The Kingdom of Macedonia was subject to the Romans in the year 168 BC. Soon after the Roman subjection, the Macedonians rebelled. Their rebellion made the Romans very severe with the people and the Romans divided Macedonia’s one province into four portions. The Romans put a restriction on the communication of the people, to each other and between each portion, to try to keep the Macedonians under control. The Roman Senate gave an order to the proconsul of Macedonia, which was the city of Thessaloniki, to build a military road which could quickly bring the Roman legions from Rome, Italy to the eastern provinces.
In the second part of 2 B.C., the Roman army built The Ignatian Road. It took 20 years to build it. The road started from the Adriatic Sea (which is Albania today) from the city of Dyrrachium (at that time the whole area of Albania was called Illyricum) traversing Illyricum, Macedonia and Thrace. Crossing the Balkans, this road arrived at the Black Sea, at the city of Constantinople. The road was 1001 kilometers long. It was all paved.
At every Roman mile was a milestone written in Latin and Greek. It marked the distance between the two ends of the road, as well as the closest city to the spot. A traveler using this road knew, at every mile where he was, how far he had come, and the distance he had yet to cover. The Romans built stations every 45 to 60 kilometers for the Roman military garrison, with tiers for maintenance and stables for exchanging horses, in case they had to send a message from one place to another.
Right from the beginning it became a special major artery of communication and commercial transport. The safety of this guarded road was never missing.
All the stations that the Romans built, separated by 45 to 60 km, were built according to the topography of one day’s walk, so many of the stations developed into cities. On this road today,cities going through Greece, from Turkey to Albania, remain separated by the distance of 45 to 60 km.
After a while, with the establishment of Pax Romana, the people were very happy with the Roman administration and there were no more rebellions. Restrictions between the portions of Macedonia were removed, although the divisions remained for administrative reasons. The Ignatian Road became highly used. This road has always been used, since it was built until today, according to the political situation of Macedonia.
Right after the Yugoslavian war , the Yugoslavian infrastructure was bombarded and communication between Asia and Europe was cut off. Then Greece was encouraged to renovate the road.
The Avenue of the Ignatia follows, in general lines, the old road. It is shorter because it now has bridges and tunnels that the original road did not have. But in many ways, it is fully identified with the old ancient road. For that reason, archaeologists had the opportunity to make excavations to verify how well the ancient engineers had built this road. In some cases where the soil was very soft, the ancient engineers had dug five meters deep to find solid rock and then filled the space with rocks up to the level of the pavement. They did impressive work and that is why the road lasted so long.
It Is very important for one more reason. It is the road that the Apostle Paul used when he arrived to preach the gospel not only in Macedonia but also in Illyricum.
In the book of Romans it says I preached from the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum – that means that Paul came to Macedonia as described in the book of Acts and then he went using this same road even to the Adriatic sea, Albania, where it is today using almost all the length of this road from Kavala west, which is 3/4 of the total distance.
For that reason, this road clearly can be called the Avenue of the Gospel on its way West, the Avenue of the Gospel entering Europe.
When we speak Biblically about the fulfillment of the time, it is not only referring to Israel, but to all the details in the preparation of the Ignatian Road.
The first mission field of history was the Mediterranean world, and these details include even the infrastructure and the condition of safety for the missionaries who traveled where the Holy Spirit addressed them to go. This is the history of this road.
There were a lot of independent Greek states in antiquity. One of them was Abdera, Thrace which was close to Alexandroupoli, the homeland of a very famous ancient philosopher named Democritus. Democritus, in 6 B.C. -without having microscopes, with just his mind -arrived at that conclusion that you can’t divide material after a certain point and if you break the basic particles of it then you produce energy. He is considered today the father of nuclear physics.
We were not yet in Macedonia yet. We would cross the River Nestos to enter Macedonia and go through Thrace.