el, and cement, and covered with stones
and granite, and followed in a direct line without regard to the
configuration of the country, passing over or under mountains and
across streams and lakes, on arches of solid masonry. The military
roads were under the pretors, and were called pretorian roads; and the
public roads for travel and commercial traffic were under the consuls,
and were called consular roads. These roads were kept entirely
distinct; the pretorian roads were used for the marching of armies and
the transportation of military supplies, and the consular roads were
used for traffic and general travel. They were frequently laid out
alongside of each other from place to place, very much as railroads and
highways are now found side by side. The consular roads were generally
twelve feet wide in the travelled pathway, with a raised footway on the
side; but sometimes the footway was in the middle of the road, with a
carriage-way on each side of it. The military roads were generally
sixty feet wide, with an elevated centre, twenty feet wide, and slopes
upon either side, also twenty feet wide. Stirrups were not then
invented, and mounting stones or blocks were necessary accommodations;
and hence the lines of the roads were studded with mounting-blocks and
also with milestones. Some of these roads could be travelled to the
north and eastward two thousand miles; and they were kept in such good
repair that a traveller thereon, by using relays of horses, which were
kept on the road, could easily make a hundred miles a day. Far as the
eye could see stretched those symbols of her all-conquering and
all-attaining influence, which made the most distant provinces a part
of her dominions, and connected them with her imperial capital by
imperial highways.

The Romans not only had great public highways, but they possessed a
complete and systematic network of cross-roads, which connected
villages, and brought into communication therewith cultivated farms and
prosperous homesteads. In Italy alone it is estimated that they had
about fourteen thousand miles of good roads. Their laws relating to the
construction and maintenance of highways were founded in reason and a
just conception of the uses and objects of public ways; and they are
the basis of modern highway legislation. By their law the roads were
for the public use and convenience, and their emperors, consuls, and
other public officials were their conservators. They were built