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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GameDaddy" data-source="post: 8075582" data-attributes="member: 80711">Fifty Years of Road Building.In the newly conquered territories, Augustus Caesar built roads. Attached in this post you’ll find the Roman Road map for 9 AD, right at the time that Varus lost his three legions along with his life in the battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. This was just forty years after Caesar had been assassinated in Rome.In Varus’ time It typically took a Roman rider Just eight days to travel from Rome to Vetera which was the home of the nineteenth legion in Northern Belgium just across the Rhine from Germany. That was a 600 Km road trip, so the messengers and Roman Cavalry Officers were making about 75 Km a day. About 55 Miles a day on average. Here is how they did it…The cursus publicus (Latin:"the public way") was the state mandated and supervised courier and transportation service of the Roman Empire, later inherited by the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a system based on obligations placed on private persons by the Roman State. They provided as contractors, "mancipes", the equipment, animals, and wagons. In the Early Empire compensation had to be paid but this had fallen into abeyance in Late Antiquity when maintenance was charged to the inhabitants along the routes. The service contained only those personnel necessary for administration and operation. These included veterinarians, wagon-wrights, and grooms. The couriers and wagon drivers did not belong to the service: whether public servants or private individuals, they used facilities requisitioned from local individuals and communities. The costs in Late Antiquity were charged to the provincials as part of the provincical tax obligations in the form of a liturgy/munus on private individual taxpayers.The Emperor Augustus created it to transport messages, officials, and tax revenues between the provinces and Italy. The service was still fully functioning in the first half of the sixth century in the Eastern Empire, when the historian Procopius accuses Emperor Justinian of dismantling most of its sections, except for the route leading to the Persian border.A series of forts and stations was spread out along the major road systems connecting the regions of the Roman world. The relay points or change stations (stationes) provided horses to dispatch riders and (usually) soldiers as well as vehicles for magistrates or officers of the court. The vehicles were called clabulae, but little is known of them. A diploma, or certificate, issued by the emperor himself was necessary to use the services supplied by the cursus publicus. Abuses of the system existed, for governors and minor appointees used the diplomata to give themselves and their families free transport. Forgeries and stolen diplomata were also used. Pliny the Elder and Trajan write about the necessity of those who wish to send things via the imperial post to keep up-to-date licences.Another term, perhaps more accurate if less common, for the cursus publicus is the cursus vehicularis, particularly in the period before the reforms of Diocletian. At least one 'Praefectus Vehiculorum', Lucius Volusius Maecianus, is known; he held the office during the reign of Antoninus Pius. Presumably, he had some sort of supervisory responsibility to ensure the effective operation of the network of stations throughout the Empire and to discourage abuse of the facility by those not entitled to use it. There is evidence that inspectors oversaw the functioning of the system in the provinces, and it may be conjectured that they reported to the 'Praefectus' in Rome. However, the office does not seem to have been considered a full-time position because Maecianus was also the law tutor of the young Marcus Aurelius, apparently his main function.Although the government supervised the functioning and maintenance of the network of change stations (with repair facilities), 'mutationes,' and 'full service change stations with lodging, 'mansiones,' the service was a department of state in the same way as, say, the modern British Royal Mail or a series of State-owned and operated hotels and repair facilities. As Altay Coskun notes in a review of Anne Kolb's work done in German, the system "simply provided an infrastructure for magistrates and messengers who traveled through the empire. It consisted of thousands of stations placed along the main roads; these had to supply fresh horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen, as well as carts, food, fodder, and accommodation." The one who was sending a missive would have to supply the courier, and the stations had to be supplied out of the resources of the local areas through which the roads passed. As seen in several rescripts and in the correspondence of Trajan and Pliny, the emperor would sometimes pay for the cost of sending an ambassador to Rome along the cursus publicus, particularly in the case of just causes.Following the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine I, the service was divided in two sections: the fast (Latin: cursus velox) and the regular (Latin: cursus clabularis). The fast section provided horses, divided into veredi ("saddle-horses") and parhippi ("pack-horses"), and mules, and the slow section provided only oxen. The existence of the 'cursus clabularis' service shows that it was used to move heavy goods as well as to facilitate the travel of high officials and the carriage of government messages. Maintenance charged to the provincials under the supervision of the governors under the general supervision of the diocesan vicars and praetorian prefects.</blockquote>

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