Construction of the Via Appia begins
The censor Appius Claudius Caecus begins the road from Rome towards Capua, later extended to Brundisium. In the same censorship he begins the Aqua Appia, Rome's first aqueduct. Two of the empire's defining technologies - the engineered road and the engineered water supply - start in the same year, under a republic.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Via Appia · route · Italy · not located
- The Roman Road Network · network · Mediterranean-wide, from Britain to Mesopotamia · not located
- The Roman Aqueduct System · institution · Mediterranean-wide; Rome served by eleven major aqueducts · not located
- Rome · city · Italy
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent. This is the standing of the weakest source, not an average.
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XVII: Miliaria Imperii Romani (Roman milestones)
Roman roads were systematically marked with inscribed milestones recording distances and the emperor responsible for construction or repair. This epigraphic series is the primary dating and attribution evidence for the road network, and the principal proof that road-building was an imperial political act as much as an engineering one.
Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (CIL project), De Gruyter · volumes published 1986- ; inscriptions 3rd c. BCE - 5th c. CE · Partly verified
CIL vol. XVII, Miliaria Imperii Romani; corpus described at https://cil.bbaw.de/
Frontinus, De aquaeductu urbis Romae (On the Water Supply of the City of Rome)
Frontinus, as curator aquarum, describes the aqueducts serving Rome, their sources, lengths, administration, maintenance staff and the fraud he found in illegal tapping. It is the empire's clearest surviving evidence that infrastructure was run by an accountable civil office with records, not merely built.
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press · written c. 97-104 CE · Partly verified
Sextus Iulius Frontinus, De aquaeductu urbis Romae; Loeb Classical Library 174, 'Stratagems and Aqueducts'; also in the Cambridge edition by R. H. Rodgers, 2004
Recorded on Via Appia
- Traditional foundation of the Roman Republic
- Construction of the Via Appia begins
- The Punic Wars
- The Augustan settlement: Octavian becomes Augustus
- Assassination of Julius Caesar
- Caesar crosses the Rubicon
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent
- Dedication of Constantinople
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire
- Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- Digital mapping shows most of the Roman road network is unlocated · 2025
- Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus - the contested 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire · 0476-09-04
- Alaric's Goths sack Rome · 0410-08-24
- Administrative division of the empire on the death of Theodosius I · 0395
- Dedication of Constantinople · 0330-05-11
- The empire reaches its greatest territorial extent · 0117
- Inauguration of the Flavian Amphitheatre · 0080
- Caesar crosses the Rubicon · -0049-01-10