Digital Perspectives on Overland Travel and Communications in the Exarchate of Ravenna (Sixth through Eighth Centuries)

Abstract

The arrival of the Langobardi to Italy disrupted centuries-old Roman overland communication networks. When the political situation stabilized around 600 CE, Rome and Ravenna, still under East Roman control, were linked by a thin tendril of territory encapsulating a militarized travel zone between the two cities, the “Byzantine Corridor.” This study uses GIS analysis, particularly least-cost path techniques, to provide further perspectives on how communication was managed between Rome and Ravenna. This technique forms the basis of a movement model in order to calculate some approximate travel times between the two cities. Having some sense of the speed and ease at which the two cities could communicate with each other creates a baseline on which to understand how decisions of political importance were made and how the geographies of communication were reconfigured in late antique and early medieval Italy.