Editing Roman roads (section)

===Milestones and markers===
[[Milestone]]s divided the Via Appia even before 250 BC into numbered miles, and most ''viae'' after 124 BC. The modern word "mile" derives from the Latin ''milia passuum'', "one thousand  [[pace (length)|pace]]s", each of which was five Roman feet, or in total {{convert|1476|m|ft|abbr=on}}. A milestone, or ''[[miliarium]]'', was a circular column on a solid rectangular base, set more than {{convert|2|ft|m|abbr=off}} into the ground, standing {{convert|5|ft|m|abbr=off}} tall, {{convert|20|inch|cm|abbr=off}} in diameter, and weighing more than 2 tons. At the base was inscribed the number of the mile relative to the road it was on. In a panel at eye height was the distance to the [[Roman Forum]] and various other information about the officials who made or repaired the road and when. These ''miliaria'' are valuable historical documents today, and their inscriptions are collected in Volume XVII of the ''[[Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum]]''. Milestones permitted distances and locations to be known and recorded exactly. It was not long before historians began to refer to the milestone at which an event occurred.<gallery>
File:Campidoglio - il miliarium.JPG|Rome, Campidoglio: the Miliarium (milestone), point of departure of the consular roads by the [[Capitoline Wolf]].
File:Milliarum of Aiton, modern copy erected in Turda, Romania in 1993.jpg|[[Turda]], [[Romania]]: 1993 copy of the [[Milliarium of Aiton]], dating from 108 and showing the construction of the road from [[Potaissa]] to [[Napoca (ancient city)|Napoca]] built by [[Cohors I Hispanorum miliaria]] in [[Roman Dacia]], by demand of the Emperor [[Trajan]]
File:RomaForoRomanoMiliariumAureum01.JPG|Remains of the ''miliarium aureum'' in the Roman Forum
File:Roman milestone rabagao portugal.jpg|A provincial Roman milestone, at Alto Rabagão, Portugal (road from Bracara Augusta to Asturias)
</gallery>The Romans had a preference for standardization wherever possible, so Augustus, after becoming permanent commissioner of roads in 20 BC, set up the ''[[miliarium aureum]]'' ("golden milestone") near the [[Temple of Saturn]]. All roads were considered to begin from this gilded bronze monument. On it were listed all the major cities in the empire and distances to them. [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] called it the ''[[Umbilicus urbis Romae|umbilicus Romae]]'' ("navel of Rome"), and built a similar—although more complex—monument in [[Constantinople]], the [[Milion]].