VIA AEMILIA SCAURI
Eth.
VIA AEMILIA SCAURI is the name given, for the sake of distinction, to a road which was constructed by Aemilius Scaurus long after the more celebrated Via
Aemilia above described. Strabo, the only author who distinctly mentions the two, says that Aemilius Scaurus, after having drained the marshes on the S. side of the Padus, constructed the Aemilian Way through Pisae and Luna as far as Sabata, and thence through Dertona. (
Strab. v. p.217.) Whether “the other Aemilian Way,” as Strabo calls it, had been already continued from Placentia to Dertona, or this also was first effected by Scaurus, we know not; but it is clear that the two were thus brought into connection.
The construction of this great work must be assigned to the censorship of M. Aemilius Scaurus, in B.C. 109, as we learn from Aurelius Victor (
Vir. Ill. 72), who, however, probably confounds it with the more celebrated Via
Aemilia from Placentia to Ariminum.
But a comparison of the two authors leaves no doubt as to the road really meant.
The name seems to have gradually fallen into disuse, probably on account of the ambiguity arising between the two Viae of the same name; and we find both the coast-road from Pisae to Vada Sabata, and that across the mountains from the latter place by Aquae Statiellae to Dertona, included by the Itineraries as a part of the Via Aurelia, of which the former at least was in fact a mere continuation. Hence it will be convenient to discuss the stations and distances along these lines, under the general bead of
VIA AURELIA [
E.H.B]
