 There is some belief amongst archeologists that the Via Cornelia did not exist and that the name is a mutilation of the name, Via Aurelia.This conjecture stems from the fact that the Via Cornelia is only mentioned in the itineraries and witnesses of the seventh and eighth centuries; for in those centuries the population of Rome decreased from approximately one and a half million to sixty thousand and, the people were impoverished and could hardly speak Latin well.These citizens also would have had no idea of the topography of the Imperial period.