The Forum Appii (or Appii Forum) is an ancient
post station on the
Via Appia
The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, ...
, 63.5 km (39.5 imperial miles; 43 Roman miles) southeast of
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, founded, no doubt, by the original constructor of the road.
Horace mentioned it as the usual halt at the end of the first
day's journey
A day's journey in pre-modern literature, including the Bible, ancient geographers and ethnographers such as Herodotus, is a measurement of distance.
In the Bible, it is not as precisely defined as other Biblical measurements of distance; the dis ...
from Rome, and described it as full of boatmen and cheating innkeepers. Boatmen were found there because it was the starting-point of a canal which ran parallel to the road through the
Pontine Marshes
250px, Lake Fogliano, a coastal lagoon in the Pontine Plain
The Pontine Marshes (, also ; it, Agro Pontino , formerly also ''Paludi Pontine''; la, Pomptinus Ager by Titus Livius, ''Pomptina Palus'' (singular) and ''Pomptinae Paludes'' (plu ...
, and was used instead of it at the time of
Strabo and Horace (see
Appian way
The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, ...
).
The ''Appii Forum'' and the "
Three Taverns Three Taverns ( la, Tres Tabernae; , ''Treis Tabernai'') was a place on the ancient Appian Way, about 50 km (31 miles) from Rome, designed for the reception of travellers, as the name indicates.
History
Tres Tabernae originated as a post stat ...
" are mentioned also as a halting place in the account of
Paul's journey to Rome (
Acts
The Acts of the Apostles ( grc-koi, Πράξεις Ἀποστόλων, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; la, Actūs Apostolōrum) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message ...
xxviii. 15). Under
Nerva and
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
the road was repaired; one inscription records expressly the paving with
silex
Silex is any of various forms of ground stone. In modern contexts the word refers to a finely ground, nearly pure form of silica or silicate.
In the late 16th century, it meant powdered or ground up "flints" (i.e. stones, generally meaning the c ...
(replacing the former
gravelling) of the section from
Tripontium
Tripontium ( Latin for "Place of three bridges") was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street (and known today as the A5) at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Churchover in the English coun ...
, 6 km (4 miles) northwest, to Forum Appii; the bridge near Tripontium was similarly repaired, and that at Forum Appii, though it bears no inscription, is of the same style. Only scanty relics of antiquity have been found here; a post station was placed here by
Pope Pius VI when the Via Appia Nuova was reconstructed in the late 18th century.
Suetonius claimed that a certain Claudius Russus, a forefather of the
Claudian dynasty "having set up his statue at Forum Appi with a crown upon his head, tried to take possession of Italy through his dependents".
[Suetonius, Life of Tiberius, 2, 2.]
Notes
References
*
Roman waystations in Italy
Archaeological sites in Lazio
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