Linking Ancient Cities: Network Analysis of the Roman Transportation System

This research dives into the structural dynamics of the Roman Empire's transportation network, specifically focusing on the Roman Province of Greece and cities within three degrees of separation. Utilizing data from Stanford University's ORBIS project, we analyzed a subset of 156 nodes and 570 edges, representing key mobility hubs and routes. The network was initially treated as an unweighted directed graph and later examined as three independent weighted graphs based on travel time, distance, and travel expenses. Our approach employed advanced network analysis techniques to uncover pivotal nodes and transit routes, using metrics like Degree Centrality, Betweenness Centrality, Closeness Centrality, and Kleinberg's hub and authority scores. These findings were compared with ORBIS rankings, drawing from the Barrington Atlas, to align our results with historical benchmarks. Community detection algorithms further enabled us to understand historical interactions and identify regional clusters. A significant finding was the network's scale-free nature, indicated by a gamma parameter of 1.37, suggesting resilience against random failures but vulnerability to targeted attacks. This study, suitable for beginners in the field and marking our first attempt at such interdisciplinary research, not only enhances our understanding of the Roman transportation system but also underscores the utility of network analysis in historical and archaeological contexts. The insights from this research offer broad implications for understanding the dynamics of ancient civilizations and their complex networks.