II. The Gates and Roads of Veii

Extract

Any account of ancient Veii is almost bound to start with a reference to what is today the most conspicuous surviving feature of the ancient landscape, the network of roads which led from the town out into the surrounding countryside and, across country, towards the neighbouring cities of Etruria. The onward courses of these roads will be described and discussed in a later article. All that is attempted here is to trace their course in the immediate vicinity of Veii, where they were an important factor in the siting both of the streets within the town and of the cemeteries outside it.

Of these roads, some undoubtedly go right back to Villanovan times. To this group belong the ridgeway to Nepi and the Monti Sabatini; the track leading from the Valle la Fata Gate, almost certainly the earliest road between Veii and Rome; one or more of the tracks leading across country from the North-east Gate in the direction of Capena; and (presumably) the earlier of the two roads leading to Caere. Others, at any rate in their present form, belong to a later phase of the city's development, when there were the means and organisation to undertake the considerable feats of engineering that their construction represents.