Roman Empire Travel Times!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

A fellow author has alerted me to this site - Orbis - and the wonderful resources it has. You can map travel distances by foot or sea and so on to various destinations. Weather is allowed - military marching, distance by cost, etc.

Zoom in a look at the various locations and road maps. It is a wonderful resource if you are writing an AAR or doing research, say, about Hadrianople.

The chap who brought it to my attention is R. W. Peake. His novel is a great read and he is one of the reviewers of my own 'The Nowhere Legion'. Do check his work out.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Bawss

[Renatus]

OK. So, how do you make it work? You enter Start, Destination, Month and Priority. Then what?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

There is a tutorial video which will show you everything although for some reason the volume is quite low. You can also go to 'home', click on the map, and then enter your start and end locations, select travel type, season, sea or road, etc. Best to go to the 'home' page and use the tutorial video located at the bottom, though.

[Renatus]

I must be getting a totally different page from you. Following your link, all I get is a search page where you can enter the details mentioned above but with no facility to activate the search or to go anywhere else. Even going to what seems to be the Orbis home page via Google, I cannot see anything about a tutorial video. It is a mystery to me.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Very strange - here is the main url. It works fine for me so I wonder what the issue is?

http://orbis.stanford.edu/#

[Diocle]

This time I can say a thing that I did not belive possible: Thanks SBH! I already knew the site, but I forgot it ! It is really interesting! and it gives us the feeling of the travel problems in which the Roman Civilization developed its structures!!

[wulfgar610]

A fellow author has alerted me to this site - Orbis - and the wonderful resources it has. You can map travel distances by foot or sea and so on to various destinations. Weather is allowed - military marching, distance by cost, etc.

Zoom in a look at the various locations and road maps. It is a wonderful resource if you are writing an AAR or doing research, say, about Hadrianople.

The chap who brought it to my attention is R. W. Peake. His novel is a great read and he is one of the reviewers of my own 'The Nowhere Legion'. Do check his work out.

Now that is cool and very handy! I love the costs of personal travel!!!

Thanks SBH!

OK. So, how do you make it work? You enter Start, Destination, Month and Priority. Then what?

Just above the start.......'calculate route' button.

How will you survive in the post codex age, Renatus? Longing for the Romanticism of musty book shelves?

In keeping with the proposed benchmark rate of 1 denarius per modius kastrensis per day, the model applies an expense of 0.1 denarii per 1 kilogram of wheat per day. The schematic conversion ratio (in section XXXVA.25-6 of the Aphrodisias copy of the price edict) that equates the cost of transporting a passenger by sea to the cost of shipping 25 modii kastrenses and yields a simulation rate of 25.2 denarii per passenger per day seems unduly low even for a passenger in steerage, given that the allowance of 323 liters (or one-third of a cubic meter) creates just about enough space for a person standing up straight. As already noted before (Duncan-Jones 1982: 386), the edict appears to understate the cost of passenger travel relative to that of goods.

I see, those prices looked very expensive!!!

But they seem to be using 'Tricky Diocletian' denarii, which at best were 1/50 worth of the 1st century silver denarii. A silver denarii was a days labor wage. I can safely book my Empire tour!

[Renatus]

It appears that my version of Internet Explorer is too old!

[Constantius]

I got excited, then I realised I'd already posted this in the tavern

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Really? I wonder how I missed that? But then the Tavern does seem to be people bragging about various games and stuff (just like in a real tavern!).

Renatus - download Firefox - all your dreams will come true!

[Diocle]

A real fun: Calculated the trip Genua _ Londinium:

Month: April.Using a civilian fast carriage. Main stages of the journey: Ticinum, Augusta Praetoria (Aosta) 4 days, Aventicum, Argentoratae (10 days), Divodurum (12 d.), Durocortorum (15 d.), Samarobriva (17 d.), Londinium 21 days for 1409 Km.!!! It is fast!!

For a trip of the duration of 21 days I paid 1835,87 Denarii, three years of Stipendium of a Roman Auxiliary Horseman belonging to the Equites Alares!....quite expensive but not so much if you have the money and the business that supports your motivation!

[wulfgar610]

For a trip of the duration of 21 days I paid 1835,87 Denarii, three years of Stipendium of a Roman Auxiliary Horseman belonging to the Equites Alares!....quite expensive but not so much if you have the money and the business that supports your motivation!

You'd have to be certain which year, because 'Tricky' Diocletian was devaluing the denariii by half each 7 years. Richard Nixon used the same methods 1700 years later attempting price and wage controls and devaluing the currency.
The more stable unit was pure gold with the 4.5 gram Solidi divided into 24 carats (Siliqua) of 0.1875 grams. This being the average weight of a carob seed.

There was about 7 roman solidi to the modern troy ounce, or about 168 - 170 Siliqua to the troy.

[Diocletianus]

Absolutely badass ; This is a wonder tool !

[Diocle]

I do not know the timeframe of the map in the wonderful site posted by SBH, I'll take a look..probably it might be the II century...

you are right! When the journey is very important! Anyway the cost should be very high, the travel times seem quite good!

[wulfgar610]

I do not know the timeframe of the map in the wonderful site posted by SBH, I'll take a look..probably it might be the II century...

you are right! When the journey is very important! Anyway the cost should be very high, the travel times seem quite good!

It's based on the prices in Diocletian's Edict at around 301 AD.

It wouldn't be hard to confirm because 18th century times would have been similar! Roads were being built on the Roman scale, although ship and carriage technology had improved on what the Romans had.

[Diocle]

Guys what always impressed me were the distances that the Roman armies covered walking! reading Caesar is really impressive: an Italic Gaul of Cisalpina of one of the famous VIII, IX or X Cesarian Legion, walking by feet went from North Italy to Atlantic coasts, then in Illyricum, then in Greece then in Anatolia then in Egypt! And we complain for one or two Km to walk without car!

[wulfgar610]

Guys what always impressed me were the distances that the Roman armies covered walking! reading Caesar is really impressive: an Italic Gaul of Cisalpina of one of the famous VIII, IX or X Cesarian Legion, walking by feet went from North Italy to Atlantic coasts, then in Illyricum, then in Greece then in Anatolia then in Egypt! And we complain for one or two Km to walk without car!

Well unladen, the human animal can outdistance any ground animal except for trained dogs. A human can out-walk a horse over a great distance. It's the advantage of energy conservation in the bipedal gate. German soldiers of WW1 and WW2 outdistanced the Romans, however these Germans had better technology to carry their heavy baggage.

By the time of the Byzantines we know that the Marian policy of legionaries carrying much of their equipment had been reversed and carts were carrying stuff like armor and other heavy equipment. I'd suspect this change in policy went back to Severus if not earlier. This could be a reason for the abandonment of the lorica segmenta, maile is dead easy to pack on a cart. And this is the explanation for the unarmored appearence in late art work.

[Diocle]

I have always wondered if all those men, like the soldiers of Julian in Persian expedition, or the Vexillationes sent on the other end of the world ever returned home! Or probably they remained were the army had sent them and there they started a new life!...Or not, maybe someone, by feet and with some friend after his dischrge from the army slowly returned in Gaul or in Italy or in Greece....and probably he found his wife with a new husband and some beautiful children!!...Years to go here and there, years serving in the hell, and then....years spent in a long march to return, with few money (and this is not a certainty) and a great fatigue and then....what?

[wulfgar610]

I have always wondered if all those men, like the soldiers of Julian in Persian expedition, or the Vexillationes sent on the other end of the world ever returned home! Or probably they remained were the army had sent them and there they started a new life!...Or not, maybe someone, by feet and with some friend after his dischrge from the army slowly returned in Gaul or in Italy or in Greece....and probably he found his wife with a new husband and some beautiful children!!...Years to go here and there, years serving in the hell, and then....years spent in a long march to return, with few money (and this is not a certainty) and a great fatigue and then....what?

Actually Rome was careful about how they handled ex-soldiers. It was basically unleashing trained killers on the public. That's why the service term was extended to 25 years, retired soldiers had proved troublesome in the 1st century BC when service times had been shorter.
Originally the retirement benefit was 3,000 silver denari and it was often the case they took land in lieu of cash in places like North Africa. I'd guess in late Rome the retirement benefit continued for the field army. Ex-soldiers required papers when moving around because their brand mark could lead to them being picked up as deserters.