On Forgotten Routes through the Balkans - Via Publica - From the Rhopodes across the Balkan to the Danube (129/151)

On Forgotten Routes through the Balkans - Via Publica - From the Rhopodes across the Balkan to the Danube (129/151)

At the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. the Romans under Emperor Trajan undertook great efforts to extend their empire northwards, starting from the Via Egnatia, the important west-east axis. They carried out meticulous territorial planning of the area which nowadays is Bulgaria, promoted the revitalisation of certain densely populated centres and founded new trading places; above all, however, they created an infrastructure by building roads. They constructed several main axes, which they linked to diverse north-south connections. They founded the provinces of Moesia and Thracia. Their destination was the Danube, where they set up numerous military bases and city settlements. The first part follows the Via Militaris: only 100 kilometres west of Istanbul, branching off the Via Egnatia to the north-west, it goes via Hadrianopolis and Philippopolis to Serdicavon. Then on from Edirne via Plovdiv and Sofia to the Danube. The second episode takes us along the Via Publica through the Rhodopodes at Shiroka Luka, discovers remnants of the original Roman line at a height of 2,000 metres at Persenk, visits Plovdiv, Hissarija, the old Roman spa, crosses the Balkans and visits Nicopolis ad Istrum and the medieval Bulgarian capital Veliko Tarnovo. It ends in the Roman Oescus, now Gigen, where in the year 328 Emperor Constantine had a stone bridge built across the Danube, which he personally inaugurated.