Appian Way
The Appian Way, the Regina Viarum, ended right in Brindisi after crossing the whole peninsula from Rome: not just a road, but the cord that tied the capital of the ancient world to the East.
The queen of roads
It was built in 312 BC at the will of the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, who gave it his name. At first it linked Rome to Capua; then, extended, it reached Brundisium, becoming the favoured point of embarkation for the East. The stones, large, irregular, fitted without mortar and slightly domed to drain the rain, formed a system so efficient that in many stretches it served until the 19th century.
Virgil’s last stage
In the autumn of 19 BC a feverish man travelled this road on his way back from Greece: Publius Vergilius Maro, with the manuscript of the Aeneid. He died in Brindisi before he could revise it. These stones were probably among the last things he saw.
Where it is
Via Appia 171