APPIA VIA, a way reaching from Rome through Capua to Brundusium, between 330 and 350 miles long. Appius Claudius, surnamed Cæcus, in the year of the city 441, carried it from the Porta Capena to Capua. (Livy, Frontinus.) It was afterwards carried on to Brundusium, but by whom, or when, is uncertain. It was laid with very hard stone, brought from a great distance, large, and squared (Diodorus); and it was so wide that several waggons could go abreast. What remains of it shows, that below the squared stones there were two other beds of prepared materials. The first, or lowest, is of rubble stones laid in mortar, the next is a bed
of gravel, both being about 3 feet in thickness. The breadth of this road is only 14 feet. Statius calls it the queen of roads. Its course is described by Horace, Strabo, and Antonine.