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Via Clodia was an ancient high-road of Italy. Its course, for the first 11 miles, was the same as that of the Via Cassia; it then diverged to the N.N.W. and ran on the W. side of the Lacus Sabatinus, past Forum Clodii and Blera.
At Forum Cassii it may have rejoined the Via Cassia, and it seems to have taken the same line as the latter as far as Florentia (Florence). But beyond Florentia, between Luca (Lucca) and Luna, we find another Forum Clodii, and the Antonine itinerary gives the route from Luca to Rome as being by the Via Clodia wrongly as regards the portion from Florentia southwards, but perhaps rightly as regards that from Luca to Florentia.
In that case the Clodius whose name the road bears, possibly C. Clodius Vestalis (c. 43), was responsible for the construction of the first portion and of that from Florentia to Luca (and Luna), and the founder of the two Fora Clodii. The name seems, in imperial times, to have to some extent driven out that of the Cassia, and both roads were administered, with other minor roads, by the same curator.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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