1.
Roman roads
–
They provided efficient means for the overland movement of armies, officials, and civilians, and the inland carriage of official communications and trade goods. Roman roads were of several kinds, ranging from local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage and they were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills, or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations, at the peak of Romes development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the late Empires 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometres of roads, in Gaul alone, no less than 21,000 kilometres of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least 4,000 kilometres. The courses of many Roman roads survived for millennia, some are overlaid by modern roads, livy mentions some of the most familiar roads near Rome, and the milestones on them, at times long before the first paved road—the Appian Way. Unless these allusions are just simple anachronisms, the referred to were probably at the time little more than levelled earthen tracks. Thus, the Via Gabina is mentioned in about 500 BC, the Via Latina in about 490 BC, the Via Nomentana, in 449 BC, the Via Labicana in 421 BC, and the Via Salaria in 361 BC. There is hardly a district to which we expect a Roman official to be sent, on service either civil or military. They reach the Wall in Britain, run along the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, and cover, as with a network, a road map of the empire reveals that it was generally laced with a dense network of prepared viae. Beyond its borders there were no paved roads, however, it can be supposed that footpaths, there were, for instance, some pre-Roman ancient trackways in Britain, such as the Ridgeway and the Icknield Way. For specific roads, see Roman road locations below, the Laws of the Twelve Tables, dated to about 450 BC, specified that a road shall be 8 Roman feet wide where straight and twice that width where curved. Actual practices varied from this standard, the Tables command Romans to build roads and give wayfarers the right to pass over private land where the road is in disrepair. Roman law defined the right to use a road as a servitus, the ius eundi established a claim to use an iter, or footpath, across private land, the ius agendi, an actus, or carriage track. A via combined both types of servitutes, provided it was of the width, which was determined by an arbiter. The default width was the latitudo legitima of 8 feet, Roman law and tradition forbade the use of vehicles in urban areas, except in certain cases. Married women and government officials on business could ride, the Lex Iulia Municipalis restricted commercial carts to night-time access in the city within the walls and within a mile outside the walls. Such roads led either to the sea, or to a town, or to a public river and these roads bear the names of their constructors
2.
Italy
–
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
3.
Hispania
–
Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, during the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova. The name, Hispania, was used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern placenames Spain and Hispaniola are both derived from Hispania, one theory holds it to be of Punic derivation, from the Phoenician language of colonizing Carthage. Specifically, it may derive from a Punic cognate of Hebrew אי-שפניא meaning Island of the Hyrax or island of the hare or island of the rabbit. Others derive the word from Phoenician span, in the sense of hidden, and make it indicate a hidden, that is, Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis. Occasionally Hispania was called Hesperia Ultima, the last western land in Greek, by Roman writers, another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for border or edge, thus meaning the farthest area or place. The use of Latin Hispania, Castilian España, Catalan Espanya and French Espaigne, a document dated 1292 mentions the names of foreigners from Medieval Spain as Gracien dEspaigne. You are, Oh Spain, holy and always happy mother of princes and peoples and you, by right, are now the queen of all provinces, from whom the lights are given not only the sunset, but also the East. Navarre followed soon after in 1512, and Portugal in 1580, during this time, the concept of Spain was still unchanged. The King of Portugal would protest energetically when during a public act King Fernando talked about the Crown of Spain and it was after the independence of Portugal in 1640 when the concept of Spain started to shift and be applied to all the Peninsula except Portugal. Even so, Portugal would still complain when the terms Crown of Spain or Monarchy of Spain were still used in the 18th century with the Treaty of Utrecht. The Iberian peninsula has long inhabited, first by early hominids such as Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis. In the Paleolithic period, the Neanderthals entered Iberia and eventually took refuge from the migrations of modern humans. In the 40th millennium BC, during the Upper Paleolithic and the last ice age and these were nomadic hunter-gatherers originating on the steppes of Central Asia. When the last Ice Age reached its maximum extent, during the 30th millennium BC, in the millennia that followed, the Neanderthals became extinct and local modern human cultures thrived, producing pre-historic art such as that found in LArbreda Cave and in the Côa Valley. In the Mesolithic period, beginning in the 10th millennium BC and this was an interstadial deglaciation that lessened the harsh conditions of the Ice Age
4.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
5.
Heracles
–
Heracles, born Alcaeus or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson and half-brother of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of clans who claimed to be Heracleidae. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well. Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him, together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a figure who used games to relax from his labors. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have made the safe for mankind. Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles and his figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known. Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, the core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. Heracles role as a hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling, was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. Around him cries of the dead rang out like cries of birds scattering left, in Christian circles a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the Heracleia, which commemorated the death of Heracles, what is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemys descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor. A major factor in the tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, thus, Heracles very existence proved at least one of Zeus many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus mortal offspring as revenge for her husbands infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus
6.
Narbonne
–
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies 849 km from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture, once a prosperous port, and a major city in Roman times, it is now located about 15 km from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is marginally the largest commune in Aude, although the prefecture is the slightly smaller commune of Carcassonne, Narbonne is linked to the nearby Canal du Midi and the Aude River by the Canal de la Robine, which runs through the centre of town. The towns original name is very ancient, the earliest known record of its original name is by the Greek Hecataeus of Miletus in the fifth century BC. In ancient inscriptions the name is rendered in Latin and sometimes translated into Iberian as Nedhena. Narbonne was established in Gaul by the Romans in 118 BC, as Colonia Narbo Martius and it was located on the Via Domitia, the first Roman road in Gaul, built at the time of the foundation of the colony, and connecting Italy to Spain. In addition, it was crossed by the Aude River, surviving members of Julius Caesars Legio X Equestris were given lands in the area that today is called Narbonne. Politically, Narbonne gained importance as a competitor to Massalia, Julius Caesar settled veterans from his 10th Legion there and attempted to develop its port while Marseille was supporting Pompey. Among the amenities of Narbonne, its rosemary-flower honey was famous among Romans, later, the province of Transalpine Gaul was renamed Gallia Narbonensis after the city, which became its capital. Seat of an administration, the city enjoyed economic and architectural expansion. At that point, the city is thought to have had 30, 000–50,000 inhabitants, according to Hydatius, in 462 the city was handed over to the Visigoths by a local military leader in exchange for support, as a result Roman rule ended in the city. It was subsequently the capital of the Visigothic province of Septimania, for 40 years, from 719, Narbonne was part of the Umayyad Empire with a strong Gothic presence. The Carolingian Pepin the Short conquered Narbonne from the Muslims in 759 after which it part of the Carolingian Viscounty of Narbonne. He invited, according to Christian sources, prominent Jews from the Caliphate of Bagdad to settle in Narbonne, in the 12th century, the court of Ermengarde of Narbonne presided over one of the cultural centers where the spirit of courtly love was developed. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Narbonne was home to an important Jewish exegetical school, Jews had settled in Narbonne from about the 5th century, with a community that had risen to approximately 2000 in the 12th century. At this time, Narbonne was frequently mentioned in Talmudic works in connection with its scholars, one source, Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, gives them an importance similar to the exilarchs of Babylon. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the community went through a series of ups, Narbonne itself fell into a slow decline in the 14th century, for a variety of reasons. One was due to a change in the course of the Aude River, the Aude river had a long history of overflowing its banks
7.
Durance
–
The Durance is a major river in south-eastern France. Its source is in the south-western Alps, in Montgenèvre ski resort near Briançon and it flows south-west through the departments and cities, Hautes-Alpes, Briançon. The Durances main tributaries are the Bléone and Verdon, the Durance itself is a tributary of the Rhône and flows into the Rhône near Avignon. The Durance is the second longest of the tributaries of the Rhône, the Durance is documented in Ancient Greek as drouentios potamos and in Latin as Druentia, Durantia and Durentia. The traditional forms are probably derivatives of *Dūrantia, based on the Celtic dour, the Latin form drou changed into the proto-Occitan dur. Similar names are found in the names of rivers in the Western Alps, Dora in Italy, Dranse in Haute-Savoie. All these rivers have their sources in mountains, and are fast-running, the Durance retains its name rather than either the Clarée or Guisane, even though the latter two are longer than the Durance when they each merge. The Durance is better known than the two rivers because the Durance valley is an old and important trade route, whereas the valleys of the Clarée. The Durance is 305 kilometres long from its source at the foot of Sommet des Anges, at 2,390 metres high, above Montgenèvre, however, a longer route is traced by the Clarée-Durance system with a length of 325 kilometres. Its descent is unusually rapid at 81 m/km in its first 12 km, then 15 m/km to its confluence with the Gyronde, and then still nearly 8 m/km to the confluence with the Ubaye. This descent stays relatively steep after this confluence, then shallows to approximately 0. 33% in its middle course and it drops 1,847 metres from its source to Mirabeau and approximately 2,090 metres from its source to the confluence with the Rhône. The Durance catchment area extends to three departments, Var, Drôme and Alpes-Maritimes. The Durance is the longest river in Metropolitan France without a department named after it, the source of La Durance is on the northern slope of the Sommet des Anges, where the first small streams combine into a river. This runs near to Montgenèvre and then flows into the larger Clarée river and it then continues south combining with the Gyronde — the Écrins glacial stream — at LArgentière-la-Bessée. The confluence with the Guil occurs below Guillestre and Mont-Dauphin, the Durance then flows south-south-west and flows into the Lac de Serre-Ponçon just downstream of Embrun. The confluence with the Ubaye was flooded as the lake filled, the middle part of the Durance runs through a landscape that changes as the valley increasingly widens. The river itself becomes steeply banked by terraces, and carves a channel, sometimes a few metres deep, in its middle and lower reaches the Durance is affected by the Mediterranean climate, flooding after autumnal rains, with low water levels in summer. Just before the narrow gap in the mountains at Sisteron, the Durance joins Buëch, water also flows in from the EDF Canal
8.
Beaucaire, Gard
–
Beaucaire is a French commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region of southern France. The inhabitants of the commune are known as Beaucairois or Beaucairoises, the commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom. Beaucaire is located on the Rhône River some 15 km south-west of Avignon and 10 km north of Arles opposite Tarascon, which is in Bouches-du-Rhône department of Provence. Access to the commune is by the D999 road from Jonquières-Saint-Vincent in the west which passes through the north of the commune, the D966L comes from Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard in the north and comes down the banks of the Rhône to the town. The D90 branches off the D986L in the commune and passes in a circle around the town then continues east across the Rhone changing to the D99B, the D15 goes south from the town to Fourques. The D38 goes south-west from the town to Bellegarde, the D28 links the Ile du Comte to the east bank of the Rhone. A railway passes through the coming from Tarascon in the east with two stations in the commune then it continues to Nîmes in the west. The commune has an urban area in the north-east with the rest of the commune farmland. The Rhône river forms the eastern border of the commune as it flows south to join the sea at Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. The river is also the border between Gard and Bouches-du-Rhône. The Canal du Rhône à Sète passes through the commune from Saint-Gilles in the south-west, a waterway called Laune de Pillet, a branch of the Rhone, cuts through the commune parallel to the Rhone forming the Ile de Pillet. There is a network of irrigation canals covering most of the farmland. The entire town is located in the Rhône Valley and has flat terrain mainly formed by the plain of the Rhône. The north of the commune has hills, especially north of the centre where the castle is located as well as Saint-Roman. Beaucaire probably is the French version of the Occitan language name Bèucaire, Beaucaire appears as Beaucaire on the 1750 Cassini Map and the same on the 1790 version. Founded in the 7th century BC, Beaucaire was known as a city on the famous Via Domitia and it was at this point that the Via Domitia divides in the direction of Arles, Nîmes, Remoulins, and Saint-Gilles. At that time, Beaucaire was called Ugernum and this was where, after the capture of Rome by the Vandals in 455, the Gallo-Roman nobility met to elect Avitus as the new emperor. A Roman mausoleum has been discovered on the Île du Comté, the Middle Ages saw a slowdown in the expansion of the city
.png)
.jpg)
