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Via Egnatia (Greek: Εγνατία Οδός) was a road constructed by the Romans around 146 BC. It was named after Gnaeus Egnatius, proconsul of Macedonia, who ordered its construction. The road stretched across Illyria, Macedonia, and Thrace, running across modern Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey. It was constructed in order to link up different Roman colonies from the Adriatic Sea to Byzantium.
The Via Egnatia was repaired and expanded several times. It remained an important commercial and strategic route for centuries, and was one of the most important roads in the Byzantine Empire, connecting Dyrrhachium (present-day Durrës) on the Adriatic with Thessalonica (Thessaloniki), Adrianople (Edirne), and finally Constantinople (Istanbul) on the Bosporus. Almost all Byzantine overland trade with western Europe travelled along the Via Egnatia. During the Crusades, armies travelling to the east by land followed the road to Constantinople before crossing into Asia Minor. In the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, control of the road was vital for the survival of the Latin Empire as well as the Byzantine successor states the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus.
In the 1990s, construction began on a modern Egnatia in Greece. The new highway, with a total length of 680 km, (currently 85% complete) begins at the Greek-Turkish border on the Evros river and, after 76 tunnels of 99 km combined length and 1650 bridges, ends at the western Greek port of Igoumenitsa, which is connected to Bari and Venice, Italy by ferry boats. From Evros to Thessaloniki, the new highway closely parallels the ancient route, sometimes even coinciding with it. Its international designation is GR-2; after many delays it is now expected to be fully complete by 2008.
External links
- Michele Fasolo: La via Egnatia I. Da Apollonia e Dyrrachium ad Herakleia Lynkestidos, Roma, 2005, 2nd ed.
- HiT.gr - Via Egnatia 2004 - A small video sequence of the official opening of the Via Egnatia in Thesprotia (December 2004)
