ABSTRACT
Roman society is particularly known for its well-developed trade systems where goods – such as food, wine, olive oil, pottery and stone – were moved in enormous quantities and over long distances. The importance of maritime transport for the movement of these goods is beyond doubt. However, many towns could not be reached by sea alone. River and land transport were, in many cases, if not most cases, inevitable. In practice, most medium- to long-distance movement of trade could only have been accomplished by a combination of transport media. While Roman water transport has already received significant scholarly attention, land transport has been studied only superficially. This chapter presents a formal model for predicting the energy costs of transporting heavy loads over land. Central is the question to what extent energetic considerations and physical geography were crucial factors in the distribution of trade goods in a landscape. As case study, the distribution of marble in Central Adriatic Italy in Roman times is presented. The marble assemblages of twenty-two contexts from eight Roman towns are compared with the results of an analysis of the transport model to determine the impact of transport costs on the distribution of marble in Roman Central Adriatic Italy.
