Massive New Map Reveals 300,000 Km of Ancient Roman Roads

It turns out that not all roads lead to Rome , after all – at least, not in a literal sense.

A new map of the empire's ancient land routes has nearly doubled the length of the confirmed ancient Roman road network, from 190,000 to 300,000 kilometers (118,000 to 186,000 miles) – with the major hubs located far from Rome itself.

And yet, the map – named Itiner-e , and made publicly available – represents, at most, just 3 percent of the entire Roman road network, says a team led by archaeologist Tom Brughmans of Aarhus University.

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"This was a huge surprise and a sobering realization: Roads are one of the most enigmatic topics in Roman archaeology and history, they were all over the place, we have proverbs like