The Via Appia: Rome to Brindisi

The Romans called it the queen of roads. The Appian Way was begun and finished in 312 BC, and the gate that now straddles it was originally known as the Porta Appia. Today the gate is known as Porta San Sebastiano, and its towers house the Museum of the Walls.

Visitor guidance: The towers house the Museum of the Walls.

The Tomb of Caecilia Metella is a mausoleum just outside Rome, at the three mile marker of the Via Appia, and is one of the best preserved monuments along the road. The road itself was cambered in the middle to let rain run off, with a ditch on either side.

Visitor guidance: The tomb stands at the third mile of the Via Appia, just outside Rome.

Further south the road met its great obstacle: marsh. Roman engineers laid a stone causeway of about 31 kilometres across stagnant, foul-smelling pools. Appius Claudius planned to drain the marsh and failed. Later a canal was dug beside the road, and travellers preferred it; Strabo notes that the boat was towed by a mule. Today the road crosses it in a long, straight stretch flanked by trees.

Location precision: The marsh covered a wide area; the pin marks the Pontine Marshes as a whole, not one stretch of causeway.

At Terracina the road reached the sea. It picked up the coastal road here, and the Romans straightened it with cuttings that form cliffs today. The rock cut at the foot of the promontory was probably not finished until Trajan's time, between 98 and 117 AD. In the town, a well-preserved stretch of the ancient road survives under the arch that once led into the forum.

Location precision: The pin marks the Pisco Montano cliffs by the town; the road ran through the whole Terracina area.

Capua had the first and most famous gladiator school, and in 73 BC the ex-gladiator Spartacus led a slave revolt from there. When it was crushed in 71 BC, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the road from Rome to Capua. The remains of Capua's amphitheatre stand on Piazza I Ottobre in Santa Maria Capua Vetere.

Location precision: The crucifixions lined the whole road to Capua; the pin marks the Capua amphitheatre, not a known execution site.

Visitor guidance: The amphitheatre's remains are on Piazza I Ottobre, Santa Maria Capua Vetere.

Beyond Capua the road was pushed on to Beneventum, and here Rome stopped a king. The Romans crushed the army of Pyrrhus in a two-day fight in 275 BC. Afterwards the town was renamed from Maleventum, site of bad events, to Beneventum, site of good events. A bridge called the Ponte Leproso still carries the road over the Sabato river, below the centre of modern Benevento.

Location precision: The battle was fought near the town but the exact field is not known; the pin marks the Ponte Leproso on the road.

Visitor guidance: The Ponte Leproso crosses the Sabato below Benevento's centre.

The Romans pushed the road to the port of Brundisium in 264 BC. It is one of two pillars once thought to mark the end of the road; only one, 18.74 metres high, is still visible. Italian scholarship now doubts that the pillars were the road's terminus.