TheVia Salaria was an ancientRoman road inItaly.It eventually ran fromRome (fromPorta Salaria of theAurelian Walls) toCastrum Truentinum (Porto d'Ascoli) on theAdriatic coast, a distance of 242 km. The road also passed through Reate (Rieti) andAsculum (Ascoli Piceno).
Strada statale 4 Via Salaria (SS4) is the modernstate highway that maintains the old road's name and runs on the same path from Rome to theAdriatic Sea.
The Via Salaria owes its name to theLatin word for "salt", since it was the route by which theSabines living nearer theTyrrhenian Sea came to fetch salt from the marshes at the mouth of the riverTiber, theCampus Salinarum (nearPortus).[1] Peoples nearer theAdriatic Sea used it to fetch it from production sites there.[2] It was one of many ancientsalt roads in Europe, and some historians, amongst whomFrancesco Palmegiani, consider the Salaria and the trade in salt to have been the origin of the settlement of Rome. Some remains still exist of the mountain sections of the road.
There are the remains of several Roman bridges along the road, including thePonte del Gran Caso, Ponte della Scutella, Ponte d'Arli,Ponte di Quintodecimo, Ponte Romano (Acquasanta),Ponte Salario and Ponte Sambuco.
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41°54′00″N12°28′59″E / 41.900°N 12.483°E /41.900; 12.483
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