How fast could a rider travel over Roman roads?

[eperlanus]

How fast could the fastest courier travel on Roman Roads?

A collegue of mine wrote in a newspaper article that the record was 800 km in a day, loosely based on a recollection of the mad trip of Tiberius to his dying brother.
But then one reader wrote that a record arab horse could make 20km/h for six hours or so, how then could the romans ever make more than 500 km in 24 hours?
And another told us that a standard courier horse (no time period given) could make 30 km/h for four hours. So giving the poor courier also some time to stretch his legs, that would make a total of 640 km per 24 hours.

So, at last, we went back to the sources and found Pinius the Elder describe (in NH VII 84) what he seems to consider to be a record this very journey of Tiberius in a chariot for 24 hours: 200 miles.

Fast in deed, but not 800 km. How fast would it go on horseback?

What more is known?

Many thanks.

[Nathan Ross]

The Roman official courier service (cursus publicus) operated on a post-horse system, with regular stations along major routes, so couriers could move fairly rapidly. Lionel Casson, in Travel in the Ancient World (online excerpts here) provides a handy digest of recorded travel times - he estimates 50 miles a day as standard, with much faster journeys recorded in times of emergency: up to three times as fast, in fact.

There are many cases in the sources of very fast journeys, recorded for their exception to the rule. Galba's freedman Icelus brought news of the death of Nero from Rome to his master in Spain in only seven days (Plutarch), although it's not stated whether he travelled by land or sea, and the Historia Augusta mentions a journey of 511 miles from Aquileia to Rome completed in four days. Lactantius (I think) has the young Constantine fleeing from Galerius in Nicomedia and travelling to join his father at Boulogne: he used the cursus publicus, and mutilated the post horses at every stop to foil pursuit. This indicates that a regular shuttle was in operation along the main roads of the empire.

All these cases appear to involve relays of horses - how far a single horse could be pushed in a day is a different matter, although the fifty mile post system would indicate that this was thought a reasonable distance for a fit horse to cover. A more leisurely journey, as Casson describes, would be undertaken in much shorter stages.

800km in a day, however, seems rather beyond the bounds of probability!

*edit: Gill & Gemf's Book of Acts in its Graeco-Roman Setting (here) provides a few more distances: Tiberius' journey is given as 600 miles in 72 hours.

- Nathan

[John1]

I did read that the Pony Express riders averaged around 75 miles a day, and a record was 380 miles in 36 hours, that might give some scope to the range and speed of riders as an average and "when pressed".

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

800 kilometers a day is cetainly acheivable, as long as you maintain a steady 33.33333 klm/hr for 24 hours a day. Obviously, if you moved faster, you could stop for tea occaisionaly....

[M. Caecilius]

There's some interesting information in Junckelmann's Die Reiter Roms, Volume 1, pp.80-85, the sub-heading dealing with Postal and Courier services.

Junckelmann writes that there cursus used a cursus tardus (carts etc) and the cursus velox in which you are more likely interested. Apparently, the riders of the latter were forbidden to carry more than 12 kg (Codex Theodosianus, no more specific reference given). He also claims that, while horses were readily exchanged, riders seldom were. The examples given in this book are

(a) News of the death of Maximinus Thrax (AD 239): Aquilea-Rome, arrived on day 4, 200 km/day; this is probably the one mentioned by Nathan from the Historia Augusta.
(b) Tiberius going to the death bed of Drusus (9 B.C): Pavia-Germany, 300 km/day; unclear whether he rode a horse or a wagon.
© Cato's ride from Otranto to Brundisium to bring news of the victory at Thermopylae (191 B.C.), arrived on the fifth day, 120 km/day without changing horses (the Republic did not have a cursus publicus)
(d) Sextus Roscius (mentioned by Cicero), 80 km/10 hours

The record lies thus at 300 km/day for Tiberius.

There's a lot of other information, including other periods - 1892, Vienna-Berlin, 578 km in 72 hours, horses died; 1893: same trajectory by a pedestrian in 154 hours.

For the full information, I refer you to Junkelmann's excellent research, though I am not sure whether it is available in English.

[Nathan Ross]

I did read that the Pony Express riders averaged around 75 miles a day, and a record was 380 miles in 36 hours

That makes just over 250 miles in 24 hours - rather faster than the speeding Tiberius at 200 miles in the same time.

The well-named Ultimate Horse Site gives speeds of 3-4mph for a walk, 8-10 for a trot, 10-17 for a canter and around 30mph for a gallop, with racehorse galloping up to 50mph at full stretch. So a courier could cover his 50 miles a day easily walking and trotting with the occasional canter on the straight roads. However, galloping or even cantering a horse for more than a few miles at a stretch is rapidly going to exhaust the animal, and the time needed to rest it would probably waste any advantage gained. Our usual image of Roman couriers racing along at a full gallop, cloaks billowing, for mile after mile is probably rather exaggerated!

- Nathan

[Vindex]

I think the average speed of a horse in the pre-blood line shit-off-a-shovel racehorses would be at the lower end of the spectrum say 25 - 30 mph for a SHORT BURST gallop (likewise a quarter horse; the clue is in it's name. It may reach 50 MPH but only for a very short distance)

And the speeds quoted on the site could possibly be those which are required of competitions (eg endurance) where the horse is checked at "vet gates" to make sure it is not distressed or over taxing it's respiritory system (you can "break" a horse's wind by enforced fast galloping. Not nice)

However

If you know you can change your horse for a fresh one at a certain interval and if you have fairly standard going ie not too heavy or hard, an average unshod horse (and we have yet to discover what type of horses the Romans had) could probably trot/canter and walk recover between 10 and 15 miles quite easily. If you're in a hurry and you put your foot down, 20 - 25 miles and a soggy mess of horse at the end.

I would also like to point out that the rider doing this has to be a fit person too. Remember the saddles we are looking at here - no "forward" seat/get your bottom out of the saddle like a jockey and "go with the pace" resting the legs in the stirrups! You're going to have to sit in the saddle and work at a) staying there and b) keeping the horse going when it's tired. It's knackering...for horse and rider.

Edited to Add: And I'm not too sure the horse would be ON the road - all that metalling would not do an unshod foot much good over any distance, but the line of the road is another thing...

[rononmaximus]

I wonder if they also left a note when they couldn't deliver the messages - "I knocked but no one came to answer...honestly!"

800km in a day seems a bit impossible, unless they kept changing to fresh horses from time to time.

[Epictetus]

I think the average speed of a horse in the pre-blood line shit-off-a-shovel racehorses would be at the lower end of the spectrum say 25 - 30 mph for a SHORT BURST gallop

If I remember correctly from Mitchell's Anatolia, there have been monuments discovered that detail arguments between municipalities and Imperial authorities over the quality of the animals provided. The towns had to supply the horses, and there may have been a tendency to give less-than-perfect specimens to the Empire and keep the better ones for their own use.