Ancient Rome's Greatest Engineering Feat?

[@FlexibleFlyer50]

When I watch your videos I am reminded of a tour guide in Rome many years ago. He looked like Caesar Romero, the actor, and he carried a black umbrella. His favorite words, "Rome was destroyed more by the hands of man than by the hands of time." Immediately after saying these words he would give the ruins in question a few taps with his umbrella, as if to reinforce his point. I was fortunate to visit Italy in the early 1970s, and right now I'm too old to travel. However, your videos show me how much I missed and what I would love to see if I could turn back time and travel once again.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you for sharing! We are going to keep rolling out videos to allow you to time travel!

[@FlexibleFlyer50]

@@AncientRomeLive Much appreciated!

[@AncientRomeLive]

@@FlexibleFlyer50 Our pleasure!

[@MikeS29]

I now need to return to Terracina to see what I missed last time! Thank you so much for this series of wonderful videos along the Via Appia.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you. We were really pleased to share our drone footage. Without it, it’s really hard to admire what the Romans achieved under the emperors.

[@JimmyGuyer]

Another outstanding video! I had no idea of the engineering feats required to pave the way through this rugged terrain. Terracina is on my list for our next visit! Thank you so much for this series. I am learning so much while following Darius on this amazing journey. A truly unique documentary with such deep insights and great drone shots!

[@AncientRomeLive]

We are grateful for your feedback. We don’t know of any tv documentaries that have covered these aspects. There is still a lot to cover in Terracina. We will be back!

[@watermunteconomie3938]

That's fantastic, Romans knew how to build and Roman determination made it possible. You make a great tourguide and remarkable history teacher.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you!

[@TWOCOWS1]

Fantastic work and observations. Thank you for filming and teaching these obscure, but very important points

[@pauloboyle477]

So glad I found this channel. Thanks for all the hard work. Much appreciated

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you!

[@dariopi2288]

Sono un appassionato di storia antica, in particolar modo del Lazio Antico, grazie ai tuoi video riesco a conoscere sempre dei particolari in più utili ad approfondire la conoscenza del nostro paesaggio e della sua storia.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Grazie davvero. Nel gennaio- febbraio gli altri video su Via Appia!

[@MikeS29]

I just re-watched this great video; this month, I'll be visiting my ancestral hometown of Arce, about an hour from Terracina, and plan to return here for a day trip.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you! Have a great visit!

[@davidhart8621]

Really enjoying your videos - thank you for doing them!

[@AncientRomeLive]

And more on the way. Every week. We have so much we can share as we are already in Rome!

[@RP-mm9ie]

enjoying your videos

[@degurulles8267]

6:36 ahí estan las marcas de pico, obra colosal para pasar la carretera

[@marthaarya167]

Wonderful!

[@monicacall7532]

Did the place of the oracle in the temple have natural fumes coming up through the hole which put the priest or priestess into a trance like the oracle at Delphi? I can’t imagine what the trek up that hill would’ve been like with a cart and donkeys or even on a horse or on foot! The engineering feats of the ancient Romans continue to amaze me. What a shame so much of that knowledge was lost or went underground after the empire fell!

[@belindaquinn4189]

Grazie mille molto interessante 🇮🇹

[@jimbob-robob]

I wish you would show HOW the road goes over obstacles like the mountain in this case (even if in a graphic) as for me the ROAD the APPIA is the most important thing here...

[@AncientRomeLive]

We can do more and share more of the road construction in the future.

[@liviervilla6045]

How many inches or centimeters is a Roman foot? Love your channel!

[@AncientRomeLive]

Varies / but we go with 29.6cm per Roman foot (11.6 inches)

[@anna-lisagirling7424]

In another video you asked for request of what we would like to see. I've always wanted to travel to the Mediterranean and poke around in the seemingly endless ruins and museums there for my personal growth. But, for most of my life there seems to be tons of docs and travel shows showing ruins, ruins, ruins but very little in the way of illustrations showing just how these places would have looked when at their peak of function. If at all possible, could you share even some ink drawings with those of us not steeped in advanced degree level education and whose physical frailties now make it almpst impossible to imagine visiting these locations in person? Is copyright an issue or why is this usually lacking? Otherwise, I love your videos and wish you could be my personal guide! I'd feed and "water" you all day long and dazzle you with my hunger and enthusiasm for ancient history! 🤓

[@AncientRomeLive]

Thank you very much. We have 2 architecture students that are working on some computer-generated reconstructed sites and monuments- so stay tuned! We share what is copyright free and don't ever steal images or share without permission. But we will do more in our power to help you envision these sites!

[@anna-lisagirling7424]

@@AncientRomeLive That will be terrific! Thank you for replying so quickly, too. I just finished my latest book on the latrines of Pompeii and now I'm getting my head wrapped around upstairs privies with long columns that meet up with the one on the ground floor. My mind is boggled .

[@francescocatalano5855]

Suessa Aurunca the place where Agrippa rolled many needed legions

[@claudiatalmaciu5062]

And that's why there will be nobody like them, despite all those that would dream to be the third, the fourth&so on next Roman Empire.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Yea such spectacular engineering - just amazing.

[@Lorenzo-ew6so]

The greatest engineering feat of Rome was the city itself an Engineering marvel.

[@AncientRomeLive]

Agreed!

[@mariaantonellabizzarri3812]

Bello

[@AncientRomeLive]

Grazie mille

[@mariaantonellabizzarri3812]

👏👏👏👏

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Superficially, the Roman Empire here really still is living on. The Italian people you see look just like the ancient Romans are shown in the pictures and sculptures of their time. But of course, the relative importance of the place within the tissue of worldwide economics and politics has dwindled. You now have a major focus on tourism, here, but hardly one on economics which could reclaim global significance. I guess Terracina to be currently reincarnated as Panama City. The Pan-American Highway, easily recognizable as an enlarged copy of the Via Appia, has a long, nearly exactly straight section from Ciudad de Mexico to Panama City. Mexico City's outlines resemble the ones of ancient Rome, and altogether the Pan-American Highway has a similar course in the map like the Via Appia, with a final kink into the direction of Buenos Aires at Valparaiso like the Via Appia has had one to Brundisium in Taranto. So it strikes me how the straight stretch from the Mexican capital to Panama resembles the straight northernmost passage of the Via Appia from Rome to Terracina. In older maps there still can be seen even more striking entries for a place called Arraiján on the western side of the Pacific end of the Panama Canal than in the maps of today. This means that you obtain a similar hit concerning names between "Terracina" and "Arraiján" like you have such hits between "Latium" and "LA", between "Alba Longa" and "Long Beach", between "Via Appia" and "Pan-American Highway", and between "Brundisium" and "Buenos Aires". Then there is that outstanding engineering project of the Romans described in the video as having been achieved for Terracina, with the Via Appia first crossing the mountain like also the Panama Canal overcomes a considerable elevation difference (26 meters) before the removal of a part of the mountain has enabled easier transportation. Those height marks on the face of the rock do remind me of the sluices of the Panama Canal, which similarly divide bedrock into accurately documented sections of the elevation. A merchant arriving from Brundisium on the Via Appia may have used ships for the rest of the journey to Rome to avoid climbing, before that rock has been removed. So the removal of the rock would have spared you a lot of shipping, just like it's achieved by the Panama Canal.

[@BoomVang]

The Romans wouldn't have left that continental gap where the Pan-American Highway now fails to link Panama to Columbia and beyond.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

@@BoomVang The maps on the Pan-American Highway I have access to do show the route as connecting all of those places to each other. The waterway which the Panama Canal is has an own earlier version in the time of the Romans, as the Strait of Messina. Its construction apparently has been required because there lacks as favorable a west-easterly orientation of South America as it's afforded by Sicily.

[@AncientRomeLive]

We are so glad that the history of Terracina and the cutting back if the hillside has stimulated your look at other civilizations. Again the cutting was just for the land route… regarding the harbors, Terracina was important in the Republican period, one of a series along the coast (like nearby Antium and Minturnae)… they were all improved during the imperial period.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

@@AncientRomeLive Oh yes, the case has indeed stimulated my perception of civilizations. It has crucially enriched a series of other comparisons of mine between elements of Rome and of modern times, with the outcome that I now much more clearly than ever see looming not only a system of spatial but also a coherent network of temporal parallels between the civilizations of Rome and of the current Anglo-Saxon sphere. That you're dealing with an improvement only to the land route smoothly fits into a broader panorama of parallels like the ones I've pointed out, as a minor variation. And after all, around the time of those works - if you for good reasons associate them with Augustus and with Trajan - the emperor Nero anyway has initiated a (later abandoned) construction of his canal ("Fossa Neronis") from Ostia to Lake Avernus west of Naples. Terracina lies just halfway at that axis.

[@nancytestani1470]

So, seriously, people, travelling, army, would travel up then down…the road was wide to travel..