Forum Appii an ancient post station on the Via Appia, 43 miles (69 km) southeast of Rome, founded, no doubt, by the original constructor of the road.
Beard takes the Via Appia to cosmopolitan Rome to show the lives of the ordinary citizens in Imperial times who would be in the top seats of the Colosseum, take a boat to Rome's port Ostia importing goods from all over the Mediterranean and takes us into the bowels of Monte Testaccio.
However the Senate being in power has the better of the rioters and Caesar together with Antonio and the rebels are crucified along the Via Appia.
Two different routes to Apulia diverged at this point, one (Via Aurelia Aeclanensis) leading through the modern Ariano to Herdoniae, the other (the Via Appia of the Empire) passing the Lacus Ampsanctus and going on to Aquilonia and Venusia; while the road from Aeclanum to Abellinum (mod. Avellino) may also follow an ancient line.
It is by some fixed some 5 km southeast of the modern village of Cisterna di Latina just before the Via Appia enters the Pontine Marshes, at a point where the modern road to Ninfa and Norba diverges to the northeast, where a few ruins still exist (Grotte di Nottola), 53 km from Rome.
The two lines rejoined near the present railway station of Caianiello, and the road ran to Teanum and Cales, and so to Casilinum, where there was the crossing of the Volturnus and the junction with the Via Appia.