Editing Brenner Pass (section)

=== Roman Empire ===
[[File:Part of Tabula Peutingeriana around Brenner Pass.png|thumb|Brenner and the surrounding Roman road network shown in the ''[[Tabula Peutingeriana]]''. Brenner is between [[Matrei am Brenner|Matreio]] and [[Sterzing|Vepiteno]].]]

The [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] regularised the mountain pass at Brenner, which had already been under frequent use during the prehistoric eras since the most recent Ice Age.<ref>Walter Woodburn Hyde (1935). ''Roman Alpine Routes'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), p. 194: "the use of the major pass-routes has been continuous from prehistoric times down to the present".</ref> The Brenner Pass, however, was not the first trans-Alpine Roman road to become regularised under the Roman Empire.

The first Roman road to cross the Alpine range, [[Via Claudia Augusta]], connected [[Verona]] in northern Italy with [[Augusta Vindelicorum]] (modern-day [[Augsburg]]) in the Roman province of [[Raetia]]. Via Augusta was completed in 46–47 AD; the route took its course along the [[Adige|Adige valley]] to the neighbouring [[Reschen Pass]] (west of the Brenner Pass), then descended into the [[Inn River|Inn valley]] before rising to [[Fern Pass]] towards Augsburg.

The Roman road that physically crossed over the Brenner Pass did not exist until the 2nd century AD. It took the "eastern" route through the [[Puster Valley]] and descended into Veldidena (modern-day [[Wilten]]), where it crossed the [[Inn (river)|Inn]] and into [[Zirl]] and arrived at Augsburg via [[Füssen]].

The [[Alamanni]] (Germanic tribe) crossed the Brenner Pass southward into modern-day Italy in 268 AD, but they were stopped in November of that year at the [[Battle of Lake Benacus]]. The Romans kept control over the mountain pass until the end of their empire in the 5th century.<ref>"Geschichte Schwabens bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts" by Max Spindler, Christoph Bauer, Andreas Kraus, 3rd edition; publisher: C.H. Beck Verlag 2001, page 80 {{ISBN|3-406-39452-3}}, {{ISBN|978-3-406-39452-2}}</ref>