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"All roads lead to Rome" - a popular saying in the Roman Empire.  The Romans were famous for the quality of the roads that they built, many of which were built by their soldiers (see Roman Engineers: All Roads Lead to Rome).

What is interesting for us is that they seemed to have concentrated their infrastructure near salt sources or on salt routes between those sites and Rome.

In the early days of Rome, the Romans took control of the area surrounding the mouth of the Tiber River.  The port of Ostia was developed here, but the primary reason for the conquest was most likely that Rome wanted to control the salt beds in this area.

In ancient times salt was most often produced from sea water.  Twice each day the 6 inch tides of the Mediterranean Sea brought a fresh supply of salt water into large flat beds.  Then the sun dried up the water, leaving the salt to be harvested.

This method worked well, and was much easier than quarrying and transporting rock salt located in remote areas such as the Dead Sea.  However, the Mediterranean Sea began rising during the Roman Empire, which flooded the salt beds and made them useless.  After moving the port of Ostia three times, the Romans were eventually forced to look for other sources of salt.

Perhaps this is why the Romans spent three years in the desert 30 miles southeast of Jerusalem in order to conquer Masada in 70 A.D.  This Jewish fortress controlled the salt supply route from Mount Sodom to Jerusalem, and was therefore critical to Roman strategy.  (The movie Masada is available in VHS.)