To Niccolò Machiavelli, Hadrian was one of Rome’s “five good emperors,” who presided over an unrivaled period of prosperity and stability; to Britons, he was the builder of the famous wall that runs the width of England; to Jews, he was the ruler who directed the bloody suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE and the subsequent persecutions, renamed Jerusalem “Aelia Capitolina” (after himself), and erased Judea from the map—dubbing it Syria Palistaena. He also built one of the ancient Levant’s major thoroughfares, a segment of which was recently excavated. The Times of Israel reports:
Archaeologists have uncovered part of an 1,800-year-old Roman road in northern Israel, built in the time of emperor Hadrian, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.
In a statement, the IAA said the road section, measuring some 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 25 meters (82 feet) long, was found near the village of Rumat al-Heib, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. It was discovered during development work on a walking trail. The IAA branded the road as “the Highway 6 of the ancient world,” referencing Israel’s major north-to-south highway.
It said the road, which runs through Acre, Sepphoris, and Tiberias, was paved in the 2nd century CE during Hadrian’s reign. The road was completed by his successors and later renovated in the Byzantine period. The Roman empire established several major roads in the area as part of a need to quickly move military forces, mail, and goods, the IAA said in its statement Thursday.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/archeologists-uncover-new-section-of-1800-year-old-roman-road-in-galilee/