Asia. Th e other main routes ran north-south and connected
northern Europe and the Baltic region with southern Europe
and the Mediterranean region. Perhaps the oldest of these
stretches ran from the Baltic coastline down through present-
day Poland, the Czech Republic, and Austria to the Adriatic
Sea. Another ran from the North Sea through the Brenner
Pass through the Alps into Italy and Greece. A number of
routes ran through portions of modern-day Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and as far south as Spain.
Later, another north-south route ran from northern Prussia
through Bohemia to the Adriatic Sea.
Th e Amber Road contributed signifi cantly to the devel-
opment of European culture. Th e Egyptian pharaohs traded
for amber with people from the north, as did the later Ro-
mans. Th e Amber Road was an important link between the
cultural centers of the Mediterranean and northern Europe
during the Nordic Bronze Age, roughly from 1800 to 600
b.c.e. In modern times archaeologists and historians have de-
voted considerable resources to locating these ancient routes.
In particular, the Old World Trade Route Project has traced
an entire network of such routes throughout Europe (and
Asia), such that a map shows a thicket of them that diff ers
little from a modern road map. Th ey note that these routes
were not used exclusively for trade. Th ey were also used as
postal routes, routes for pilgrims, administrative links, routes
for the movement of troops, and even routes followed by no-
madic peoples.
Th e Celts built many bridges over rivers they could not
ford easily. Th ese would have been made of wood, and their
ability to build them quickly before sieges and battles indi-
cates that such bridges would have existed throughout Eu-
rope for everyday trade and communication. It also seems
likely that the Celts specifi cally did not build bridges in some
places to make a settlement harder to attack or to make an in-
vading army less likely to use a particular route. When Han-
nibal crossed through southern France, he encountered fewer
bridges than one might expect. Perhaps the Celts, for strategic
purposes, had refrained from building bridges there, or per-
haps they had destroyed existing bridges to delay Hannibal’s
passage.
GREECE
BY SPYROS SIROPOULOS
Roads became a necessary aspect of social life from the mo-
ment human communities became organized and exchanging
goods and traveling became common. Travel was not always
easy or safe in antiquity. Th e myth of Th eseus, who journeyed
from Troezen to Athens, killing a number of thieves and
murderers on the way, indicates the diffi culty of journeying
in the ancient world and the need for establishing safe pas-
sage for travelers and tradesmen alike.
Since walking was the usual means of transportation in
antiquity, the fi rst roads were nothing but clear-cut paths in
the countryside. Religious and commercial purposes led to
the construction of more carefully designed routes. Opposite
the strategically located island of Salamis and on the cross-
road between Athens, northern Greece, and the Pelopon-
nese lay the city of Eleusis. During the time of the Athenian
statesman Solon (ca. 630–560 b.c.e.), Salamis and Eleusis
were attached to Athens. A biennial celebration in honor of
the goddesses Artemis and Persephone was established. A
road leading from Athens to Eleusis was constructed, called
Ierá Hodós (Sacred Way). Some stretches of this road survive.
On the roadbed, paving was undertaken. Traces of retaining
walls and the roadbed cut in limestone rock survive in some
areas. Th is road is perhaps the most impressive fi nding of an-
cient country or interstate roads from antiquity.
Another impressive discovery is the 3-yard-wide road
from the Peloponnese to central Greece. Since it was mainly
a road used by merchants, provision for places where carts
could pull and pass one another is visible today. A diff erent
kind of road was the Diolkos, constructed along the Isth-
mus of Corinth. Beginning in the eighth century b.c.e. the
Greeks’ colonization of the West made the transportation
of goods imperative. Th e Greeks tried to avoid the danger-
ous circumnavigation of the Peloponnese. Th e Corinthians
pulled the smaller ships traveling from east to west over the
isthmus, earning money from payments of toll. Later, in the
sixth century b.c.e., the Corinthian tyrant Periander (d. 586
b.c.e.) constructed over the narrowest part of the isthmus (3.7
miles long) a paved road, with two parallel channels cut for
the wheels of specially designed transporters, on which ships
were loaded.
Ancient sources do not give details of the Diolkos’s func-
tion. Systematic excavations from 1956 until 1962 brought to
light many parts of the road, allowing archaeologists to deter-
mine its route and the starting point at the Corinthian gulf.
Although it was initially thought that the road was wooden,
excavations have proved that it was 3.2 to 6 yards wide, paved
with limestone cubes. Th e parallel channels for the transport-
ers, about 1.6 yards apart, were curved alongside the road, but
specially designed gutters were constructed around curves for
added security. Th e ships were pulled by slaves who walked
along the sides of the road in wide paths. Letters of the Corin-
thian alphabet were carved on various points of the Diolkos;
these, with some fragments of broken pottery found there,
help to date the road, which was used until at least 833 c.e.
Road planning in cities was not always easy, especially for
great centers such as Athens or Piraeus, where community life
from years ago had already formed small, narrow roads be-
fore the civic way of life’s explosion in the Archaic and Clas-
sical Periods (600–323 b.c.e.). To an extent, natural topology
determined the planning of roads. Consequently, two kinds
of street layouts developed: the regular, with straight, paral-
lel, and rectilinear streets, and the irregular, where roads did
not follow straight lines but sometimes led in a radial fashion
to the same spot. Aristotle suggested that the second style of
street layout was better for the defense of the city. According
to the second-century c.e. writer Philostratus, it seems thatroads and bridges: Greece 889