VIA

SEVERIANA  , an ancient highroad of Italy, running S.E. from Ostia to Terracina, a distance of 73 in. along the coast, and taking its name, no doubt, from the restoration of an already existing road by Septimius Severus, who was a great benefactor of Ostia . It ran along the shore at first, just behind the line of villas which fronted upon the sea, and are now half a mile inland, or even upon its edge (for an inscription records its being damaged by the waves) . Farther S.E. it seems to have kept rather more distant from the shore, and it probably kept within the lagoons below the Circean promontory . As is natural in a sandy district where building materials are rare, remains of it are scanty . See R . Lanciani in Monumenti dei Lincei, xiii . (1903), 185; xvi . (1906), 241; T . Ashby in Melanges de l'Ecole francaise de Rome (1905), 157 sqq . (T .