ABSTRACT
From the third century on, with the coming of the barbarians and the decline in population, came the collapse of Roman economy; due at least in part to its transport system. Italy was the first victim. Population fell while the demands of the army and civil service rose, and the government was obliged to burden its subjects with ever-growing charges, among others those for the maintenance of the roads and land transport. Once the crisis, or at any rate its most acute phase, had passed, the Byzantine empire remained broadly faithful to the fundamental principles of Rome. The "fluvialization" of land transport in the high Middle Ages was not confined to the barbarian West. From the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth new factors announced a new era in the development of transport.
