WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ROAD

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 4 November 1933, Page 11

WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ROAD

[Af last RidftVe is going to tidy up ih Appian Way. For a fong tim travellers, scfidiars, antiquaries an thos6 who are incurable lovers of th Eternal City have been writing fetter and' pretesting against the cffeadfu static of this ancient Ih'oroiighfare. Thi Appian Why is' flic oldest Homan r6a< in existence, the most famous highway in the world. If was by this road tha St. Paul entered Pome. The ancient; ■called if th<s queen of roads; and wel it deserved fhe : title, being a road-de luxO, in comparison , with ordinary workaday Roman roads. The road was begun in 313 B.C. :bj Appius Claudius .Oaeeus, who was wha one might cail Home Secretary to th< Roman Republic. Appius wanted t< make a magnificent road that woulc connect Rome with Southern Italy He started it at the Porta Capena h Rome; just how far he carried it ii hard to say. In the end it ran soutii thrObgh Terracina to Brindisi. Appius spared neither time, labour nor money. It mattered not what hugt obstructions his workmen met, thej

Appfetri Way Which St. Paul Trod

(had to be cleared away. The road was given a superb 'foundation’. From the lowest sub-stratum all loose soil was cleaned, then layer upon layer of foundations cemented with lime. Then came the pavement, the actual road, and this was made of hexagonal blocks, mainly of basaltic lava taken from the great lava stream tvliieh ran from the Alban Mountains.

j A great deal of Roman history and some of Nature’s "loveliest handiwork line this ancient road. As the city, is left behind and the Appian Way strikes into the Campagna' there are sights of unforgettable grandeur, ruins of aqueduct's, of the superb tombs that once rose by the roadside, with the mountains for a background. In places the road is almost lost. ■Squalid . cottages stand by it, small vineyards overlook it, high walls spoil it. It wil be a good day, the “Children’s Newspaper” remarks, when all these are cleared away and the queen Of roads takes her place in tne world again.