THE MAIN HIGHWAYS OF THE ANCIENT SEMITIC WORLD
L.L. Poates Engr'g Co., N.Y.
IX
THE GREAT HIGHWAYS OF THE BIBLICAL WORLD
Importance of the Highways. Upon the direction and character of the highways depend to a great extent the growth and history of early civilization. By the great roads which entered Palestine the Hebrews came as immigrants. Along the same roads those later waves of both hostile and peaceful invasion swept in upon them that largely shaped their history. These highways were to them the open doors to the life and civilization of the outside world. Over these same roads the Hebrews later fled as fugitives or were dragged as captives. Along these channels of communication and commerce the missionaries and apostles at a still later day went forth to their peaceful conquest of the Roman empire. Thus, next to the land itself, the highways of the ancient world have exerted the most powerful influence upon biblical history, literature, and religion.
Lack of the Road-building Instincts among the Semites. The Semitic races, as a rule, were not road-builders. Their earlier nomadic experiences had accustomed them to long and arduous marches over rough, rocky roads. The ox, the camel, the horse, and the donkey furnished the common means of transportation. Most of the people went from place to place on foot, and in Palestine the distances were so short that this mode of travel was easy and practical. To-day in well-travelled roads large boulders lie in the middle of the way, worn smooth by the hoofs of pack-animals and by the feet of countless passersby, who through the centuries have stumbled over them rather than put forth the effort of a few moments in removing them. The Aryans were the first to develop good roads in southwestern Asia. The royal Persian post-roads, that connected remote parts of the vast empire, introduced a new era in road-building. The greatest road-builders of antiquity were the Romans; but most of the superb highways, which to-day arouse the wonder and admiration of the traveller, were constructed by them in the second and third Christian centuries, later, therefore, than the biblical period.
Evidence that Modern Roads Follow the Old Ways. There is strong evidence that the later roads usually followed the ancient paths. Both were connecting links between the same important centres. Both necessarily crossed the same fords and the same mountain passes. The later roads were held within the same limits by natural barriers and by that tendency to follow established traditions which has ever characterized the East. In riding over the roads of Palestine to-day the traveller is constantly reminded that he is following in the footsteps of the early inhabitants of the land. Often the path, instead of following the most direct course, climbs over a pass or steep hill, past a rocky ruin once a famous city, but now a mere chaos of scattered rocks. The road still follows this awkward détour simply because a thousand years ago it led to a populous town. Where the roads have changed their course it has been because the centre of population or of political ascendancy has changed, or else because the Romans, disregarding old traditions or physical obstacles, flung their mighty highways over the mountains and across the deep valleys.
Ordinary Palestinian Roads. The common Hebrew word for road is derekh, which means literally a trodden path, made by the feet of men and animals. It well describes a majority of the roads of Palestine to-day. It suggests to the experienced Palestinian traveller in most cases a narrow path, so thickly strewn with rocks that it is to him a never-ceasing wonder that his horse or mule is able, without mishap, hour after hour to pick its way over these rough piles of stone. Sometimes the path runs over a steep mountain hillside, where the animal is obliged to lift itself and rider by sheer strength up rocky steps a foot and a half to two feet in height or to hold itself with marvellous skill on the sloping side of a slippery rock. Often the horse flounders blindly among scattered boulders while it braces itself against the rush of a mountain stream. At times the traveller must balance himself on his horse as it struggles and often swims through fords whose waters reach almost to the top of its back.