ABSTRACT
The feat, obviously of considerable financial commitment, was realized also with an impressive technical effort, both in the construction of the road-bad and his paving in correspondence of the passages within or near the cities, and in the realization of the necessary infrastructures. Several bridges, among the most impressive made in Italy in antiquity, were built to overcome the main rivers. We have also to consider the location of milestone columns along the entire route and of commemorative epigraphs on the mainstay of the crossed bridges, inscriptions through which they aimed to enhance the energetic character of the feat promoted by the emperor and that qualified the construction of the road as an event of great importance in the imperial programmes. There were more than 200 milestones placed along the way, nowadays they are about one out of three, with the inscription changeable only for the indication of the mile number put on the first row of the inscribed pillar: Imp(erator) Caesar/ Divi Nervae f(ilius)/Nerva Traianus/Aug(ustus) Germ(anicus) Dacic(us)/Pont(ifex) Max(imus), tr(ibunicia) pot(estate)/XIII, imp(erator) VI, co(n) s(ul) V/p(ater) p(atriae)/viam a Benevento/Brundisium pecun(ia)/sua fecit.
