Queen of Roads

From the Colosseum to Vesuvius Along Rome's Imperial Highway

Follow the Appian Way -- the road the Romans called Regina Viarum, Queen of Roads -- from the heart of Rome through its underground catacombs and buried port to the volcanic destruction of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Greek temples of Paestum that preceded them all.

Itinerary

1. Rome's Theater of Death — Fifty thousand spectators, four hundred years of bloodsport, and an engineering marvel that still defines the skyline of Rome.
2. Where a Swamp Became the Center of the World — Before it was the administrative heart of the greatest empire on Earth, the Roman Forum was a malarial swamp. The transformation tells you everything about Roman ambition.
3. The First Highway — The Romans called it Regina Viarum -- Queen of Roads. Built in 312 BC, sections of the Appian Way are still passable twenty-three centuries later.
4. 150 Kilometers Below — Beneath the Appian Way lies another city entirely -- 150 kilometers of tunnels where early Christians buried their dead and, perhaps, hid their faith.
5. Rome's Buried Port — The port that fed Rome for six centuries -- better preserved than Pompeii, less famous, and almost completely empty of tourists.
6. The Emperor's Retreat — Hadrian built his villa at Tivoli as a microcosm of the empire -- recreating Egypt, Greece, and Athens in a complex larger than the city of Pompeii.
7. The Day Vesuvius Buried a City — On August 24, AD 79, Vesuvius exploded with the force of a hundred thousand Hiroshima bombs, burying Pompeii under twenty feet of ash and pumice.
8. Pompeii's Forgotten Sister — Herculaneum was buried not by ash but by superheated mud, preserving wood, food, and even papyrus scrolls that Pompeii's drier burial destroyed.
9. Greek Temples in Italy — Five centuries before Vesuvius buried Pompeii, Greek colonists built three temples here that are more complete than anything surviving in Greece itself.