ABSTRACT
Thrace, and partly Macedonia as well, were the 'bottle-neck' through which all overland traffic from Constantinople to the west and north and vice versa had to pass. The available documentation for roads and traffic in these regions is therefore much richer than for other areas of the Byzantine Empire. This chapter analyses some reports on the use of roads, especially those which allow a glimpse of the actual condition of roads and travel in this Byzantine area in different periods. Byzantine delegations to the Frankish kings were obliged to travel by sea usually via Rome and/or Venice in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries. The chapter describes a different kind of source which sheds light mainly on local roads, but allows some glimpses of road administration as well: the documents of monasteries, for people purposes those of Mount Athos, which exist from the middle Byzantine into the Ottoman period.
