Via Aemilia - History

History

The land today known as northern Italy (Italia settentrionale) was known to the ancient Romans during the republican period (to 44 BC) as Gallia Cisalpina (literally: Gaul on the near – i.e. southern – side of the Alps). This is because it was then inhabited by Celtic tribes from Gaul, who had colonised the area in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Italia meant the area inhabited by Italic tribes: the border between Italia and Gallia Cisalpina was roughly a line between Pisae (Pisa) and Ariminum.

Gallia Cisalpina contained the Pianura padana (Po river plain). This vast country, by far the largest fertile plain in the mountainous peninsula, contained potentially its best agricultural land, and offered the Romans the opportunity to expand enormously their population and economic resources by mass colonisation.

The Romans subjugated the Gauls of the Pianura Padana in a series of hard-fought campaigns in the late 3rd century BC. By 220 BC, the Via Flaminia was completed, providing the Romans with ready access to the region. The Via Aemilia would probably have followed within the next century.

However, Roman expansion was delayed for some twenty years by the Second Punic War. During the Carthaginian general Hannibal's invasion of Italy (218 BC–203 BC), Roman military control of the Pianura Padana was temporarily overthrown. Many of the recently defeated tribes (such as the Insubres and the Boii) rebelled and joined forces with Hannibal in the hope of regaining their independence. It was not until 189 BC that the rebel tribes had been pacified sufficiently to allow work on the Via Aemilia to begin.

The time-tested Roman method of expansion was to build a brand new road straight through the newly-conquered territory, and then establish a string of colonies, either of civilian settlers or of military veterans along its route. The settlers would be allocated fertile plots from lands confiscated from the defeated native peoples. This was the precise function of the Via Aemilia: its period of construction also saw the foundation of Roman colonies along its whole length at Bononia (Bologna) (founded 189 BC), Mutina (Modena), Regium (Reggio Emilia) and Parma (all founded in 183 BC).

The Via Aemilia was completed by, and named after, the Roman consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 187 BC. It ran, largely in a straight line, 176 Roman miles (260 km) NW from Rimini to its termination at Piacenza, passing through the cities of Forlì, Faenza, Bologna, Modena, Reggio and Parma. The road ran along the southern edge of the pancake-flat Pianura Padana within sight of the northern foothills of Italy's Apennine mountains, crossing numerous tributary rivers of the Po, notably the Rubicone near Rimini- although it is not certain that this river is the same as the famous Rubicon crossed by Julius Caesar in 49 BC; and the river Trebbia near Piacenza, site of the first of Hannibal's three major victories over the Romans during his invasion of Italy.

In the century following the construction of the Via Aemilia, Piacenza became the key Roman road hub in the pianura padana. In 148 BC, the Via Postumia linked Piacenza to Aquileia on the north Adriatic coast. In 109 BC, the consul Marcus Aemilius Scaurus completed the Via Aemilia Scaura to Genua (Genoa) and Pisae (Pisa).