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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2013
The Via Valeria is the central section of the great highway which in antiquity connected Rome with the Adriatic coast at Ostia Aterni (now Pescara). The first section, the Via Tiburtina, has been described by Thomas Ashby with his usual thoroughness (PBSR, iii, 1906, p. 84 ff.). The third section, the Via Claudia Valeria (Collarmele-Pescara) has been dealt with in more summary fashion by Robert Gardner (PBSR, ix, 1920, p. 75 ff.). The central section has never been described.
The present paper does not intend to compete with Ashby's monumental achievement, the result of a life-time dedicated to work on the ground and in archives. It is intended only to present a straight-forward account of the surviving remains, based on personal survey over the whole length of the section discussed. I have also added extracts from Ashby's and Miss Van Deman's works on the Roman aqueducts giving the modern numbering of the road, for the use of those who wish to check them; I myself had no opportunity to do so.
The reconstruction of the course of this ancient road is very instructive as regards the behaviour of modern and earlier traffic systems, the more so since the railway everywhere accompanies it. A section along the Via Valeria Antica would show it as a series of steps.
2 He appears to have overlooked that the quaint theory he criticises, p. 108 ff., had already been formulated by C. Promis (Le Antichità di Alba Fucense, 1836, p. 26 ff.) and Nibby, A. (Analisi dei Dintorni di Roma iii 2, p. 639)Google Scholar. The main argument against it is that the course there described is much more subject to inundations than the present one, as is easily seen on the ground; it runs at a lower level. The present road runs along the crest of a slight hill, as ancient roads ordinarily do, if possible.
3 Gardner (op. cit., p. 75, no. i) says that the central section would appear in a following number of the Papers of the British School, but it does not, in fact, seem to have been published, nor is there any record of a manuscript.
4 Cf. the map PBSR, iii, 1906, pl. IIGoogle Scholar at the end of the volume.
5 Summary descriptions of the Via Valeria are to be found Nibby, Viag., p. 189 ff; Promis, p. 41 ff.; Nibby, , Anal., iii, p. 643–644Google Scholar; Daremberg Saglio, Dictionn. des Antiq., s.v. Via, 796, a, with no. 4.
6 Cf. the plans TCI, Roma e Dintorni, 1946, pl. pp. 576–577; P.-W., s.v. Tibur, 837–838; Inscr. Ital. I, i, Tibur, tab. II.
7 Cf. the map in Inscr. Ital.
8 Not. Sc. ser. 6, vi, 1930, p. 353 ff. Cf. the map in Inscr. Ital.
9 See the bibliography cited in Not. Sc., loc. cit.
10 Indicated on the map in TCI, loc. cit.
11 Op. cit., p. 41. According to him the remains in front of the Piazza Rivarola are those of an aqueduct.
12 See the plan in P.-W., loc. cit. The bridge near the station is called here Ponte dei Sepolcri.
13 Because Ashby and Van Deman frequently use references to signal-boxes (caselli ferroviari) I have mentioned them also when necessary.
14 This is in perfect harmony with the life of M. Silanus M. f. who appears also in the inscription: he was cos. A.D. 19 and procos. Africae in the period A.D. 35–40 mentioned in the text of the inscription.
15 This bridge for a long time presented a some what irritating problem because of the contradictions of the authorities. Nibby, , Anal., iii, 643Google Scholar, places it at an undefined distance to the east of the bivio Subiaco; the TCI, Ital. Centr., i, 1924, p. 460Google Scholar and Lazio, p. 257, below Roviano between the road to Anticoli and km. 57,9, therefore before the bivio Subiaco; Ashby-Pfeiffer, p. 108, 2 km. before the Ponte S. Giorgio (= km. 63,1), therefore near km. 61, which is to the north of Àrsoli. But these same authors indicate (ibid., pp. 130–132 and maps, fig. 5 and pl. XIII, a and b) a point not far north of the bivio Subiaco.
16 CIL IX, 5963 (Nerva). Cf. Nibby, , Anal., i 2, pp. 258–259Google Scholar (and not 267 as wrongly stated, ibid., iii2, p. 643); Ashby-Pfeiffer, pp. 128, 131 (then still in the Villa Massimo).
17 Anal., i2, p. 259 (also for Gruter). Cf. Ashby Pfeiffer, p. 116, fig. 5 (just east of S. Maria, south of Arsoli).
18 This climb was inevitable on account of the configuration of the rocks. The modern road and the railway can maintain a lower level only because their track has been prepared with the aid of dynamite. The ancient road must have been in use until well into the second half of the nineteenth century.
19 I know no other road in this part of Italy that has such steep gradients. I imagine that there were people who earned a living hiring out perhaps oxen, especially in the case of heavy loads, since horses certainly would have been unable to pull them.
20 Village to the south-east of Tagliacozzo.
21 Promis, p. 60.
22 So reads the signboard on the bridge. But the TCI, Abruzzi e Molise, 1938, p. 169 specifically states (as does P.-W., s.v. Himella) that this part is still called Imele, and that Salto is the name it gets further down-stream.
23 In the frazione Cappelle is the fork for Rieti (80 km.). In order to go to Alba Fucens one takes this road until the fork for Massa d'Albe, then turns right and follows the first country-road after the churchyard.
24 For this place cf. Mededelingen Nederlands Histor. Inst. III, ix (in print).
25 Cf. Not. Sc., 1950, p. 283 (disagreeing with Promis).
26 Theoretically one could think of another solution. At km. 130,1, after a slight curve to the left, the Antica could have gone straight on towards km. 0,4 of the Via Marsicana, coinciding with it until km. 1,5 or at most 1,8, reaching Collarmele with another curve (at km. 2,2 there is a cross-road towards Collarmele). I do not think this probable, however, and there is a total lack of any traces on the ground.