British School at Rome: Papers of the British School at Rome (9.1920)

82

The British School at Rome.

Interpromium is in dispute, but this uncertainty does not affect the
length of the road.
A further point is raised by the mileage (xc.) indicated on the stone
of Magnentius discovered at Statulae (Goriano Sicoli). It shews that
in the fourth century the mileage of the Via Claudia Valeria was reckoned
from Rome, not from Cerfennia, the original caput of the road. Indeed
the Via Valeria and the Via Claudia Valeria1 were, for all practical pur-
poses, merged in one continuous road long before that time.
Furthermore, with the statement that Statulae was 90 miles from
Rome it is impossible to reconcile the lines of Ovid, Tristia, iv. 10. 3 :
Sulmo mihi patria est gelidis uberrimus undis
Milia qui novies distat ab urbe decem.
To reach Sulmo (the modern Sulmona) from Rome travellers would have
to cover at least 104 miles, since the distance from Statulae (at the 90th
mile) to Corfinium was 7 miles and the distance thence to Sulmo another
7.2 Although we must remember that at the time of Ovid the Via
Claudia Valeria from Cerfennia onwards was not constructed, the old
Via Valeria went as far as Corfinium, while a deverticulum, which probably
left the main road near Cerfennia, went to Marsi Marruvium on the east
shore of the Fucine Lake. In a sense the Via Claudia Valeria from
Cerfennia to Corfinium was not a construction de, novo, but rather a res-
toration or improvement of the older Via Valeria and must have followed
the same course over Mons Imeus (the modern pass known as Forca
Caruso), which, indeed, must have been crossed by a natural track from
time immemorial. If Ovid went from Rome to Marruvium and crossed
the difficult mountain barrier thence to Sulmo, it is just possible that he
covered only 90 miles ; or, if he approached Marruvium along the south-
ern shore of the Fucine Lake instead of along the northern, it is more
easily conceivable that the distance was 90 miles. But as it seems
probable that he would reckon along the more convenient way by Cer-
fennia—Statulae—Corfinium, we must suppose that he was consulting
1 From various inscriptions mentioning curatores of these roads it appears that even
at the beginning of the second century a.d. the Via Tiburtina, the Via Valeria and the Via
Claudia Valeria, were administered as one road and occasionally by one and the same
curator.
2 Caesar, B.C. i. 18 : oppidum (Sulmonensium) a Corfinio vii. milium intervallo abest.
The Tabula Peutingerana (ab Appia ad Valeriam) reads Sulmone—VII.—corfinio.