One of history's most famous sayings about Rome may be wrong, new study suggests

A sweeping new study of the Roman Empire's vast road network is challenging the age-old saying, "All roads lead to Rome." The study, published Sept.

15 in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed roughly 190,000 miles of Roman roads spanning Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

The team combined existing data to create a new map of the Roman Empire's road network and analyze its structure on an empire-wide scale.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS CLEARING OLD BOMBS UNEXPECTEDLY FIND 'IMPORTANT' ANCIENT SANCTUARY The study's lead researcher, Tom Brughmans, a classical archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, and his colleagues found that Rome was not uniquely central to the empire's road network, with provincial capitals playing key roles in overland travel.

Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, Turkey, emerged as a far more central hub for overland travel after Emperor Constantine made it the imperial capital in the fourth century A.D.

Constantinople's location between Europe and Asia made it exceptionally central to travel across the empire, according to the researchers.

Therefore, the phrase "all roads lead to Rome" — coined centuries after the Roman Empire fell — may not reveal the whole story.

ANCIENT CLUE CRACKS OPEN A 2,000-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY NEAR FAMED COLOSSEUM Brughmans told Fox News Digital that the proverb, which he described as medieval in origin, should not be taken literally — noting that none of the roads in Roman Britain actually led to Rome.

"It is quite surprising how persistently this maxim has shaped popular understanding of Roman roads," he said.

"It’s fair to say our study complicates the proverb," Brughmans added.

"I prefer to say, ‘All roads lead to Rome and everywhere else.'" RARE PAGAN MASTERPIECE EMERGES NEAR WHERE ST PAUL SPREAD TEACHINGS OF CHRISTIANITY Taco Terpstra, a professor of history and classics at Northwestern University in Illinois, told Fox News Digital the findings don't diminish Rome's importance as the center of the empire — nor do the study's authors argue otherwise.

Terpstra, who was not involved in the research, noted that Constantinople "was only created as such in the fourth century." "Before that, it was a sleepy fishing town called Byzantium," he said.

"So, we have to be careful a little bit about what time period we’re looking at." He added, "But once Constantinople becomes de facto the capital of the empire, it is clear that it attracts a lot of overland connectivity." CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER Rome did remain the center of political, military and ideological power for centuries, Terpstra said.

"Rome is the center of the empire.