roads

An illegal Roma gypsy camp might be one of the last places you'd expect to find yourself on an expedition in search of an ancient Roman bridge. But this is what happened to Professor Hans Bjur and his colleagues as they were researching their project on the historical and modern context of one of Rome's oldest roads.

As they made their way through a more neglected corner of Rome's Ponte Mammolo suburb, they followed the directions to where the bridge should have stood, only to find themselves in the midst of a temporary settlement. While the Swedish researchers were the object of some scrutiny from the camp they had stumbled upon, Professor Bjur and his team were also fascinated to find a modern community living at the very site of the ruin they had come to examine.

According to a recent article in the Smithsonian magazine, parts of southern France's Roman heritage are disappearing – fast. Worse still, they are being lost to new building sites, motorways and developments west of the busy tourist area of the Côte d'Azur. Of particular concern is the gradual disappearance of one of the Roman empire's artery roads – the via Aurelia, which once stretched all the way from Rome to France. The section of it in question lies in Provence between Nice and Arles and was originally built by Augustus as a means of dominating the province of Gallia Narbonensis in the first two decades of the empire. This section of the via Aurelia wasn't connected to Italy until an Alpine pass was hewn from the rock much later during the empire and eventually it joined up with the more famous Rome to Pisa section (today's strada statale no.1 in Italy), which was constructed under the censor Caius Aurelius Cotta in 241 BC.