Saturday, March 19, 2011

"All Roads Lead to Rome" (Blog Book Roads)

Roads? Aren't roads kinda boring? Don't they just sit there on top of the earth and do nothing but provide a path for people to travel? Yes, that's basically what a road does. However, in Rome, that seemingly simple task was extremely important. Because of the vastness of the Roman Empire, roads were extremely important because the military, emperor, and others needed to be able to travel throughout the empire easily. With roads, the entire Roman empire was connected. The Romans built a lot of roads. Not only did they build a lot, but they also built GOOD roads. They revolutionized the way roads were built, taking it from a dirt path, to an actual road built with stones, mortar and blocks. Whenever the Romans would conquer another town or city, they would build a road back to Rome. So the phrase, "all roads lead to Rome" was actually true during this time period. The picture you see is an image of the Appian Way, the most famous Roman road ever made. As you can see, the Appian Way, like most of the Roman roads, were built in a straight line. They were also built with gutters and roads signs showing how far it was to Rome. The gutters and road signs gave the Roman roads a modern day look. 

In your Blog Book, you will complete two tasks for the "Roads" section.
1. *Click Here to see the different layers of the Roman Road. Use the picture to label the layers of the Road in your blog book.
2. Somewhere else on the Roads page, answer the following questions with COMPLETE SENTENCES:
     1. What is the most famous Roman Road?
     2. Why were roads so important to ancient Rome?
     3. How did the Romans revolutionize (change) roads? 
     4. What gave the ancient Roman roads a modern look? 

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