steviesevieria1868 Proclamation.
@@jimseiler4651 oh yes, a Jewish term. The Christians didn’t have much originality did they?
@@steviesevieria1868No, but we use it commonly in English to refer to Jesus of the Bible or Jesus Christ. It comes from the Greek meaning of annointed one I believe, Christ'os, which was used for the translation of the Hebrew word Masiah.
@@tgapete01 yes, so many true religions in the world. Just a touch of logic makes you realize they’re all man-made, basically to keep people under control and to alleviate the fear of death.
Is there evidence of romans ever having to rip something out and start over, without a significant period of time elapsed after construction? It took caltrans 20 years and two tries to build a highway bridge over a creek that surface roads already crossed...
In California at least, much of the delay is usually caused by abuse of the CEQA by various organizations.
Even in the UK, I work in a comp school and we had a new section built 5 years ago. Already it needs repairs due to cracks, I can't see it lasting another 40 years. Yet a few towns over a Victorian school built in the 1850's is still standing proud. The Victorians and also the Romans didn't use the cheapest, nastiest materials they could find. I guess the equivalent would be the Romans building the Pantheon out of wattle and daub...
They had to redo bath houses a lot and apartments due to fires
@@mikesully110 very late, but you aren't wrong. though imagine trying to get the permission for a very high budget to make the same building out of something much more expensive and stronger.
This has to be the best Roman history channel
Just awesome. An under examined subject. At the end you touched on the eternal problem. Getting them built is one thing but the money for the upkeep is another matter. As you noted the prime motive for their construction was for the direct movement of troops. If that meant going up and down hills and fording rivers then so be it. That approach wasn't alway the best for commerce though and I suspect that's when the financial burden was shifted from the state to the local magistrates. Not every road was built to satisfy an emperor.
Really interesting, as always. Thank you Dr Ryan.
Superb Garrett. yey another fascinating video thank you
“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Hahahahaha!
A culture still beloved millennials after.
I've seen it written that the only real advantage the Romans had over the rest of the world was a brilliant sense of organization. But they managed to rule for almost a thousand years with that one advantage.
don't forget foundational form of government and law. most of the western worlds legal and governmental system is based shockingly close to a hybrid of Athenian democracy and Roman representative republic.
@@anonygent organization and adaptability. They were very quick to adapt foreign ideas to their own use. Other great empires like the Persians lacked that aspect, and came and went within a span of 2-300 years (Alexanders rampage across the known world did not help poor Darius very much, tho. lol)
Excellent coverage of an interesting subject.
Anyone else just have this account pop up in your recommended one day and now your hooked? Because that's what happened to me. One of the best history youtube channels out there
Wonderful, as usual. Thanks Doctor!
Amazing video. One thing that your style of presentation and explanation serves to highlight is the actual daily lives of our ancestors, especially with the examples you provided of the uses of Roman roads from farmers going to market to sell to every day people just walking about to visit relatives. We tend to think of people in antiquity as primitive, and their lives as simplistic and dull, when in fact they were people just the same as us. Subject to the circumstances of their times, technology, religions, moral belief structures, and individual life situations as we all are. From one Chicagoan to another, very well done presentation.
Eisenhower's 1950s Interstate Highway project was, in part, a military project for the quick movement of troops. That is one of the ways it was pushed through congress.
In the original design, all bridges on the Interstate were designed to carry military tanks.
The original Interstate highways were designed for light trucks of the 1950s, but the trucking industry lobbied congress for bigger and bigger trucks. The big very heavy new trucks then destroyed the roads designed for the smaller trucks.
love your videos man, keep up the good work
Would like an in depth video on the Danube bridge to Dacia, mentioned briefly in this one. The engineering on that seems crazy to pull off. The flow and depth of the Danube are really impressve at that point.
We’ve still got a lot of Roman roads here in England, easy to spot because they are dead straight for miles (obviously now they are tarmac’d).
Speaking as an Architect, Surveyor and general builder, I am always impressed with the Roman roads in Italy that still have the original paving. The levels and plumb-ness are amazing. It takes a lot of expertise to do that, and probably isn’t appreciated by the layperson.
That's why we should always think of the Romans as our intellectual equals, capable of doing anything we can do today that's doesn't involve computers.
And of course, the Greeks did have a very complex astronomical computer.
Both those civilizations could have potentially gone on to reach an advanced technological age much like out own,
but they just didn't have enough people to come up with all the ideas we've collectively had over the ensuing 2000 years,
and there were too many threats and wars to spend money on anything but military.
@@thealexanderbond with Diocletian and then Constantine essentially freezing the economy by making people have to inherit their father’s jobs and being unable to migrate they sealed the technological fate of the empire much like how the Japanese would do so in the period after the Sengoku Jidai up until the Meiji Restoration
Recent archeology in the UK has revealed that a lot of Roman roads were built on top of existing roads, which means that some part of the Roman road network there just followed existing Celtic roads.
They used a surveying device called "groma" that used a suspended plumb line to track the next leg of paving. Roads almost perfectly straight for miles.
In my neighborhood in Chicago, the roads are scraped, then left unpaved for 6 months or so, and then repaved. Then, about a week later, the water department digs a huge hole in the new pavement, when ends up as a lumpy 20-foot patch.
I live in New Lenox, if you've heard of Joliet I'm near there. we have had road construction for the past 18 years, whether it is on LaGrange road, Illinois highway, rt30, I80 or anywhere in Joliet. Also train tracks suck
Come on, thats the charm of the city. Adds character and jobs!
@@bluesky7288 I'm not in the city. Also the people doing those construction jobs should be getting payed millions because the highways are so dangerous with there being a shooting on them every week.
One of the things I like about Garret Ryan's videos is the way he neatly -- almost seamlessly -- dovetails the 'advertorial' for his sponsor into the subject matter of the video itself. Much better than the usual jarring interjection that most people seem to think is OK.
Excellent video. Congrats
My father is 92 years old. He still refers to asphalt as macadam (McAdam). Most young folks would have no idea WTH he's talking about. 😂
My dad born in 1918 called it that as well.
Does your father call rain boots "wellies" as in Wellingtons?
here in ireland, we generally call it tarmac today, an abbreviation of tarmacadam
Completely random, but in rallying there's "macadam stages". It's definitely not asphalt though; rather it's those compacted, gravely roads (throws lots of dust usually).
"Tarmac" I'd say is typical for airports. No idea why, honestly.
Isn't macadam a mix of the glueing stuff (asphalt) and sediments (stones or rough sand)? Presently they mix all sorts of materials to increase durability and resistance to heat.
The American interstate highway system was partially implemented for a military purpose. It was designed, in part, to allow quick deployment of troops in case of invasion. The highways were also presented as possible runways for military aircraft, though I question whether they would work for that purpose.
I don't think they had airbuses like that when they first built these highways
@@iHawke the interstate system didn't start getting built till the 50s
@@iHawke they sure did.
They do work, as long as it’s not a super rough patch (for smaller planes at least, not sure about jets)
@@cara-seyun militaries around the globe have been using highways for launching by and landing jets, Ukraine is doing it right now.
I’ve been to the tunnel on the via Flaminia near the Furlo .
It’s via cuts inland from my ancestral home Fano and ends up in Rome.
It runs down the Adriatic Coast from Ravenna ,and Rimini ,and is the same path Caesar took from Gaul .
I’ve crossed the rubicon on occasion.
You have an excellent cadence. Not exactly repetitive, flavor, pauses... well done.
I feel young again...Augusta Emerita was the location for my dissertation back in 1991. Overnight train from Madrid and arriving with no spanish language at all. Hitch hiking down a truck in a rain storm back from the reservoirs ....Went back in 2009. Highly recommend it and not far from Italica
There were Roman roads on Roman Rhodes, but they didn't lead to Rome!
😮
In our town, there was a section of main street that was always sinking, needed constant pothole repair and patching. Another section of same road always stayed in great shape despite the same traffic. One year they dug up all of the layers of asphalt and discovered the good section had cobblestones underneath and the "always bad" section didn't. Well, 4 years later, the same bad section needs work again and the good section is still in good shape.
As usual, most excellent and thank you so much.
I always get this feeling that the Romans would have scaled up the strength of their roads to match today's demands on roads. The basic construction principle is a winner and might be translated to handle this time's tonnage. The durability of these roads despite the passage of time remains quite the engineering feat.
Enjoyed the vid. A+ 👏
"Would have?" The underpinnings of roman roads is the same as modern roads, just with different materials and adaptations for modern superusage
I saw several in Spain and the Alcántara Bridge in Cáceres, first time that saw it was fascinated and admiring it then noticed that cars use it and was the only way to get to where had to ,, incredible
Great video! Thank you
Great video. Thanks!
Good piece. I suspect a number of engineers, civil engineers and/or architects took inspiration from Rome in the 19th century (if not outright engaged in copying). I seem to recall that the chief engineer for aqueducts for New York City running from reservoirs north of the city was a teacher at West Point that basically copied techniques - so referring to the Croton Aqueduct.
Would be great if you could continue with more episodes on civil engineering in Rome and its impact (or revival, in copying) in more modern times.
On face book I saw pictures of old road stones one and the new one rotten bad ones in Lithuania and the article said In lithuanian language they built us road that lasted thousands of years but the Engineers build us to roads that looks like this , ha ha ha ha
The road that runs almost right by my house is a Roman road, long since modernised and still used today as a main B road highway - the Fosse Way. It's straight and fast and very rarely congested. My dad still insists it's the best way to get pretty much anywhere in England.
Your channel is amazing.
I would think wherever there are cobblestone streets,
would probably be the most similar to the ancient Roman roads.
Very nice to look at, durable, can't really go fast on.
Makes a pleasant noise when driven on.
And gives you a good massage at the same time.
A good trade off, if only they were used more.
short answer: no! even the sturdiest roman road cannot withstand 3,000 heavy trucks and 15,000 cars driving over it in one day without becoming completely undriveable the next morning; this is not to mention that even the smoothest roman road is absolutely unsuitable to drive at 80km/h because it will destroy the suspension
? there is cobbled roman roads that are still used today.. even in this video he showed this.. there is also 1000snds of medieval roads and streets in common use today.. the main issue is cobbled roads they are slipper at speed and can cause accidents especially when the ground is wet. a cobbled road is far stronger and durable compare to a modern road but at speed can be very dangerous but easy and quick to repair.. .. this is why even today many urban flatter high traffic low speed areas are in european towns cobbled.. and stone kerbing is used.. it lasts 1000 years.. can be fixed in afew minutes and looks great
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367 i guess you’re right, in terms of durability it’s clear that quality cobbled roads win. i made the mistake of confusing the question, just because asphalt roads are a better option for many uses doesn’t mean they’re more durable.
There is a famous old story about a Roman road discovered in Britain. Two painters were in the cellar of an old Inn going about their business when to their shock and astonishment a group of Roman soldiers marched past them waist high and went straight through the wall. The painters told the Inn keeper they would not be back and told him what they had seen. A few years later the road had to be dug up near the pub due to a water leak and guess what they found? an original Roman Road running underneath the cellar.
Just ordered you book. The synopsis sounds great.
HANDS DOWN THE BEST CHANNEL ON TH-cam
Walking the via appia antica out of Rome is an experience I'd recommend. I've never had such a sense of history.
Awesome video! Is there a source of where the location of remnants of Roman roads and bridges can be found? I love the photos in the video and I would like to visit them. I’ve been to via appia quite a few times of course.
I don't know of any unified database, though I believe Colin O' Connor's book on Roman bridges lists most of the extant examples.
Congrats with 200K subscribers! I’ll go look for the book!
Great video and loved your book btw :)
I got to say that sponsored segment was beautifully introduced.
Excellent video as always.
Big difference in traffic levels. I bet more driving and heavier loads are put on Chicago roads in one day than the entire lifetime of some of those Roman roads....
Any thoughts as to how smooth those roads were when new? I try to imagine a wagon ride over one of these roads sans shock absorbers and I can't. I drove over an 18th-century road in rural Mexico once and I thought I'd need the services of a chiropractor afterward. It was cobblestone, in good condition and looked similar to a Roman road but even in a car with nice fat tires it was very jarring. It occurred to me that weathering might have caused the edges of the stones to become more rounded over time but that's just a guess. Great video!
Check out the wagon wheel grooves on preserved on Pompeii roads
@@histguy101 Good point. Once grooves developed the ride would have been smoother but what about when the roads were new? And how many decades would it take for the stones to acquire those grooves.
Your thinking with too modern mindset. For commercial activities travels often were short, something like 5-6 miles at most and you wouldn't certainly be blasting them even close to current speeds. And people would have option to walk besides the wagon. If you went for a distance you'd use boats.
Foremost idea of gobblestone was to keep roads from turning into mudtrack which is the main problem with earthen roads. Even today that is main reason why earthen roads are not very good. They work well, very close to asphalt with right mix of soil types when it's dry and surface is being leveled at steady intervals but when it starts to rain things turn into mud and holes.
I've driven on more than a few Roman roads. They are nice.
This is something always something I've wondered, thanks! Was hoping you could do a video about slavery in Ancient Rome. How one becomes a slave, what life was like, and how to become free. Love your videos!
You're very welcome! I hope to eventually make a whole miniseries on slavery in the Roman world.
@@toldinstone i live in Glenview. Are you from the city or burbs? Love your site. Can never get enough history and love the Roman stuff. Grandparents born east of Rome in mountainous area.
@@toldinstone ..fine, but don't expect us to pay you! 😄
The sheer expense of modern roads, among other modern things like medicine or education, makes me somewhat unsure that the very modern way of life itself isn't "cost prohibitive".
I wonder, and maybe this might be an interesting topic, how cost effective the Roman way of life and their expectations were. Were they sustainable? Did they require people and resources to be exhausted, physically but also mentally? Might that have contributed to the fall of the Empire?
You are absolutely wrong. Modern highways are thousand times cheaper to build. The same with modern medicine, housing and everything else due machinization. 10 people can build a 1 km in a day today. In old days even 100 people couldn’t do it. The cost is measured in how much labor and work it takes. Today even a poor person can afford a decent home, good food, good healthcare and 100s other things in developed countries which even rich couldn’t have in the past.
The Roman way of life relied on constant expansion and a steady stream of slave labor.
When they stopped expanding that’s when the empire began to fracture.
@@manpreet9766 lol
I think the opposite is true, that because the Romans took the long view and built stuff to last forever, it contributed to the empire's longevity. We build crap that won't last a century, and our timeline gets shorter all the time. An electric fan built in 1950 might have been expected to last 50 years, but a fan built today isn't expected to last more than 5.
@@anonygent What electric fan from the 50’s still works?
Most roman structures collapsed long ago, and there was many, many times were they were a hair’s breadth away from collapse only for it to be saved at the last minute by some warlord or another.
The Roman Empire collapsed because they built their entire society on a system that couldn’t be sustained forever.
I lived in Germany for many years. I drove on roads that were built by the Romans over 2000 years ago. Now i live in El Paso. I have seen the same section of road repaired 6 times in 19 years. I guess if you own a construction company that repairs roads, this is a great place.
This makes me nostalgic for the Via Appia, the Arco Felice, and the numerous unsung bridges, and roads of Roman Southern Italy.
If more modern roads, highways, freeways etc. were constructed with a minimum of one foot of gravel base, they would last soooo much longer.
And if we used trains to transport all long distance freight. It’s faster, doesn’t cause traffic, doesn’t degrade your roads, uses 1/4 the amount of fuel per ton per km, takes up less space to load/unload, and you don’t have to worry about self driving trucks
@@sizor3ds
Agreed! I've been arguing this point for years.
@@sizor3ds Never gonna happen as long as Fossil fuel companies are still around lobbying. I've lost hope for any real change
@@sethb124 No one likes to lose money, make train transport cheaper and faster and customers will switch, the math is done by machines and as it turns out... sadly for many distances and destinations trucks just make more sense cost wise
Highways don't last because of heavy loads, lots of traffic, and wear and tear due to things like weather (freeze/thaw). Not the construction method. Engineers are very particular about how the subbase of roads is constructed. For example, this document: intrans.iastate.edu/app/uploads/sites/15/2020/03/6F-1.pdf explains that a too thick subbase can cause issues where consolidation after construction can cause pavement failure. And the composition of the gravel matters too. For example, here's a document from DOT explaining some of the materials in that subbase: www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/infrastructure/pavements/97148/075.cfm . So yeah, give the engineers that build this stuff the benefit of the doubt. They know their stuff and do the best they can with the materials, knowledge, and budgets they are given.
Weather is a big factor too. Rome rarely sees the rain/freezing/thaws that, say, Chicago sees. There may be Roman roads left in England but I would guess far fewer than in Spain, Italy, etc.
They built roads in places with cold climates too..
I've had the pleasure of driving upon Roman roads in both the UK and Italy. In fact, I have stood at the end of the Appian Way in Brindisi, many years ago. A true marvel.
I grew up in Tripoli Libya back in the 70's. It was so much fun to explore the old Roman ruins, see their buildings, art, cities.
Checking out the WW2 stuff was pretty cool also.
I'm from Turkey and I can confirm that they are still really in good condition. You can still use them. But some of them have been destroyed, especially the ones built in BCE. A decade ago, they found a new Roman road in Mersin which is in really good condition, you can even see the wheel marks on the road. They think it was built in 5th century CE.
The Türkiye Republic was then Asia (Minor) and Pontus
Shout-out from Naperville :p
Very interesting video
I'm from Chicago too, and it feels like that I90/290 split has been under construction my entire life. lol
Weren't the roman roads a military project?
The full name of the interstate highways is the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" which has defense in it.
That was very informative. The Roman road network was even more impressive than I realized. I wonder will there be some equivalent to toldinstone a millennium from now be discussing how the current highway network was constructed and what happened to it? :-)
When I was a kid our parents used to bring us to Ireland every year on holiday, my dad used to drive from London to Hollyhead up the A5 which was built on top of an old roman road called Watling street to catch the ferry across to Dublin, it is straight as an arrow and nearly 300 miles long.
Great and Healthy information sir, God bless you
We have a cobble track under our house built by a local farmer for horse and carts to run over. I suspect just cobbled pressed into the clay. But interesting all the same
To be fair, in my experience US roads are more often than not in terrible shape, especially in the Midwest with its harsh winters. Overall, we have much better infrastructure in Europe. Having said that, even the best roads will only stay that way if they are constantly repaired.
The discrepancy in quality probably has more to do with the manner of movement of goods than the maintenance schedule. European goods are a lot more likely to move by train, while just about everything in North America moves by truck. It saves a lot of wear on the roadway if you don't have society's entire daily needs carried by just-in-time trucks.
@@johnladuke6475 This for sure is a contributing factor, but less than you think. I just looked up the numbers: even in Switzerland (which is always hailed for its high fraction of rail freight), only 37% of total cargo volume is moved by train. The rest is by trucks just like in the US. I think in the end, European governments simply spend more money on public infrastructure.
Very interesting analysis. The difference also between these roads is that no roman roads took highway traffic the U.S does daily, and even if today sometimes people drive on them, not like in the states where some trucks weigh like 20 tons. Not the same but they are amazing.
Treves‘ main bridge crossing the Moselle is still a Roman bridge. You won‘t see it first as the deck is modern, but the pillars are from 150 AD! They are designed to withstand floodings and ice drift and they do.
The modern world engineers 100-year structures. The best examples of Roman engineering are virtually timeless.
100 years if you’re lucky
Most homes are built today with an expected 30-year lifespan