Landmark · Italy
Via Appia
Rome's first great highway, the queen of roads, still walkable on its original basalt past ancient tombs.
Begun in 312 BC, the Via Appia was Rome's first great military road and the model for the empire's highway network, running south toward the Adriatic; stretches near Rome survive as straight, tomb-lined avenues paved in their original basalt, now a protected park.
The Place
South of Rome the Via Appia runs straight as a rule between lines of stone pines and cypresses, paved in places with its original basalt, large polygonal blocks worn smooth and rutted by twenty centuries of cartwheels and feet. Along its verges stand tombs, the round drum of Cecilia Metella, broken mausoleums, statues and inscriptions, because Roman law forbade burial inside the city and the dead were laid along the roads leading out of it. Walking it, you tread the actual surface of the ancient world.
Why It Matters
The Via Appia was the prototype of the Roman road. Begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, who gave it his name, it was the first of the great paved military highways that let Rome move armies and messages fast across its growing territory & the model for the network that bound the empire, behind the saying that all roads lead to Rome. The Romans called it the regina viarum, the queen of roads. It ran south to Capua and was later pushed across Italy to Brindisi, the port for Greece and the East.
The Road of the Dead and the Persecuted
The Appia carries some of Rome's darkest history. After the slave revolt led by Spartacus was crushed in 71 BC, around 6,000 captured rebels were crucified along the road between Rome and Capua as a warning, their crosses lining the highway for kilometres. Centuries later the soft volcanic rock beside the road was tunnelled into the catacombs, the underground Christian and Jewish burial galleries; those of San Callisto and San Sebastiano open off the Appia, where early Christians buried their dead and, by tradition, sheltered from persecution.
What to See
The stretch closest to the ancient experience is the Via Appia Antica beyond the city walls, now a regional park largely closed to traffic. The tomb of Cecilia Metella, a massive cylindrical mausoleum later turned into a fortress, is the landmark; the little church of Domine Quo Vadis marks the spot where, by legend, Saint Peter met a vision of Christ while fleeing Rome. The catacombs can be visited underground with a guide & long open stretches of original paving run between the monuments.
Knowing Before You Go
The Via Appia Antica is best on a Sunday, when the road beyond the gate is closed to cars and given over to walkers and cyclists, with bicycles for hire at the park visitor centre near the start. It is long, so most people walk or ride a section rather than the whole & the finest paved, tomb-lined stretches lie a few kilometres out from the city. The catacombs keep their own hours and close on different days, so check before setting out. Wear shoes that can handle uneven ancient stone.
- Country
- Italy
- Region
- Roma
- Coordinates
- 41°50′29″N 12°31′57″E
- Filmed here
- Spectre (2015)
Film & TV · James Bond Spectre
Spectre placed Lucia Sciarra's home on the Via Appia Antica, at the Villa di Fiorano behind the ancient road's walls & it is here that Bond follows the widow after her husband's funeral and kills the two Spectre gunmen sent to silence her. The scene is the film's pivot: Lucia names the organisation and gives Bond the time and place of its meeting. The property, listed in location guides at Via Appia Antica 400 and also known as Villa Alberico, supplied the house that stands in for the Sciarra residence.