On the Ancient Road

“Time is an illusion.”
(Albert Einstein)

Appia Antica. ROME – 6 February 2021

The Via Appia was the main Roman road, 650 kilometers long, which connected Rome to Brundisium (Brindisi), the most important part of ancient Italy in the south, from which the trade routes to Greece and the East originated. Considered by the Romans the regina viarum (queen of the roads), it's universally considered, in consideration of the time in which it was built (end of the 4th - 3rd century BC), one of the greatest civil engineering works of the ancient world.

Construction work began in 312 BC. at the behest of the censor Appio Claudio Cieco. The construction works continued during the second half of the third century BC, when Tarentum (Taranto) was reached, and then until around 190 BC, when the route to the port of Brundisium (Brindisi) was completed.

Created with the intention of facilitating the rapid movement of troops towards the south, this great artery ended up becoming the main link between Rome and Magna Grecia.

Not only soldiers and goods trains walked on large stones but also Greek culture, language, literature and philosophy.

And what stones....

 

 

It makes a certain impression to walk on these smooth stones from feet and time. Like letters stuck in the earth to remind us of human ingenuity.

Because the rain made travel inaccessible, therefore its gravel pavement (glareatum) allowed it to move during any season: rainwater drained between the channels of the space between the stones.

Starting from 258 BC (intervention by the Ogulni brothers) steps were taken to gradually equip the road with a more advanced pavement, with large smooth stones of volcanic stone (basoli), made to match at the moment of laying. The basolato paving then became the standard for the establishment of the extensive road network of the Roman world.

What fascinates me most is seeing the slow mixing of nature and man's work, what is said, with an ancient word, vestige. The footprint that must be followed, investigated, to find the direction of what was – then became the poetic form to define the ruins of the past, traces of monuments, walls, statues, devoured by time.

Like a temporal and physical bolus, a mouthful of stones and art ready to be digested by nature that envelops and corrodes everything.

And we walk on it, side by side, unaware that we are not so different from those residues of effigies and bricks.

Walking on history does not mean avoiding it, overwhelming it, escaping its digestion. But it's not as sad as it might seem.

Because this ancient road reminds us how nothing disappears.

Even if what was remains only a memory, it is still visible, it's in the very skin of nature – you can touch it.

 

In some form, we will remain...

 

The photographs were taken during a photographic outbound with the Al3photo association.

• The Parco degli Acquedotti 
• Ten Steps Back 

Italian version