The capita viarum of the province Baetica

Abstract

The study of capita viarum has always been considered from an individual treatment of each case. There is only one article that has done a monographic investigation about them. This useful but out-of-date research was published more than a century ago and it is a mere description of this aspect. Despite the limited documentation of the milestones of Roman Baetica, this new study solves this gap. It goes deeper in order to understand the landscape of roads in this Roman province, not only in the administrative aspects but also in the symbolic role of them. The updated corpus reveals that the period of use of numbers in milestones was from Augustus to Hadrian. Notwithstanding, the Roman paths with this kind of milestones are scarce (only four roads). The only caput viae that is quoted in the epigraphic register is the so-called Ianus Augustus, whereas other capita viarum are referring unknown points of landscapes with several discussed hypotheses.