It is named after latin Campus Salinarum Romanum, the salt pans the mouth of the Tiber river, today known as Stagni di Maccarese.
Known since the 8th century BC, the road started at the Forum Boarium, where salt trade was held since the origins. It exited the city through the Porta Trigemina along the Servian Walls and reached the temple of Fors Fortuna at the first mile. Following the construction of the Aurelian Walls, it exited the city through Porta Portese, in a straight stretch parallel to the road to Portus, the harbour of Rome (Via Portuense). At Pozzo Pantaleo (today the Portuense area, between Via Portuense and Via Quirino Majorana), the two roads took different directions: the Via Campana followed the course of the river along its right bank in a flat area, while the Via Portuense crossed the hills of the hinterland. The roads met again at the ninth mile to reach Portus together.
In the past, it was believed that the stretch of the Via Campana between Pozzo Pantaleo and Ponte Galeria corresponded to the current Via della Magliana, but according to new studies, it is now thought to date back to a later period. The Via Campana would have run along the bank of the Tiber because, from the beginning, it would have been used as a towpath, for towing boats upstream from the mouth to the river ports using a system of ropes and animals (e.g., buffaloes), so much so that from the 1500s this road was called the “buffalo road” (strada delle bufale).
The Via Campana was no longer mentioned in sources after the 3rd century AD, while the Via Portuense began to be considered as the route of the modern Via della Magliana.
Between the fifth and sixth mile, the Via Campana reached the temple of the goddess Dia and that of Fors Fortuna, at the same site that marked the boundary of the pristine territory of Rome, the ager Romanus antiquus, the ancient Roman territory referring to the original, circumscribed territory of archaic Rome.