Via Salaria

The Via Salaria was an ancient Roman road in Italy. It eventually ran from Rome (from Porta Salaria of the Aurelian Walls) to Castrum Truentinum (Porto d'Ascoli) on the Adriatic coast, a distance of 242 km. The road also passed through Reate (Rieti) and Asculum (Ascoli Piceno).

Route of Via Salaria (in gray).

Strada statale 4 Via Salaria (SS4) is the modern state highway that maintains the old road's name and runs on the same path from Rome to the Adriatic sea.

History

The Via Salaria owes its name to the Latin word for "salt", since it was the route by which the Sabines living nearer the Tyrrhenian sea came to fetch salt from the marshes at the mouth of the river Tiber, the Campus Salinarum (near Portus).[1] Peoples nearer the Adriatic Sea used it to fetch it from production sites there.[2] It was one of many ancient salt roads in Europe, and some historians consider the Salaria and the trade in salt to have been the origin of the settlement of Rome. Some remains still exist of the mountain sections of the road.

Roman bridges
Further information: List of Roman bridges
Remains of the Roman bridge over Velino river in Rieti

There are the remains of several Roman bridges along the road, including the Ponte del Gran Caso, Ponte della Scutella, Ponte d’Arli, Ponte di Quintodecimo, Ponte Romano (Acquasanta), Ponte Salario and Ponte Sambuco.

See also

References
  1. Morelli, Cinzia; Forte, Viviana (2014-06-17). "Il Campus Salinarum Romanarum e l'epigrafe dei conductores". Mélanges de l'École française de Rome: Antiquité (in Italian) (126–1). doi:10.4000/mefra.2059. ISSN 0223-5102.
  2. "SALARIA, VIA in "Enciclopedia Italiana"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-03-10.

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