Via Augusta

The Via Augusta (also known as the Via Herculea or Via Exterior) was the longest and busiest of the major roads built by the Romans in ancient Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). According to historian Pierre Sillières, who has supervised excavation of Roman sites in Spain to identify the exact route followed by the Via Augusta, it was more a system of roads than a single road. Approximately 1,500 km (930 mi) long, the Via Augusta was built to link Spain with Italy, running from the southwestern coastal city of Gades (Cádiz) to the Pyrenees Mountains along inland valleys parallel to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. As the main axis of the road network in Roman Hispania, it appears in ancient sources such as the itinerary inscribed on the Vicarello Cups as well in as the Antonine Itinerary. The highway was named after the emperor Augustus, who ordered reconstruction of the previously existing Via Herculea (or Via Heraklea), which ran from the Pyrenees to Carthago Nova, and extension of the arterial roadway as far as Gades. The works were carried out between 8 BC and 2 BC, taking advantage of what remained of roads that had existed in the time of the Roman Republic. Subsequently, it became an important communications and trade route between the cities and provinces and the ports of the Mediterranean. The Via Augusta was still used by the Moors of southern Spain in the 10th cen

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