> According to the planner’s calculation, the journey would have taken 43 days to cover 1,500 Roman miles. To put that into a contemporary context: the same route by road today can be completed in 14 days (340 hours) on foot, or 16 hours by car (source in Spanish).
It would take 340 hours to walk, whether you do it today or in Roman times. Google maps is assuming you would walk for 24 hours a day, the planner is assuming you could walk for around 8.
watutalkinbout 4 hours ago [-]
That said, as someone who has walked on cobblestone - a modern road in modern boots is different to an ancient road in ancient boots.
I'd bet money the 'real' travel times would differ.
artisinal 2 hours ago [-]
In the case of Spain, many long distance roads are no longer safe for pedestrians as there are cars on them now. Madrid to Milan would be a suicide missions in current day.
toyg 4 hours ago [-]
> an ancient road in ancient boots
Boots? That's luxury! Sandals more likely...
jordanb 2 hours ago [-]
What you call sandals the Romans called boots. Their boots were open on the top but still heavily soled. This suited their climate and kept the foot cool and dry.
I think they generally take some approximations, but yeah the walking one is problematic. Horseback is also mentioned, but depending on wealth you could use regular stops across the road and swap your horse when it got tired. So travel times would depend not only on your horse but also your ability to swap horses and availability of stops along the way.
Which in my mind is reminiscent of swapping your EV battery along roadstops lol.
Either way, these are just approximations to give a general sense of travel speed. And no doubt nowadays the world feels smaller because we can much more easily travel between distant locations.
seri4l 5 hours ago [-]
Yes, distance is about the same. 1488Km in Google and 1075 Roman miles in Omnesviae [0], that is ~1590 Km.
Not if cutting through dense bush, water, bog or rocky environments would be necessary.
NotCamelCase 5 hours ago [-]
Who'd walk the route more easily for 8h though? A random Western today or a random Roman then?
dmurray 4 hours ago [-]
Roman legions marched around 30 km/day [0], carrying their own supplies, food, weapons and armour, needing to spend time making and breaking camp each day.
Modern European pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago seem to do about 20 km/day [1] and it's considered tiring but accessible by average people, not serious hikers. They carry less of their supplies and do not need to fortify their camp against barbarians.
Roman soldiers were presumably fitter and better trained than the average Roman (though maybe not by much, since everyone worked manual jobs). Maybe that's enough to account for the difference.
i’ve walked the via francigena and the italian section has quite a few sections of ancient roman road. they’re admittedly not contiguous, and are worn more extensively now, so i don’t get the same overall experience of treading on the stones for kilometers as they would have.
i target 35km/day with a 40L pack and finish my segments within 6-7 hours. asphalt, dirt and grass, and hiking trails (rocks, roots, dirt, etc) are the most standard surfaces and, to be honest, they’re all exhausting in their own rights so a change in surface is always welcome.
i can’t imagine marching most of this with near double body weight and then having to make camp.
nntwozz 3 hours ago [-]
I'd like to add they were also doing all that wearing leather sandals.
Imagine the Roman army with Adidas Ultraboost.
Insanity 1 hours ago [-]
And without coffee! So you can't get a quick 'pick me up' along the way.
toyg 4 hours ago [-]
That's how they conquered all of their known world though, out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
embedding-shape 4 hours ago [-]
> A random Western today or a random Roman then?
Probably better to compare "A random Italian" rather than "A random Westerner", the Americans and other car-focused cultures kind of drag down the average a bit too much otherwise.
Hmm, thats a sad read. But I am not buying 'its the industry' in 2026, this is caused by folks who should and could do better but couldn't be bothered. Its also indicated in the article, young people know its junkfood and know long term effects but simply don't care. If wanting to point fingers aim them at society as a whole, junkfood was well recognized problem 10-15 years ago when these kids were being born.
toyg 2 hours ago [-]
Mine was a quip, but if we want to go deeper: like any phenomenon, it's obviously a combination of cultural, economic, and social factors; but it's hard not to take the marxist view that it's all about the economy when we get bombarded every second by advertising for food, the composition of which is largely dictated by considerations about profit margins. Even pasta is not produced in the same way as 80 years ago, not even from the same ingredients (half the wheat used in Italian pasta now comes from Canada and other places).
agos 3 hours ago [-]
ehhh Italy is sadly one of the most car-dependent countries in the western world, topping the number of vehicles per 1000 people in Europe (excluding microstates). No one's safe
artisinal 2 hours ago [-]
I wanted to walk from one town to another. 15 kilometers. It was on a road where cars would go past literally 15 centimeters from you. No shoulder and because of the guardrails no ditch to walk in either. I didn’t do it, took the bus.
seri4l 5 hours ago [-]
Probably a random Roman. People used to walk a lot, often barefoot. The random modern Westerner would get blisters within the first week.
glimshe 5 hours ago [-]
Probably the Westerner with better shoes, clothes, energy bars, hydration drinks, sunscreen etc.
The only caveat since you said "random" is obesity.
BrandoElFollito 3 hours ago [-]
When I was in my late teens, I used to hike with a 15 kg backpack (with the technology of the late 80s). I could walk about 15 km in average hills over 8-10 hours.
I was average, physical capacities wise.
fakedang 5 hours ago [-]
Eh, I'd say it's equal.
I've walked for 8 hrs before, wearing modern sneakers on roads with vehicular traffic, and travelled about the same distance estimated by Google Maps. I'd estimate the Roman would like be able to travel in the same duration, barring other extenuating factors (like Caesar staging a revolt against the Senate and crossing with his legion right in front of your planned route), with worse shoes but more walk-friendly roads.
watutalkinbout 4 hours ago [-]
Cobblestones aren't walk friendly.
lstodd 3 hours ago [-]
Asphalt/concrete isn't either. Gravel or packed dirt is way better.
That said 30km/day is very real, even in mountain country. It takes 6-7 hours, the rest is resting/gawking/laying on a mountain watching the sky (or trying furiosly to find that effin trail on osmand). I walked that a few times a week when I lived in Montenegro, and that was 50/50 roads and mountain trails from sea level up to 700m-ish elevation and back. No fancy shoes, no prep but for a hat and couple bottles of water. After a third walk or so it isn't even exhausting.
echoangle 5 hours ago [-]
> The tool is called OmnesViae (Omnesviae.org (source in Spanish))
I’m pretty sure the page is in Latin for me
5 hours ago [-]
comrade1234 5 hours ago [-]
Not including having to wait three months in the winter before attempting to cross the alps.
A mobile-friendly interactive guide or tour mode could make the platform more engaging for students and history enthusiasts.
toyg 3 hours ago [-]
You start with that and then they will clamor for translations into vulgata, and before you know it we're all surrounded by bleeding christiani who don't know their Mars from their Mercurius...
khanhnguyen8386 4 hours ago [-]
Open source code on Codeberg and historical data combined into a functional map—this is the kind of passion project the web was built for.
FearNotDaniel 3 hours ago [-]
I mean, technically it was built for "the management of general information about accelerators and experiments at CERN". The fact that it also supports a whole bunch of peoples' passion projects as well as a multi-trillion dollar commercial marketplace is just a bonus...
> According to the planner’s calculation, the journey would have taken 43 days to cover 1,500 Roman miles. To put that into a contemporary context: the same route by road today can be completed in 14 days (340 hours) on foot, or 16 hours by car (source in Spanish).
It would take 340 hours to walk, whether you do it today or in Roman times. Google maps is assuming you would walk for 24 hours a day, the planner is assuming you could walk for around 8.
I'd bet money the 'real' travel times would differ.
Boots? That's luxury! Sandals more likely...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligae
Which in my mind is reminiscent of swapping your EV battery along roadstops lol.
Either way, these are just approximations to give a general sense of travel speed. And no doubt nowadays the world feels smaller because we can much more easily travel between distant locations.
[0] https://www.omnesviae.org/#OVPlace337_TPPlace1048
Modern European pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago seem to do about 20 km/day [1] and it's considered tiring but accessible by average people, not serious hikers. They carry less of their supplies and do not need to fortify their camp against barbarians.
Roman soldiers were presumably fitter and better trained than the average Roman (though maybe not by much, since everyone worked manual jobs). Maybe that's enough to account for the difference.
[0] https://www.quora.com/Did-Roman-legions-actually-march-20-mi...
[1] https://caminoways.com/how-many-days-does-it-take-to-walk-th...
i target 35km/day with a 40L pack and finish my segments within 6-7 hours. asphalt, dirt and grass, and hiking trails (rocks, roots, dirt, etc) are the most standard surfaces and, to be honest, they’re all exhausting in their own rights so a change in surface is always welcome.
i can’t imagine marching most of this with near double body weight and then having to make camp.
Imagine the Roman army with Adidas Ultraboost.
Probably better to compare "A random Italian" rather than "A random Westerner", the Americans and other car-focused cultures kind of drag down the average a bit too much otherwise.
Industry fucked us too, dude.
The only caveat since you said "random" is obesity.
I was average, physical capacities wise.
I've walked for 8 hrs before, wearing modern sneakers on roads with vehicular traffic, and travelled about the same distance estimated by Google Maps. I'd estimate the Roman would like be able to travel in the same duration, barring other extenuating factors (like Caesar staging a revolt against the Senate and crossing with his legion right in front of your planned route), with worse shoes but more walk-friendly roads.
That said 30km/day is very real, even in mountain country. It takes 6-7 hours, the rest is resting/gawking/laying on a mountain watching the sky (or trying furiosly to find that effin trail on osmand). I walked that a few times a week when I lived in Montenegro, and that was 50/50 roads and mountain trails from sea level up to 700m-ish elevation and back. No fancy shoes, no prep but for a hat and couple bottles of water. After a third walk or so it isn't even exhausting.
I’m pretty sure the page is in Latin for me
https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html