foot-path in the center, and blocks of stone at intervals, to enable travelers to mount on horseback. Furthermore, each mile was marked by a numbered post, the distance being counted from the gate of the wall of Servius. The mile-post was at first a roughly hewn stone, which in time was exchanged for a monument, especially in the vicinity of Rome and other large cities. The most celebrated road of Italy, which has always excited the admiration of the student of antiquity, was the Via Appia, the remains of which are still an object of wonder. It was first built from Rome to Capua by Appius Claudius Cæcus in the fourth century before Christ, and was afterwards continued as far as Brundisium. It was broad enough for two carriages to pass each other, and was built of solid stone. The stones were hewn sharp and smooth, and their corners fitted into one another without the aid of any connecting material, so that, according to Procopius, the whole appeared to be one natural stone. Each side of the street had a high border for foot-passengers, on which were also placed alternately seats and mile-stones. In spite of its age and heavy traffic parts of this road are still in a good state of preservation. After the completion of the Via Appia similar roads were constructed, so that under the emperors seven great highways started from Rome, viz.: the Via Appia and Latina to the south; two, Valeria and Salaria, to the Adriatic; two, Cassia and Aurelia, to the northwest; and the Via Æmilia, serving for both banks of the Po. Nor were the provinces by any means neglected. During the last Punic war a paved road was constructed from Spain through Gaul to the Alps, and similar roads were afterwards built in every part of Spain and Gaul, through Illyricum, Macedonia and Thrace, to Constantinople, and along the Danube to its mouths on the Black Sea. So, likewise, were the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Great Britain crossed by them. It has justly been said that the roads of the Roman Empire, whose strong net-work enlaced the known world, were the architectural glory of its people. These military roads caused in the various parts of the empire a wonderful social and commercial revolution. They made it possible for civilization to penetrate into the most remote retreats and to conquer their inhabitants more completely than could Cæsar at the head of his legions.