Gaius Gracchus exerted himself in another way for the improvement of the Italian roads.

He secured the due repair of the great rural roads by assigning, on occasion of his distribution of lands, pieces of ground alongside of the roads, to which was attached the obligation of keeping them in repair as an heritable burden.

To him, moreover, or at any rate to the allotment-commission, the custom of erecting milestones appears to be traceable, as well as that of marking the limits of fields by regular boundary-stones.

Lastly he provided for good -viae vicinales-, with the view of thereby promoting agriculture.

But of still greater moment was the construction of the imperial highways in the provinces, which beyond doubt began in this epoch.