Beginning with the reign of Augustus, the Roman Empire built and maintained a road network of tens of thousands of miles, connecting provinces from Britain to Syria and from Iberia to Egypt. Combined with a relatively stable political order often called the Pax Romana, these roads and associated port facilities allowed grain, wine, olive oil, metals, and manufactured goods to move across the empire with less interruption from warfare or piracy than in earlier periods. A common currency and legal framework for contracts further eased commercial transactions across provincial boundaries. This infrastructure supported an integrated Mediterranean economy of a scale not seen before in the ancient world.
Relevance to Trade History
Roman infrastructure and relative political stability created one of the most integrated large-scale trading systems of the ancient world, a benchmark often compared to later eras of global commerce.
Read the full story in our article Roman Roads and Commercial Expansion.
Source: British Museum — Roman Empire collection and research. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.