giuseppe ferlazzo

This paper presents the reconstruction of the network of roads used by the Roman army during the Romanization in South Italy, especially the via Appia. Romanization in Southern Italy was realized through a network of existing roads. The Romans built these roads as public works.  The via Appia is a military road.
The data collected from both projects allowed us to verify the important modifications of the landscape produced by the Roman’s activities, that in Daunia occurred in the IV-III centuries B.C. These modifications are represented by the creation of the road network characterizing the centuriation, with the realization of a new distributive system for the plots of land to be assigned to the occupants of the colony, and the building of a myriad of new farms.
The Via Appia can be retraced and reconstructed thanks to the data of the survey sand investigations of aerial photographs, even in stretches previously little known. Aerial photographs were fundamental for the identification of archaeological evidence, such as crop marks, in the territory. We relied heavily on historic maps.
The Appian  was examined in particular the course between the  Irpinia and Venusia, specifically in the Melfi district (between the Ofanto valley and the slopes of Mount Vulture). The road is know the Itinerari, the airial photographs also by the settlements distributed along them.