Editor’s Note: This report, by a scholar of Roman History, here at Rome, is a fascinating look into the world of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus Christ. The Romans were famous for building roads to unite their vast domains together, militarily, politically and economically. In this recent study an additional 150,000 Kilometers of highways were identified and mapped, bringing the grand total to 299 thousand kilometers!
The data can be visualized at Itiner-e.org, where you can use a system similar to Google Maps and calculate how long it would take you, in the days of Christ, to travel by road from one point to another in the Empire.
This sheds new light at the historical reference Christ makes when He declares Himself to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. — Here, in the languages of the Classical World, “the way” referred to highways and roads. Thus, we can see that Christ is making an ironic contra-opposition, between the glory of the Roman Empire and true Glory.
The above video is in Italian, but you can change the settings at YouTube to show subtitles in Italian and then have them automatically translated into English. Otherwise, if your YouTube account has AI enabled, their may be an immediate voice over in your native language by an artificial voice.
For a modern comparison, the territory of the Italian Republic today, alone, has about 500 thousand kilometers of paved roads.
Sutrium
The readers of FromRome.Info have often seen me mention or write about the city of Sutri (for past articles see HERE), where the famous Provincial Councils of 1046 and 1058 were held. Here is the location of Sutri (Sutrium) in its relation to Rome, on the Map of the Roads of the Roman Empire, showing how Sutri was in an important position for all travelers coming to Rome, from the North. — Click image below to enlarge. Can you find Sutri?
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The Book on the Trinity, every faithful Catholic priest would love as his next present
This is Br. Bugnolo's English Translation, of Saint Bonaventure's encylopedic book of theology on the Trinity: With this book, your priest will always have something intelligent and awesomely inspiring to preach to you about
God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit!
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This report reminds me of a Bible study I attended years ago, where the priest moderator said that Almighty God waited until the Roman roads had been built before he sent his only begotten son to enter the world. Only then were the apostles and early Christians able to travel to the ends of the earth to spread the Gospel, which then shaped the forthcoming centuries of Western civilization. I don’t know if that’s true but it makes perfect sense.
The Romans realized to run an Empire efficiently one required communication routes between settlements. This allowed movement for Roman Armies to maintain peace and commerce to easily travel throughout the empire. All built by the Roman Army during times of peace. The Roman Engineering with out modern laser guide measurement could build roads straight for miles surpassing the paved over cattle paths found in the United States. Roman Engineering was unsurpassed considering their building, aqueducts,tunnels, and roads lasted 2,000+ year. In addition it was not uncommon for the Senatorial Class of Rome to spend their own personal money to improve the conditions of the Empire. Unlike the greedy self center class of politicians that infest the modern world.