Via Claudia Augusta

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Modern replica of a Roman milestone on the Via Claudia Augusta near Unterdiessen, Bavaria.

Modern signage of the revitalized track near Unterdiessen, Bavaria.

The Via Claudia Augusta was an ancient Roman road, which linked the valley of the Po River with Rhaetia (modern Austria) across the Alps.

In 15 BC, the Roman general Nero Claudius Drusus, the adopted son of Augustus, decided to improve the passage through the Alps for military maneuvers to control Rhaetia and Noricum^[1]. The project of converting a pack-animal trail to serve wheeled vehicles was completed sixty years later in 46-47 AD by the son of Drusus, the Emperor Claudius. People and goods could pass between the Adriatic and the broad valley of the Po to Tridentum (modern Trento), then northward following the Adige River up to Pons Drusi, the "bridge of Drusus" which developed into Bolzano. Thence it continued towards Maia (near Merano), and over the Resia Pass. From the pass it descended through the valleys of the Inn River and the Lech, just beyond Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), ending in a town on the Danube near the present-day Donauwörth; the limes of the Danube formed the Roman empire's northern and northeastern frontier.

Two milestones have been found, one in Rablà/Rabland near Merano (Meran) in the province of Bolzano-Bozen and the other in Cesiomaggiore (near Belluno). Both are inscribed with the far terminus of the Via Claudia Augusta, Augusta Vindelicorum (modern Augsburg). The milestones indicate that two routes joined at Tridentium before crossing the Alpine pass: one found its starting point at the vicus of Ostiglia, near the Po, the other, its site less securely identified by archaeologists and historians, at the Adriatic port of Altino, (near the Venetian Lagoon). On its way to Tridentium, that route crossed the Via Annia, which linked Adria to Aquileia, the Via Popilia, which linked Altino with Rimini, the Via Aurelia, between Padua and Feltre passing through Asolo, and the Via Postumia, the road linking Genoa and Aquileia. The road that was initiated by Drusus as a military artery of conquest and defence, Emperor Claudius continued to develop as a cultural and commercial artery, with permanently populated posting stations where fresh horses would be available. Some grew into considerable settlements and were fortified during the later Empire. Others can be identified only by the findings of archaeologists. In the 2nd century AD, a second Alpine pass was opened to wheeled traffic, the Brenner Pass. In the 1990s, increased interest in long-distance hiking and cycling made the German and Austrian stretches of the Via Claudia Augusta popular among tourists, with the result that modern signage (illustration) identifies the revitalised track.