Via Aurelia: The Roman Empire's Lost Highway

By Joshua Hammer
Photographs by Clay McLachlan

1. There Oughta Be a Law
2. Terra Cotta Soldiers on the March
3. High Hopes for a New Kind of Gene
4. Catching a Wave, Powering an Electrical Grid?
5. Photo Contest Grand Prize Winner - In the early morning, fishermen clean their nets by Erhai Lake
6. Frank Baum, the Man Behind the Curtain
7. Up in Arms Over a Co-Ed Plebe Summer
8. The Ultimate Spy Plane
9. Buenos Aires: a City's Power and Promise
10. Thornton Wilder's Desert Oasis

At first glance, it didn't appear that impressive: a worn limestone pillar, six feet high and two feet wide, standing slightly askew beside a country road near the village of Pélissanne in southern France.

Read the rest in Smithsonian Magazine.