Roman Roads and Paved Ways

Roman roads and paved ways constitute the greatest engineering undertaking of Antiquity preserved on Portuguese soil. Built mainly between the first century BC and the third century AD, they served to integrate Lusitania and southern Gallaecia into the imperial administration, linking conventus capitals, ports and mining operations in a coherent network that structured movement for centuries. Many of their routes remain fossilised beneath national highways and rural lanes, and their remains — pavements, embankments, bridges and milestones — are today one of the richest legacies of Roman Portugal.

A network in the service of the Empire

The main source for reconstructing this network is the Antonine Itinerary, a late-imperial compilation that lists the relay stations and the intermediate distances expressed in miles. Of the roughly thirty-four roads attributed to Hispania, eleven crossed present-day Portuguese territory. Among them are several itineraries between Olisipo (Lisbon) and Emerita Augusta (Mérida), the link from Olisipo to Bracara Augusta (Braga), and the set of four roads that, from Braga, headed for Asturica Augusta (Astorga). At the southern extreme, branches joined Salacia, Pax Iulia (Beja) and Ossonoba (Faro), connecting the Algarve with the Alentejo interior.

Each road was identified by a number and, at times, by a descriptive epithet. The famous Via XX, called per loca maritima — “through the maritime places” —, followed the Gallaecian coast, and the fact that its distances were given in stadia rather than miles betrays the matrix of a coastal itinerary.

Technique and construction

The durability of Roman roads results not from a single formula, but from the intelligent adaptation of the route and the materials to the terrain they crossed.

The image of the Roman road with several superimposed layers — statumen, rudus, nucleus and the surface of slabs — describes above all the great urban axes. In rural and mountainous settings, the most common solution was a platform of compacted grit and gravel, edged with kerbstones, with paving reserved for critical points: steep slopes, wet crossings or approaches to bridges. This road engineering was inseparably linked to the Roman bridges, which ensured the crossing of rivers and streams and which today constitute some of the most visible remains of this system.

Along the route, the milestones marked the miles and celebrated imperial authority. Their epigraphic reading makes it possible to date phases of construction and repair, associating stretches with specific emperors.

Remains and reading the territory

The most remarkable case is the Geira, or Via XVIII, which crosses the Peneda-Gerês National Park. Begun under Vespasian and continued by Titus and Domitian, it is the best-preserved Roman road in the Peninsula and the one where the greatest number of milestones survived — more than a hundred still in situ —, which earned it classification as a National Monument. Other stretches, reused milestones and pavements scattered across the North, Centre and Alentejo testify to the density of this network.

The study of Roman roads and paved ways intersects with that of all Roman architecture in Portugal and forms part of the broader set of typologies of built heritage. Recognising a regular embankment, a granite kerbstone or an uninscribed marker in the landscape is often the key to restoring visibility to an infrastructure that shaped the geography of the territory for almost two millennia.