Mapping distances in the ancient Roman world

[Phidippides]

A new map has been released which allows users to calculate the distance it would have taken to travel between cities during the Roman Empire.  For example, the fastest civilian trip from Rome to Pompeii would have taken 2.2 days if traveling in June.

http://orbis.stanford.edu/

[skiguy]

link doesn't work for me 

Must be interesting to know.  I always wondered how long it took people or armies to go from point A to point B.

[skiguy]

Weird.  Tried removing that #.  It works here on my work computer, but not at home. Maybe it's time to update the browser.

Anyway, this is really cool.  even gives sea distance times. (BTW, to go from London to northern England, it takes 14 days)

[Phidippides]

It kind of jolts me when I think about how long it took people to travel distances a long time ago.  Today, a flight which takes up the whole day would be considered a big trip.  Back in ancient times, it seems that people (or at least some of them) traveled long distances and would have had to dedicate weeks (months?) to getting from Point A to Point B. 

[skiguy]

Ever since I wrote a paper on the Ancient Olympics and learned how far they travelled to compete or watch, I was always amazed.  I wonder if they ate along away or carried provisions with them. I wonder if inns were an actual business or if people just opened their homes to visitors either out of kindness or to make some money.

This map is cool too because it gives sea distances and times.  But I assume it's based on the ancient ships of the time.

[scout1067]

Their travel speed means seem very well thought and rational to me. 

Mean daily travel distances have been set at 12 kilometers per day for ox carts, 20km/day for porters or heavily loaded mules, 30km/day for foot travelers including armies on the march, pack animals with moderate loads, mule carts, and camel caravans, 36km/day for routine private vehicular travel with convenient rest stops, 50km/day for accelerated private vehicular travel, 56km/day for routine travel on horseback, 60km/day for rapid short-term military marches without baggage, 67km/day for fast carriages (state post or private couriers), and 250km/day for continuous horse relays (Scheidel in preparation c).

  It is a very interesting site, one i will have to take some time playing with.

Onew thing to keep in mind with land travel is look at the distance between market towns.  They were generally two days foot travel travel apart for the sensible reason that business was better if people had readier access to products and traveling more than a day meant people would not go to market as often.