Via Severiana was an ancient highroad of Italy, running southeast from Ostia to Terracina, a distance of 73 miles along the coast, and taking its name, no doubt, from the restoration of an already existing road by Septimius Severus, who was a great benefactor of Ostia.

It ran along the shore at first, just behind the line of villas which fronted upon the sea, and are now half a mile inland, or even upon its edge (for an inscription records its being damaged by the waves). Farther southeast it seems to have kept rather more distant from the shore, and it probably kept within the lagoons below the Circean promontory. As is natural in a sandy district where building materials are rare, remains of it are scanty.

[edit] Roman bridges

For an overview of the location of Roman bridges, see List of Roman bridges.

There are the remains of at least one Roman bridge along the road, which crosses the Numicus two km southeast of Ostia.

[edit] Further reading

• R Lanciani in Monumenti dei Lincei, xiii. (1903), 185; xvi. (1906), 241
• T Ashby in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome (1905), 157 sqq.

[edit] See also

• Roman road
• Roman bridge
• Roman engineering

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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