The road that changed the fate of a city, immortalized a proconsul, modified a famous saying, was the scene of a great battle, fateful for the Roman Empire. Via Ignacia, Ignacio's Way, the first of the 28 "equal" Roman roads.
...Ignatius' road began to be built in the middle of the second century BC, after the conquest of Macedonia, by order of the Roman proconsul in this province, Gnaeus Ignatius. It was officially "opened" already in 146 BC, but it was completed - on the bones of Roman slaves and columns - only in 120 BC.
The starting point of this traffic "heartbeat" of the great Roman Empire was Dirahi, today's Durres, a Roman station built on the southern edge of the small island of Dursa. Dirasi later grew into an important strategic "node" on the Mediterranean, with steep coasts, difficult to access both from the sea and from the land. Via its "counterpart" on the other side of the Adriatic, Brindisi, the Via Ignacia connected to the Appian Way, which connected Brindisi with the "eternal city" - Rome.
Ignacio's road also had its predecessor - the western section of the Kandian road, which followed the course of the Shkunbin river in Albania, already traced a significant part of the future Ignacio's road, and the round burial mounds in its vicinity clearly testified to the military endeavors of Philip and Alexander of Macedon.
Ignatius' journey in its entire length went through all of Albania, Macedonia, Greece, all the way to the walls of Byzantium, later Constantinople. From the dense and wooded, hard-to-pass Albanian hills, it descended into the spacious Macedonian valleys, and from there along the northern edge of the Thessaloniki Campania to the old Pella and then to present-day Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki. And from there to the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Byzantium, later Constantinople, today's Istanbul.
The road itself was built in the best tradition of Roman construction projects. Its width was from 4 meters in remote areas to 20 meters in populated areas. Its curbs were made of large stone blocks and protected cars from sliding off the road, while the stone "back" in the middle allowed traffic in both directions. The substrate was most often stone and gravel, rarely compacted loam.
The accompanying "transportation infrastructure" of that era went along the road - towers and smaller towns with crews, inns every 50 to 60 km, frequent mileposts, stations with rested horses...
The Via Ignacia was very much the turning point of Old World road traffic. Travel security was now significantly higher and interception by robbers and "serial killers" was significantly less frequent. Ignacio's road was traveled only by those who possessed authorizations and passes - the local population could only travel on its accompanying paths.
Iganci's path also shared the political fate of the empire. When in the 40s BC Italy found itself in the vortex of civil wars, Via Ignacia was also the scene of a battle that largely determined the further fate of the empire. At the city of Philippoi, which was built by Philip II in 357 BC, along the very Macedonian-Thracian border, in 42 BC, Octavian and Mark Antony clashed on one side and Caesar's killer, Cassius Longinus and Brutus on the other. With the conspirators were 17 legions and twenty thousand spearmen; along with Mark Antony and Octavian, 13 legions and thirteen thousand lancers. But the strength of Caesar's veterans and Antony's military skills overcame the republican "party" and forced its leaders - Cassius Longinus and Brutus to commit suicide.
Immediately after the battle, the victors erected a huge triumphal arch above the Iganci road near the city - today only a pile of blackened stones reminds of it. While working the land, the dark population often comes across the remains of swords, arrowheads, and broken spears. Just as the poet Virgil hinted in his "Georgics":
"...the fertile plains were cultivated with the blood of our boys.
The hour will strike, no doubt, when the farmer, with effort
Plowing the earth with a curved plough, you find rust with a spear
Eaten or the hoe will ring on the kalpak pust
And the bones of the mighty will amaze him when he digs up the grave of Tust".
In the following centuries, Ignatius' path will retain its importance. Rome will spread to the East through it, and Byzantium, which belonged to the Roman province of Bithynia, will be its end point, but - until the third century - also the largest supplier of the Roman army.
The Roman legions were supplied via the Via Ignacio even after heavy defeats, such as the one by the king and poisoner Miridatus VI of Pontus. Via Ignacia will be a silent witness to the heavy defeat of Rome in 74-73, when its army was decimated by the barbarians in the Battle of Chalcedon, but also to the triumph of the powerful consul Gnaeus Pompey over the pirates. With the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the Turkish conquests, Ignatius' path loses its importance; only its individual sections will remind of its past glory with the liveliness of traffic and preservation. The famous geographer and ethnographer Jovan Cvijić wrote in his work "The main features of the central areas of the Balkan Peninsula" (1904) that the Ohrid - Bitola route of the former Ignacio's road retained its economic importance until "our days" and was one of the most vibrant in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula. :
"It is used to export the agricultural and livestock products of large parts of central Albania, Ohrid, Prespa, Kočan and other basins of western Macedonia to the Bitola market and to the railway lines. This happens especially in autumn, when the Ohrid - Bitola road is livelier on market days than the streets of many Macedonian towns".
But now the road is most deserving of the fact that the ancient Latin saying "all roads lead to Rome" was at least once modified into "All roads from Rome lead to Constantinople", and on its signposts it could write "All roads lead to... Thessaloniki". This "Balkan Babylon" has grown in recent centuries into a separate trade and cultural center, independent of Constantinople. Goods from the Albanian, Greek, Macedonian and Turkish markets flowed into its port, and from there - by ship and railway, they were distributed all over Europe. The mighty Ignatius road is now forever left behind on the middle road - with Durres as the first and Thessaloniki as the last "station"!
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Ignacio's path showed its "vitalism" even recently, in 2015, during the "refugee crisis". Columns of refugees from Syria - unintentionally - followed the path of the Roman legionnaires to the West. Only, now they were awaited by exchange offices and lodgings along the road with bilingual signs - in English and Arabic.
Bonus video:
