Ancient Roman road with illustration of construction

40 points · 7 comments · view on lemmy.world

7 Comments

Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Some of those roads are still there after thousands of years. Wonder if anything valuable could be gained by having a porous substrate for modern roads to sit atop.

AProfessional@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y

They already do in many cases, like shown here https://www.britannica.com/technology/road/The-modern-road

Anticorp@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y (2 replies)

I can't even imagine the amount of labor that went into building these without machinery.

Illuminostro@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2y (1 reply)
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PugJesus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y

Slaves were more often employed in agriculture and unskilled industry (some nightmarish conditions there - slaves in the mines had a life expectancy of six months). Roads were often constructed by the Legions and Auxiliaries. Good way to keep soldiers busy and out of trouble in peacetime.

NucleusAdumbens@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y (2 replies)

Why not put some extra nucleus on top of the pavimentum for a smoother ride? I'd think cobbles would be brutal in a suspensionless chariot

PugJesus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Well, Roman roads were made primarily for foot-traffic.

NucleusAdumbens@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Oh I guess that makes sense then. Assumed all the effort to make them so durably flat was for wheels