Venerable tombs by the Appian Way, - Rome

Underwood & Underwood · (c) 1900

This is the most famous of all old Roman highways through Italy. You are outside the city limits, looking nearly southeast across the great level wastes of the Campagna. Records show that the construction of this very road you see here was begun 312 B.C. and for nearly a hundred years it was being extended until almost 2150 years ago it reached from Rome - five miles behind you - to the site of the Brindisi, away down near the southeast extremity of Italy's long peninsula. It was ever after the chief road to Rome from the south... "On both sides of this great highway were reared magnificent palaces and tombs. We may judge of the titanic solidity of the mausoleums by the ruins which we see before us, some of which overtop those trees on the right hand side of the road. The mass of towering wall seen on the left-hand side of the road belongs to a mediæval fortress, the Torre Mezza Strada, which was built out of the material taken from the wayside tombs." (From Rome through the Stereoscope; published by Underwood & Underwood.)