ETRUSCAN ROADS

Roads are notoriously difficult to date, but a good case can be made for the construction of the formal (and probably processional) 12-kilometer road from Caere to Pyrgi by the fifth century BC. This appears to have been of gravel, bounded by tuff blocks, accompanied by drainage. Elsewhere, frequent travel along regular routes can be detected by the downcutting of the rock and dated by the placement of (later) tombs in the walls of rock, cut facing the roads. Some Roman consular roads may have developed parts of the routes of earlier Etruscan roads.

See also VIA AURELIA; VIA CLAUDIA; VIA FLAMINIA.