Abstract:

This paper deals with the contribution that a better knowledge of the technical choices carried out in the construction of a road artifact can bring to the study of Roman roads in northern Italy. The work, as a result of a more than ten-year-long research conducted by the chair of Ancient Topography of the University of Padua, aims at providing some particularly interesting examples of the different construction techniques found in many stretches of roads discovered in the Cisalpine territory. Special attention has been given to the understanding of the importance of the role played by the geomorphology of the territories passed through by ancient roads and, especially in urban areas, by a precise policy starting from the Augustan period onwards.