Via Salaria

The salt road that carried salt from the Tiber mouth into the Sabine hills and gave early Rome a trade lifeline.

Overview

Long before Rome was an empire, salt pans near the mouth of the Tiber supplied a commodity that every farming people needed for preserving food and feeding livestock. The track the Sabines used to carry it inland became the Via Salaria, one of the oldest roads in Italy, later paved and extended across the Apennines to the Adriatic coast near Castrum Truentinum. The Porta Salaria in the Aurelian Walls marked its start in Rome, and modern Italy still uses the name for the SS4 road. The route is often cited, along with the link between salt and the word salary, to illustrate how vital salt was in the ancient economy.