<story><title>The Beautiful Network of Ancient Roman Roads (2015)</title><url>https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-beautiful-network-of-ancient-roman-roads</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nonrandomstring</author><text>We have many in the South of England. As a kid I walked and biked
them.  Most are dirt trails now, grown over. But if you look on maps
it&amp;#x27;s clear they are the shortest, straight path between major towns.
Modern roads twist and turn around them.&lt;p&gt;I am showing my embarrassing ignorance of history here, but I don&amp;#x27;t
know why that happened. Maybe something to do with land rights, and
the &amp;quot;enclosures&amp;quot;? Anyway something important was lost in the
communication systems of England between the Roman era and today.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Beautiful Network of Ancient Roman Roads (2015)</title><url>https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-beautiful-network-of-ancient-roman-roads</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>polycaster</author><text>Somewhat related to the topic: 
ORBIS – The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;orbis.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;orbis.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>