Ancient Romans built their towns based on astronomical grids Washington, May 9 : Ancient Romans built their towns using astronomically aligned grids, a recently concluded Italian study has revealed. As part of the study, researchers examined the orientation of some 38 towns in Italy, and found that all of them followed strong symbolic aspects linked to astronomy. "It emerged that these towns were not laid out at random. On the contrary, they were planned following strong symbolic aspects, all linked to astronomy," said Giulio Magli of the mathematics department at Milan's Polytechnic University. While ancient Roman writers, including Ovid and...