The difficult route from Cerfennia to the valley of the Aternus a drop of nearly 300 m, involving too the crossing of the main ridge of the Apennines by the modern Forca Caruso was, however, probably not made into a highroad until Claudius' reign: one of his milestones (Corp. Inscr. Lat. IX. 5973) states that in 48-49 AD, he made the Via Claudia Valeria from Cerfennia to the mouth of the Aternus (the site of modern Pescara). He also constructed a road, the Via Claudia Nova, connecting the Via Salaria, which it left at Foruli (modern Civitatomassa, near Amiternum) with the Via Valeria near the modern Popoli. This road was continued south (we do not know by whom or when) to Isernia. From Popoli the road followed the valley of the Aternus to its mouth, and there joined the coast-road at Pescara. The modern railway from Rome to Castellammare Adriatico follows closely the line of the Via Valeria.

A second Via Valeria, the Via Valeria of Sicily, connected Messina and Siracusa. Hardly widened or improved until the nineteenth century, it remained the backbone of the Ionian drainage basin of Sicily, favoring the development of cities along it: Messina, Taormina, Giardini-Naxos, Giarre, Acireale, Catania, Augusta, Siracusa. Today, Route 114 follows it in part.

Roman bridges

For an overview of the location of Roman bridges, see List of Roman bridges.

There are the remains of at least two Roman bridges along the road, which are the Ponte San Giorgio and the Ponte Scutonico.

References

See also

• Roman road
• Roman bridge
• Roman engineering