Article updated on May 24, 2022 by Byothe
I have always been fascinated by antiquity and in particular by the Roman Empire! When we look at the daily life of the ancient Romans, we sometimes have the impression in certain aspects that these people are really very close to us in their functioning.
Among the wonders built by the Romans, the imperial road network that runs through southern Europe is particularly impressive… I saw a documentary some time ago on the construction of these roads and I can tell you that it commands respect! Each Roman via is made up of no less than 5 layers of materials about 60 cm deep (mortar, stones, gravel, sand and finally slabs).
I'm digressing a bit, but today I wanted to talk to you aboutOrbis, a somewhat crazy project implemented by Stanford University and historians, which is nothing more or less than a sort of Google Maps of Ancient Rome.
Planning Trips to Ancient Rome with Orbis
The aim of this tool is to reconstruct the duration and cost of travel in antiquity, whether by land or sea. The model used is based on a simplified version of the giant network of cities, roads, rivers and waterways that framed travel across the Roman Empire. It largely reflects conditions that prevailed around the year 200 AD.
As with a modern GPS, you will be able to enter your starting point and your destination... then you will be able to configure a lot of elements such as the season in which you are making your trip, the type of transport you wish to take (on foot, by bike, by oxcart, on horseback, etc.), the type of journey you want to make (the shortest, the cheapest, etc.)…
Once everything is ready, all you have to do is click on “Calculate Route”.
I tested for you the Paris-Lyon route, or rather Lutetia – Lugdunum in the middle of winter by ox cart and despite the very good Roman infrastructure, it would take me 38.8 days to cover the 629km of the most passable route. For this looooooong journey, it would cost me the modest sum of 878 denarii… a tidy sum for the time!
Beyond its ability to offer you tailor-made journeys, Orbis is a great tool that also allows you to determine how far away (in days) from a specific city are all the other cities in the empire, or to show all the most efficient routes to get to a particular location of the empire.
Well, come on, that's enough, but I have my cart waiting for me to finish my journey!
