The document summarizes the discovery of a milestone marker from the ancient Roman road known as the Via Cecilia. In the early 1990s, during excavations in Valle San Giovanni, Italy, workers uncovered Milestone 114 marking the 168 km point along the Via Cecilia from Rome. This discovery provided further evidence of the extensive Roman road network in the region and the importance of trade and commerce connecting Rome to the Adriatic Sea coast over 2000 years ago.

1. Milestone
BACKGOUND: The Romans were highly skilled engineers and builders. They
designed and built a system of roads (the most important of which were
called Consular roads) so well constructed that many still exist and are
traveled upon more than two thousand years later. Strategically, perhaps the
most important of these roads was the Via Appia (Appian Way) which ran in a
southeasterly direction from Rome to Brindisi. Another major road was the
Via Salaria (Salt Road) which ran in a northeasterly direction from Rome to
Porto d'Ascoli at the mouth of the Truentum (Tronto) river where the Abruzzo
and Marche regions meet. The Sabine tribes used this road to carry salt from
the mouth of the Tiber river back to their homeland in northern Abruzzo.
About twenty miles east of Rome branching off the Via Salaria is the Via
Cecilia. This road travels in a more easterly direction passing over the
Gran Sasso before arriving at Montorio al Vomano, Interamnia (Teramo) and
Giulianova. Valle San Giovanni sits midway between Montorio al Vomano and
Teramo and it was here that a milestone marker of the Via Cecilia was
discovered in the early 1990's.
PHOTO: Vincenzo Torrieri from the Archeological Superintendent's Office and
Giovanni Di Marco from the Association Ghandi during the excavation of
Milestone 114 located on the "strada vecchia" (old road) in Valle San
Giovanni. (Photo Di Marco)
PHOTO: Teramo. The milestone of Valle San Giovanni on deposit in the
Sant'Anna archaeological compound.
Roads and Commerce of Today and Yesterday
The Discovery in Valle San Giovanni of a milestone marker on the "Via del
Batino"
by Giammario Sgattoni
In Italy, especially in the years following the Second Punic War (218-201
BC), states the archaeologist Ferdinando Castagnoli, director of the Istituto
di Topografia Antica dell'Universita' di Roma (Topographical Institute of the
University of Rome) in his book published in 1970 "La Strada Romana in
Italia" (The Roman Road in Italy), "...the characteristic of the roads is
essentially commercial. The road network is a primary factor with regard to
the history of commerce..., and it is not difficult to understand that the
Roman era tribune C. Sempronio Gracco, the great proponent of democratic
agrarian reforms, was also the author of a law, Lex Sempronio, regarding
roadways. Hence, in this context it is not difficult to understand the
widespread diffusion of milestone markers along these roads during Gracco's
rule, that is from the years 133 to 121 AC."
The recent archaeological discovery of Milestone 114 in the area of Valle San
Giovanni known as Cavonetto, highlights in a novel and unexpected manner the
existence over the course of many centuries of trade routes connecting Rome
with the Adriatic Sea. The main route was the Via Salaria (Salt Road) and

2. its network of secondary byways. It served an important role in this
capacity from the days of the early Roman Empire to the beginning of the 5th
century AD. Unfortunately, and not by chance, these same roads laid open the
Pretuzo (today's Abruzzo) region to the repeated invasions of Alaric's
Visigoths. Milestone 114 further enriches the voluminous evidence concerning
the topographical features of Pretuzo region and, more specifically, the
countryside surrounding Interamnia (Latin for "between two rivers", today's
Teramo).
Evidence of the area's rich patrimony comes from ancient milestones unearthed
in Vallorina di Sant'Omero, Poggio Umbricchio, Monte Giove (located in the
commune of Cermignano) and Castilenti. Also important in this regard are
cippi (boundary stones) and monumental grave markers discovered along tracts
of the Via Salaria near Atri and adjacent to the Via del Batino (that is the
road along the Tordino river) in an area currently known as Cona on the
outskirts of Teramo. The Teramo artifacts were unearthed in 1961 near the
Ponte Messato (Messato Bridge) where today can be found an ARPA (Autolinee
Regionali Pubbliche Abruzzesi, the Abruzzo public transportation authority
previously referred to as the INT) city bus garage.
It is known that a Roman mile was made up of 1000 footsteps or paces, each
1.48 meters in length. The distance from Rome to Valle San Giovanni is
approximately 168 kilometers. Thus, discovery of Milestone 114 at Valle San
Giovanni is most plausible and attests to its having been placed there Roman
era times.
PHOTO: Teramo 1961 In the Cona area near the Messato bridge were discovered
traces of the "Via del Batino" with monumental burial tombs in horizontal
alignment. In the foreground grave markers of CAETRANIUS DAMA and of SEXTUS
HISTIMENNIUS.
Last October some workmen operating a backhoe were in the process of digging
necessary utility line trenches needed for the new living quarters of
Giuseppe Sabatini in Valle San Giovanni. It was in this exact location that
they discovered Milestone 114 next to the house of Quintino Santarelli, an
emigrant worker then in Switzerland. Also uncovered were traces of an
ancient Roman road, most likely a section of the ancient Interamnium Vorsus
cited by historical cartographers and other related specialists, that
branched off the Via Salaria at Montorio al Vomano and snaked through the
villages today known as San Lorenzo, San Mauro, Santa Maria di Brecciano/
Villa Brozzi, and Case Matoni. The road then passed by the foot of the Colle
Sant'Angelo (Sant'Angelo hills), cut through Valle San Giovanni (and the
nearby locality of San Giovanni in Pergulis) before arriving at Interamnia
(Teramo) and reaching its final destination, Castrum Novum (Giulianova).
The presence of Milestone 114 on the street leading from Valle San Giovanni's
Fonte Vecchia to an area known as Castello, had been noted by Giovanni Marini
35 years previously. By fortune he had left the marker intact and unmoved
thus leading to its rediscovery during the more recent restoration of the
Santarelli residence. Credit for the recognition of the importance of the
marker goes to Giovanni Di Marco, a member of the Associazione Ghandi (Ghandi
Association) and the local archeological superintendent. They contacted two
archeologists from Chieti, Drs. Glauco Angeletti and Vincenzo Torrieri, who
examined the milestone's reliefs and conducted the necessary on-site

3. scientific analyses. Afterward, the precious find was transported to the
archeological holding site of Sant'Ana where it remains today (March, 1993).
(NB: As noted above, the milestone was later transferred to the Chieti
archeological holdings site where it remains today).
And so, just as today's Italian superhighway crosses the Apennines connecting
the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic seas, thus did the grand Via Salaria provide
access across the Italian peninsula for many centuries in the era of the
Roman empire. This attests to the importance of Teramo and its surrounding
area as an important juncture in what was undoubtedly a thriving trade
industry.
In truth, the Romans did nothing more than lay paving stones and widen, that
is create the first real "roads", atop the network of trails, footpaths, and
carriageways that existed since prehistoric times not only in Teramo but also
in the adjacent Sabina nel Piceno (today's lower Marche) and the Sannio (an
area of the south central Apennines) regions. These areas were rich in foods
stocks such as meat and olive oil, lumber and other building materials, and
household items such as leather goods that were needed the sustain ancient
city of Rome.
Among the oldest of the Roman roads, it too likely constructed on the same
route as a pre-existing trade route, is the Consolare Salaria (Consular Road
Salaria) which from Rome cut through Reate (today's province of Rieti),
passed Interocrium (Antrodoco) and Asculum (Ascoli Piceno), and followed the
Truentum (Tronto River) on its way to the Port of Ascoli, Martinsicuro and
Colonnella near the mouth of the Tronto River on the Adriatic shoreline. The
Consolare Salaria turned to the south as it followed the Adriatic coast
reaching Palma Picena (Tortoreto/Castrum Truentinum(?), Castrum Novum
(Giulianova), Colonia (Cologna), and Mons Pagus (Montepagano). At this point
the road arrived in Hatria where it met up with a tertiary route that had led
to Mutinianium (Mutignano), Matrinum (likely today's port of Hatria) and
Salinae (also known by the eloquent nickname Salinas) on the Saline river.
Finally, the Via Salaria proceeded to the Pescara river at its mouth in Ostia
Aterni (Aternum). It was here that it joined another consular road known as
the Tiburtina-Claudia-Valeria. Additional historical evidence regarding the
road comes from an area once occupied by the Franks in the commune of
Martinsicuro, this being where the Via Salaria traveled along a path from
Truentum to Hatria. These well preserved artifacts were discovered during
the construction of the SS 16 (State Road 16) in the direction of Alba
Adriatica.
Within the past hundred years, there has been a great deal of interest by
historians concerning the Via Salaria. In 1893 Niccolo' Persichetti
published in Rome Viaggio Archeologico sulla Via Salaria (Archeological
Travel along the Via Salaria). Other interesting monographs followed
including Via Caecilia 1898-1903 (Via Cecilia 1898-1903); Salaria nel
Circondario di Ascoli Piceno, 1904 (Via Salaria in the Ascoli Piceno Area,
1904); and Circondarii di Roma e di Rieti (The Surroundings of Rome and
Rieti) in 1910. In his works Professor Persichetti addressed the most
important questions that had been raised concerning the Via Salaria itself,
as well as those related to the somewhat less important Via Caecilia (Via
Cecilia), the route which follows the Vomano Valley from Monte Giove to
Atri. The Via Cecilia continues to be an important route in central Abruzzo

4. notwithstanding the fact that travel from one side of the Gran Sasso to the
other can now be accomplished via two great tunnels that have been
constructed deep within the bowels of its majestic peaks.
PHOTO: Details of the milestone located in Poggio Umbricchio. The
dedication is to Valentiniano, Valente, and Graziano, "pius, happy, stately,
triumphant, and brought into this world for the public good" (Photo by P. De
Angelis).
But an old saying goes, "There is nothing new under the sun." And so arrives
the homegrown archeologist of merit from Castelli, Felice Barnabei, who might
well have become founder and Director General of Antiquities and the Fine
Arts. Our own, Felice Barnabei who, in the year preceding the 1868
publication Giornale degli Scavi di Pompei (Journal of the Pompei
Excavations) published his own striking and suggestive essay Relazione di un
Viaggio Archeologico sulla Via Salaria, Lungo Corso del Vomano (An Account of
an Archeological Expedition on the Via Salaria Following the Course of the
Vomano River). It goes without saying that Professor Barabei's masterpiece
preceded Professor Persicetti's observations by a good 25 years.
PHOTO: Teramo, "Il Ponte degli Impiccati" (Hangman's Bridge) on the
tributary Vezzola forming an arch that was once part of route from Interamnia
(Teramo) to Castrum Novum (Giulianova). At present the bridge is almost
completely covered by detritus.
Luigi Sorricchio, another illustrious scholar from Abruzzo who presents
perhaps as bit overenthusiastic but by no means incorrect in his opus Hatri-
Atri (published in Rome, 1911) speaks of the importance of Hatria (Atri) in
Roman era times. He bases this conclusion on that fact that that all of the
branches of the Via Salaria ended up in Hatria (today's Atri). These include
the roads from Truentum (Tronto) and Castrum (Giulianova), from Beregra
(present location unspecified) and Interamnia (Teramo), from Pinna (today's
Penne), and finally another leading along the Saline river towards Ostia
Aterni/Aternum (today's Pescara). This last road crossed the previously
mentioned Via Clauda-Valeria before following yet another route to the
capital, Rome. Thus did Rome completely dominate the middle Italy portion of
the Adriatic seacoast - from the northern point of Truentum a Castrum
(?Porto d'Ascoli at the mouth of the Tronto river) as far south as Hatria ad
Aternum (Atria). It did this by colonizing the area, taking advantage of the
available natural resources, reinforcing local trading centers, and building
up the most useful seaports along the Adriatic sea (which in Roman times
according to Tito Livio carried the name Hatriaticum). From the mid to later
era of the Roman era, this area was an important byway of communication and
contacts with the eastern portions of the Roman empire.
This would explain the extensive construction and restorative efforts of
these important roads during the reign of Valentiniano, Valente, and Graziano
as documented on the nearly identical milestones discovered in Poggio
Umbricchio and Castilenti and which now have been placed in the Fano museum
near Pesaro.
In his works, professor Sorricchio often cites the German scholar Christian
Hulsen. In 1896 it was Hulsen, coming after Professors Barnabei and
Persichetti, who published in 1896 his seminal article L'iscrizione della Via

5. Caecilia (Inscriptions from Via Cecilia) in the journal Notizie degli Scavi
(Notices of the Excavations). In it he shed additional light on the
importance of these roadways as links between these two bodies of water or,
more specifically, between Rome and the Adriatic sea. Professor Hulsen
based much of his thesis on the basis of an analysis of a large inscribed
stone marker that by chance was discovered in Rome in 1873 (the marker had
laid hidden in a medieval era wall beside Rome's finance ministry not far
from the Piazza Termini and Via XX Settembre). Thanks to this discovery, in
conjunction with the studies that had been completed by several researchers
from Teramo including Giovan Bernardino Delfico, Pancrazio Palma and
Professor Barnabei, the illustrious German archeologist Hulsen was able to
consolidate and make more precise many aspects of Roman era presence with
regard to the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga mountain areas. Corroboration
of these findings has come only with the addition of more recent post WWII
archeological discoveries. Professor Hulsen's basic tenets, as well as those
of the earlier researchers still stand basically unchanged to the present
day.
PHOTO: Sant'Omero. The milestone of Vallorina. Today located in the house
of Dr. Luigi Tanzi. The photo comes from the study of Pasquale Rasicci from
Corropoli.
PHOTO: Castilenti. Up until this 1940's this milestone could be found
along the "strada vecchia" (Old Road) in a front of the small rural church,
San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains).
Valle San Giovanni Villa Casale Villa in Abruzzo