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This would be Google Maps in the year 20 BC if the Romans had had a mobile

check what the navigation app of the time would be like.

And it is that the OmnesViae website allows us to look back to see the maps of the Roman Empire and even establish routes to know which path we should choose. and yourself you can check it from your mobile. Obviously, it is still a curiosity, but what a curiosity.

It’s true, all roads lead to Rome

The popular proverb is full of historical references and the fact that all roads end in Rome is not by chance. It is completely true that, in the Roman Empire, all roads led to the now capital of Italy. Although if the aforementioned OmnesViae tool stands out for something, it is because allow to trace any route through the Roman Empire.

Although the web is oriented to a desktop format, we can access from the mobile browser and handle it easily. It marks the Roman roads, but superimposed on the real maps of today. As an example, we wanted to know what was the best route to go from Madrid to Barcelona. Or rather, from Miaccum to Barcenone, which is how they translate the names into Roman in OmnesViae.

We tried to go from Miaccum (Madrid) to Barcenone (Barcelona) orienting ourselves with this map
Madrid Barcelona Map Roman Empire

interesting to see highlighted in yellow the fastest route and, on the left, offers much more precise indications. Thus, we know that Conplutum (AKA Alcalá de Henares) is one of the first stops. A pity that to meet Miguel de Cervantes we had to wait a few more centuries. Tarracone (Tarragona) and Fines (Martorell) are the last stops.

The interesting thing about the routes is to see the places that had to be passed through, being remarkable how roads and highways used to be built near rivers or large cities. Although the best of all is that it even shows you the number of days it will take. Expressed in numbers and Roman miles, yes.

Tools like this help us to see that journeys on foot like this today mean saving 27 days of travel.

On our trip from Madrid to the Catalan capital, it would have taken us XXXII days to travel the 466 Roman miles that separate them. That is, 32 days for almost 670 kilometers. As a curiosity, with the current highways and roads, the Google Maps of our times tells us that it would take 5 days to do that route (the evolution over centuries had to be noticed in something).

You yourself can ‘play’ and create the routes you want if you’re curious. It will not serve to guide you in our times, except for some rare exception in which all the Roman roads of the time remain intact, but if you are a fan of antiquities, you will love a technological tool like this.

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