304 ROMAN FRONTIER DEFENCES AND ROADS. [CHAP.

may be remarked that the names of highways which have been
given above are in several cases assigned also to roads in other
parts of the country. Thus the title of Ermine Street is attached
to the line of way that leads from Silchester by Cirencester to
Gloucester; and that of Icknield Street to the road between
Dorchester near Oxford, and Chesterford to the southward of
Cambridge : while the road which for a time joined the wall of
Hadrian to that of Antonine is known as Watling Street

The Via Aemilia in Cisalpine Gaul, the connexion of which
with the lines of communication in north-western

Passes ot tnc

Aipes Rhaeti- Europe has been traced above, was also the parent
cae an ju we. ^ ^^ jmp0rtant roaciSj which led northward and

eastward through the Roman empire, From Milan a branch
reached Verona, from which city there was a way by the valley of
the Adige to the Brenner pass over the Rhaetian Alps, which led
to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), the Roman outpost in the
direction of Germany. From Verona again another road ran east-
ward to Aquileia at the head of the Adriatic, and through the Julian
Alps to Aemona (Laibach) in Pannonia. Here it divided in two,
one part following the old line of the Baltic traffic northwards
by Poetovio (Pettau) to Carnuntum on the Danube, the other
descending the valley of the Save by way of Sirmium
(Mitrovitsa) to the junction of that river with the

Pannonia to Danube at Singidunum (Belgrade). The latter of
Byzantium.
these routes continued along the right bank of the
Danube as far as Viminacium (Kostolatz), and then turned south-
wards up the valley of the Morava to Naissus (Nisch), and
through the passes of the Balkan by Serdica (Sophia) and Philip*
popolis to Byzantium.
An earlier line of transit, however, from Rome to the Bosporus,
and at all times a shorter and more convenient one,
viaAppia. t^ian ^iat 3ust mentioned, was the route by way of
southern Italy and the Egnatian Way. The first
part of this was formed by the Via Appia, the earliest of all the
Roman highways, the construction of which was due in the first
instance to the censor Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 B.C. By
him it was conducted as far as Capua, but from that place it was
afterwards continued to Beneventum, and finally by two different