Sept 3 2014

All roads lead to Rome and Rome was not built in a day, are two more expressions which are used in the English language. I know of another one, a Dutch expression: Zo oud als de weg naar Rome" which translates to: "As old as the road to Rome”. This is used when you talk about something which may be or looks old. This “Old Road” to Rome does exist and is called the Via Appia.

The road was constructed around 300 BC and was used for more than 500 years to transport the Roman armies across the south of Italy to Brindisi where ships would take them to their destinations. The first Section of 200 km runs to Capua, one of the most important towns at the time; it was then extended all the way to Brindisi. To ride this road it would be best to used a trail bike because it is very rough, I have no idea how they coped with this at the time, perhaps the gaps were filled in with tar or other materials. Most sections have been repaired with small cobbles stones but there are still large sections with the original pavement. I wonder how many Ox or Horse driven carts it would take to wear the stones down as shown in the pictures. Perhaps several 100.000. It must have been a busy road as everywhere there are ruins of buildings, outposts, tombs, walls,columns etc. The rich built their tombs along the side of the road as in those days it was not allowed to bury anyone within the city walls. Perhaps this road was used extensively for a thousand years, who knows. All the Roman armies who conquered what is now the middle east walked and rode their carts along this road. Millions of people must have walked it while on their way to or from Rome. Today... I rode the bike along part of it... very special.

I recently watched the new series (highly recommended) “Spartacus blood and sand” A very realistic portrayal of a man taken prisoner in Trace (Now European Turkey) and who was later named Spartacus and trained to be a gladiator. It was all about killing or being killed for entertainment. Spartacus led a revolt and formed a slave army. They won many battles and tried to capture Rome. The last battle was lost and 6000 of his men were taken prisoner who were then crucified along the Appian Way all way from Rome to Capua. That's an average of one every 30 meters for 200 km.

This brings me to Capua. Spartacus was trained in a “Ludus” (Gladiator Training School) near Capua and fought and won all of his fights in the Stadium of Capua. Having followed the DVD series it makes a visit to this stadium very interesting. I was lucky there was only one visitor and that was me so I had the whole place to myself including the museum next to the stadium.