Aemilian Way
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The Via Aemilia (, ) was a trunk
Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...
in the north Italian plain, running from ''Ariminum'' (
Rimini Rimini ( , ; or ; ) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. Sprawling along the Adriatic Sea, Rimini is situated at a strategically-important north-south passage along the coast at the southern tip of the Po Valley. It is ...
), on the Adriatic coast, to ''Placentia'' (
Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...
) on the River ''Padus'' ( Po). It was completed in 187 BC. The Via Aemilia connected at Rimini with the
Via Flaminia The Via Flaminia () was an ancient Roman roads, Roman road leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to ''Ariminum'' (Rimini) on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and due to the ruggedness of the mountains was the major option the Romans had f ...
, which had been completed 33 years earlier, to Rome.


History

The land today known as northern Italy (''Italia settentrionale'') was known to the ancient Romans during the republican period (to 44 BC) as Gallia Cisalpina (literally: Gaul on the near – i.e. southern – side of the Alps) because it was then inhabited by
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...
tribes from Gaul, who had colonised the area in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. ''Italia'' meant the area inhabited by Italic tribes: the border between ''Italia'' and ''Gallia Cisalpina'' was roughly a line between ''Pisae'' (Pisa) and ''Ariminum''. ''Gallia Cisalpina'' contained the Pianura padana (Po river plain). This vast country, by far the largest fertile plain in the mountainous peninsula, contained potentially its best agricultural land, and offered the Romans the opportunity to expand enormously their population and economic resources by mass colonisation. The Romans subjugated the Gauls of the Pianura Padana in a series of hard-fought campaigns in the late 3rd century BC. By 220 BC, the Via Flaminia was completed, providing the Romans with ready access to the region. However, Roman expansion was delayed for some twenty years by the
Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Wars, three wars fought between Ancient Carthage, Carthage and Roman Republic, Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For ...
. During the Carthaginian general
Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...
's invasion of Italy (218 BC–203 BC), Roman military control of the Pianura Padana was temporarily overthrown. Many of the recently defeated tribes (such as the Insubres and the
Boii The Boii (Latin language, Latin plural, singular ''Boius''; ) were a Celts, Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul (present-day Northern Italy), Pannonia (present-day Austria and Hungary), present-day Ba ...
) rebelled and joined forces with Hannibal in the hope of regaining their independence. It was not until 189 BC that the rebel tribes had been pacified sufficiently to allow work on the Via Aemilia to begin. The time-tested Roman method of expansion was to build a brand new road straight through the newly conquered territory, and then establish a string of colonies, either of civilian settlers or of military veterans along its route. The settlers would be allocated fertile plots from lands confiscated from the defeated native peoples. This was the precise function of the Via Aemilia: its period of construction also saw the foundation of Roman colonies along its whole length at ''Bononia'' (
Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...
) (founded 189 BC), ''Mutina'' (
Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...
), ''Regium'' (
Reggio Emilia Reggio nell'Emilia (; ), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until Unification of Italy, 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 172,51 ...
), and
Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...
(all founded in 183 BC). The Via Aemilia was completed by, and named after, the Roman consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 187 BC. It was built, on elevated embankments, in part, on top of an older road system that linked the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The consular road ran, largely in a straight line, 176 Roman miles (260 km) NW from Rimini to its termination at Piacenza, connected pre-existing towns, such as Piacenza, Bologna and Rimini."The Via Emilia", Emilia-Romagna Region Tourism
/ref> The road ran along the southern edge of the flat Pianura Padana within sight of the northern foothills of Italy's
Apennine Mountains The Apennines or Apennine Mountains ( ; or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; or – a singular with plural meaning; )Latin ''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which would be segmented ''Apenn-inus'', often used with nouns s ...
, crossing numerous tributary rivers of the Po, notably the Rubicon near Rimini and the River Trebbia near Piacenza. In the century following the construction of the Via Aemilia, Piacenza became the key Roman road hub in the pianura padana. In 148 BC, the
Via Postumia The Via Postumia was an ancient military Roman road of northern Italy constructed in 148 BC by the ''consul'' Spurius Postumius Albinus Magnus. It ran from the coast at Genoa through the mountains to Dertona, Placentia (the termination of the ...
linked Piacenza to
Aquileia Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river Natiso (modern Natisone), the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times. Today, the city is small ( ...
on the north Adriatic coast. In 109 BC, the consul Marcus Aemilius Scaurus completed the Via Aemilia Scaura to ''Genua'' (Genoa) and ''Pisae'' (Pisa).


Bridges

There are the remains of several Roman bridges along the road, including the Ponte d'Augusto, Ponte di Sant'Arcangelo di Romagna, Ponte San Vito, Ponte sul Reno, Ponte sul Rubicone, and Ponte sul Taro. At Rimini, the starting point of the Via Aemilia, the road's Ponte di Tiberio still exists, a massive structure spanning the River Marecchia, started by the Emperor Augustus and completed by his successor Tiberius. It still bears its twin dedicatory inscriptions. At Bologna, milestone 78 was found in the bed of the River Reno. It records Augustus' reconstruction of the ''Aemilia'', in 2 BC, from Rimini as far as the River Trebbia. Remains of the ''Aemilia'' bridge over the Reno were found in the 1890s, consisting of parts of the parapets from each side. These were originally 38.75 feet apart, of Veronese red marble. The bed of the river was found to have risen at least 20 feet since this bridge collapsed in the 9th century. Ruins of some of the other ancient Roman bridges still exist. At Savignano sul Rubicone a Roman bridge survived until it was demolished as recently as World War II. The current bridge is a reconstruction.


Legacy

The construction of the Via Aemilia launched the intensive Roman colonisation of the Pianura Padana. The vast agricultural potential of this region soon rendered it the most populous and economically important part of Italy, overshadowing Central Italy, Rome and the South. The area remains economically preeminent in modern Italy. By the time of the Second Triumvirate (44 BC – 30 BC), Romanisation of this formerly Celtic country was so complete that the province of ''Gallia Cisalpina'' was abolished and its territory incorporated into the heartland province of ''
Italia Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
''. The road gave its name to that part of ''Gallia Cisalpina'' through which it ran. This area was, before the Roman conquest, the territory of the Gallic tribes
Boii The Boii (Latin language, Latin plural, singular ''Boius''; ) were a Celts, Celtic tribe of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul (present-day Northern Italy), Pannonia (present-day Austria and Hungary), present-day Ba ...
(who gave their name to the city of Bologna) and
Senones The Senones or Senonii (Gaulish: "the ancient ones") were an ancient Gallic tribe dwelling in the Seine basin, around present-day Sens, during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Part of the Senones settled in the Italian peninsula, where the ...
. It was already commonly referred to as ''Aemilia'' by the time the Emperor Augustus assumed sole power. In around 7 BC, when Augustus divided the ''provincia'' of Italia into 11 ''regiones'' (administrative districts), the area became the eighth ''regio''.Pliny the Elder ''Naturalis Historia'' III, p. 20 This initially had the official name of ''Padus'', but was later changed to ''Aemilia''. The western part of this area is still known as Emilia today. The boundaries of the Roman VIII regio roughly corresponded to those of the modern Italian administrative region of
Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...
. Its inhabitants are today known as ''Emiliani''. The modern Italian State Road 9 is still officially called Via Emilia and follows the Roman route over much of its length. Indeed, the modern road in many parts lies directly above the Roman road.


See also

* Roman bridge * Roman engineering


References


External links


LacusCurtius – Via Aemilia (1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Entry)

Omnes Viae: Via Aemilia on the Peutinger Map
{{List of Roman roads Aemilia, Via Transport in Emilia-Romagna 180s BC establishments 2nd-century BC establishments in Italy 2nd-century BC establishments in the Roman Republic