“I find myself humbled by the consistent nature and high quality engineering of the roads in The Principality.” – Random thoughts of a traveling theologian
Infrastructure: Roadbuilding
When you think of infrastructure, you should think roads. The modern world has them everywhere. We use them for everything from transporting goods to going on vacation. Roads are as old as human civilization and have grown in their engineering complexity proportional to our understanding of material science and the necessity of durable thoroughfares. Roads were important to the Romans as well, and we’ll be using them for insight on how to design and build roads in a fantasy world.
So we can all agree that roads are important. Without it, you could kiss your reliable overnight package delivery goodbye. Calling for emergency services, whether they be medical or police, would have response times that varied widely depending on the ease of access to your location. Without good roads, cities would look much different than they do today. Imagine a city with narrow walkways that can only be traversed by a few people at a time where there was never a need to move massive amounts of goods and people. Or imagine a city with massive open spaces that are left underdeveloped because of the need for transit corridors that were resilient to constant traffic jams, muddy conditions, soil erosion. Without well designed roads, travel between cities would be slow and dangerous. Known paths that were well traveled would be worn down and would eventually become a hazard to the very cargo it was meant to ferry safely.
Enter – The Romans. Romans conquered much of the known world in their time. The armies that were commanded into hostile foreign lands needed a reliable way to transport food and equipment so they built roads. The roads improved communication within the empire and eventually benefited commerce and the general public.
Roman roads are like “walls built on their sides” (Hamey 1918). According to Vitruvius – a retired military engineer, who wrote many books on public works in the reign of Agustus, wrote that a good road consists of four layers the statumen, rudus, nucleus, and pavimentum. All together a good road required a total depth of more than a meter. For those who are not Latin linguists, that translates into support, rough piece, center part, and pavement. Let’s look at each of these parts in turn.
The statumen or support, was usually one or more layers of broken stone rammed down. Depending on the condition of the soil and the location in which the road was being built, more or less would be required to establish a strong foundation. Regardless, this was the bottom most layer, so it was important to ensure it could withstand the weight of traffic.
Above the statumen was the rudus which consisted of rubble and concrete of broken stones and lime. When available, a layer of sand or sandy clay was laid down. The tiny granules of sand would help to fill in any gaps and provide a solid and even surface where further layers could be built. Above the rudus was the nucleus which was a bedding of fine cement made of pounded potshards and lime. The final layer or pavimentum had to be hard and smooth; hardness would depend on the quality of the stone used, while the smoothness would depend on the road makers’ skill (Hamey 1918). Heavy slabs of stone would be laid with a tapered underside to lock more firmly into the nucleus. These roads were cambered or sloped to provide drainage away from the road and into ditches that run parallel to the road.
So there you have it, a Roman road in a nutshell. Luckily, this road building technique can be used with little to no alteration when in the fantasy world. A large workforce would be necessary if only human laborers are used, but there are many demi-human species that would make quick work of these heavy tasks (e.g. Orcs, Beastmen, etc). Though we have yet to learn how to make lime, concrete, or quarry stone, those topics will come later in our infrastructure series. For now, keep your thoughts on the pavimentum as we continue to lay a strong statumen.
References
Hamey, L. A., 1918 – The Roman Engineers. (A Cambridge topic book), ISBN: 0-8225-1227-0
