Paved strip of more than 500 kilometers built from 312 BC.

AD by Claudio Appius the Blind, censor and Roman consul, the Via Appia Antica is a book of history that archaeological excavations nourish indefinitely.

It projected Rome towards Greece and the East by linking it to the port of Brindisi on the Adriatic, winding through the provinces of Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Puglia.

To borrow it is to travel in the past: one discovers there precious monuments such as the tomb of a consul's daughter, Cecilia Metella, dating from the first century BC, catacombs, mausoleums, villas.

We read about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, but also life in the Middle Ages with its basilicas and crypts, and even that of the 20th century, with the homes of cinema legends like Gina Lollobrigida.

In Rome, the Via Appia Antica began near the Circus Maximus and the sumptuous Baths of Caracalla, where the Eternal City's heritage department summoned the press this week to support the site's candidacy for inclusion on the heritage list. global.

Busts and currency

Work to locate the first hundred meters of the Via Appia route, about eight meters deep, began in 2018 and has unearthed remains from different eras, including a marble bust from the 2nd century AD. .-C and a strange papal square coin, minted between 690 and 730.

"The historical question at the origin of these excavations carried out in front of the Baths of Caracalla is this: where did the first Roman mile of the Appian Way pass?"

explained to AFP Daniela Porro, curator at the department of archeology in Rome.

"In the contemporary landscape, the initial route of the Appian Way has almost disappeared".

Fragments of glass and ceramics, remains of an amphora, mosaics, revealing the various periods of the history of Rome, were also found.

"If we could keep digging lower, we would find Archaic Rome, and Imperial Rome, with its monuments and houses. We have reached Late Ancient Rome, the one that began to live in the ruins of Ancient Rome" , detailed to AFP Professor Daniel Manacorda, who worked with an interdisciplinary team of young archaeologists, geologists and architects.

"Here, for example, we know that there was a xenodoche. A xenodoche was a kind of accommodation to receive the sick and pilgrims", he underlines.

In addition to having resisted more than two millennia, the Via Appia bears witness to the ingenuity of Roman builders.

When the roads were still grassy, ​​muddy and rocky paths, they invented the modern lane, wide enough for two carts to pass, flanked by dirt pavements for pedestrians and a system of drainage to evacuate rainwater.

© 2023 AFP