Inter vias latrones sum passus (CIL VIII 2728, 18122): morire lungo le strade romane Inter vias latrones sum passus (CIL VIII 2728, 18122): dying on Roman roads.

On Roman roads people travelled and lived, but they could also die. Travelling was in fact dangerous. The traveler had to deal with bad or impracticable roads, which were often exposed to landslides, floods and storms. Pack animals often flailed around and easi ly became restive. Stray dogs, wild animals and dishonest innkeepers were also a problem. On the top of this, attacks by latrones, the ‘highwaymen’, were perhaps the most common danger. They were so common and widespread that they were regarded as a sort of natural disaster. Literary sources, inscriptions and papyri showcase that the problem was particulary acute. Differently from what many scholars think, this phaenomenon was not marginal and circumscribed to small and uninhabited areas only. Rather the contrary, it was present almost everywhere in the Roman Empire. The victims were often persons of high rank. Interesting cases are the splendidus eques Romanus Robustus mentioned by Pliny the Younger, who died with his entourage along the via Flaminia; the nobilis Vulcatius, who was attacked in the evening as he was returning on horseback in Rome and was defended by his dog; the familiaris of Cicero, L. Quinctius, who was wounded and robbed on the via Appia, near the funerary monument of Basilus; the public officials of Drobeta in Dacia. Among the victims there were also men who were travelling as imperial couriers (nuncius Augusti), two Egyptian pig traders and a hydraulic engineer (librator), who, naked and wounded, was able to escape an ambush along the road to Saldae, in Mauretania. Running into bandits could be fatal for those who knew how to use weapons as well. This happened to a gladiator (secutor), a centurion – vanished into thin air while travelling from Como to Rome – and three soldiers killed by latrones near Augustudunum, Lugdunum and Castra ad fluvium Frigidum. Unfortunately, we do not know whether they were ambushed while travelling or killed in a military operation against bandits. Ordinary people could be killed, too. This is the case of the young Q. Lusius Senica, who had undertaken a long journey to embrace his dear sister. Bandits killed him on the road. Another young man, Iulius Timotheus, fell into an ambush by latrones near Rome, and his seven alumni were also slaughtered. The words used to describe these dramatic events demonstrate that the attacks were very violent and almost always ended with the killing of the victim. Furthermore, expressions like deceptus a latronibus suggest that bandits would often take advantage of the confidence of the travellers to lure them into ambushes. According to the data presented here, I think that brigandage was a serious danger for those travelling on the roads of the Empire rather than a marginal phenomenon excessively emphasized and dramatized – and, perhaps, amplified by fear of being a victim – by literary sources. Moreover, the life of latrones did not imply anything romantic, such as being, for example, sort of ‘gentlemen bandits’ animated by noble ideals, or ‘social bandits’. They were just vulgar and greedy cutthroats, who mercilessly killed indiscriminately – and sometimes in an outrageous manner – anyone who would fall into their hands, both men and women, teenagers and adults, rich and poor individuals, common and distinguished travellers.