Ancient roads showed Rome wasn’t the empire’s center
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Tom Brughmans and colleagues recently analyzed the Roman Empire’s road network and found that the most central route did not pass through Rome.
For years, people have used the saying “all roads lead to Rome” to mean many paths can reach the same goal, referencing the empire’s extensive road system and Rome’s importance. However, the researchers discovered geography made Rome more important for Mediterranean shipping than for land transport.
The team determined the most central road ran along the North African coast, eastward through modern-day Turkey including cities like Antioch and Ankara, and then through Constantinople, now Istanbul, before passing north of Rome through Milan. Augustus, a Roman emperor, placed a “golden milestone” in the Roman Forum around 20 BC to symbolize the empire’s main roads. This act likely contributed to the origin of the saying.
The analysis, published in Nature Communications, suggests Constantinople held a more central position in the empire’s land transport network than Rome itself.
