Appius Claudius Caecus

Appius Claudius Caecus was a statesman and writer of the Roman Republic who flourished between about 312 and 279 BC. In transport history he is remembered for two public works begun while he was censor: the Appian Way, the first major Roman road, which ran from Rome south to Beneventum, and the Aqua Appia, the first aqueduct in Rome. As censor he also pressed for colonies across Latium and Campania to serve as fortifications during the Second Samnite War, and he later held the consulship twice and a dictatorship. He is further credited with a juristic treatise, moral essays and poems, and the sources about him diverge so widely that modern scholars have read him as a revolutionary, a reactionary or a great reformer. Birth and death dates are not recorded, so his period is given only as the years in which he was active.