The Davis Square Community

By not getting a whole lot of it in Rome, I imagine. But to be less snarky and look at more outlying parts of empire -- well, hm, "Etsi mons Cevenna, qui Arvernos ab Helviis discludit, durissimo tempore anni altissima nive iter impediebat, tamen discussa nive sex in altitudinem pedum atque ita viis patefactis summo militum sudore ad fines Arvernorum pervenit." from Gallic Wars 7.8 (in essense, "when Caesar's men hit 6 feet of snow they shoveled with maximum badassery," but they are unspecific about technology). But that's the midst of a military campaign where you would expect that sort of thing; I don't know off the top of my head where I would look for a cite on how they handled the everyday business of keeping their road network functional in winter...A cursory search of Perseus for some forms of nix,nivis does not suggest an obvious passage to mine.