From Alexandria to Rome. The second method of reaching Rome from Syria by sea was by way of Alexandria, which could be reached either by local ship or by the coast road. From this great seaport of Egypt, during the Roman period, fleets of large grain vessels made frequent trips, bearing Egyptian grain to the capital city. According to the Latin writer, Vegetius (IV, 39, V, 9) the open season for navigation on the Mediterranean extended from March tenth to November tenth, although the favorable season was limited to the four short months between May twenty-sixth and September fourteenth. From about the twentieth of July to the end of August the famous Etesian winds ordinarily blew steadily from the west. These winds made it possible for the fleets of east-bound merchantmen to make the trip from Rome to Alexandria in what seemed to the ancients the marvellously short period of from twenty to twenty-five days. The west-bound trip, however, was much more difficult. Owing to the prevailing west winds the mariners were obliged to cross the Mediterranean to some point on the southern shores of Asia Minor and thence to run westward from port to port along the usual route on the southern side of Crete and Greece.[2]
Significance of the Great Highways. Over these great highways across and around the eastern Mediterranean the civilization of the ancient world spread to the ends of the earth. These were the paths which the Jewish exiles followed in their western exodus. By the beginning of the Christian era Jewish colonies and groups of converts to Judaism were to be found in all the cities touched by these great arteries of commerce. Along these highways passed the armies and culture of the West to the conquest of the East, and the ideas and religions of the East to the conquest of the West. They were thus the natural bonds that bound together the human race in one common brotherhood.