Spain produced horses, mules, wool, oil, figs, wine, corn, honey, beer, flax, linen, beside mines of copper, silver, gold, quicksilver, tin, lead, and steel. Gaul was so cultivated that there was little waste land, and produced the same fruits and vegetables as at the present day. Its hams and sausages were much prized. Sicily was famous for wheat, Sardinia for wool, Epirus for horses, Macedonia for goats, Thessaly for oil, Boeotia for flax, Scythia for furs, and Greece for honey. Almost all the flowers, herbs, and fruits that grow in European gardens were known to the Romans—the apricot, the peach, the pomegranate, the citron, the orange, the quince, the apple, the pear, the plum, the cherry, the fig, the date, the olive. Martial speaks of pepper, beans, pulp, lentils, barley, beets, lettuce, radishes, cabbage sprouts, leeks, turnips, asparagus, mushrooms, truffles, as well as all sorts of game and birds. [Footnote: Martial, B. 13.] In no age of the world was agriculture more honored than before the fall of the empire.
[Sidenote: Roads.]
And all these provinces were connected with each other and with the capital by magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were used by travelers, and on them posts were regularly established. They crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains. In Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the provinces. Among the great roads which conveyed to Rome as a centre were the Clodian and Cassian roads which passed through Etruria; the Amerina and Flavinia through Umbria; the Via Valeria, which had its terminus at Alternum on the Adriatic; the Via Latina, which, passing through Latium and Campania, extended to the southern extremity of Italy; the Via Appia also passed through Latium, Campania, Lucania, Iapygia to Brundusium, on the Adriatic. Again, from the central terminus at Milan, several lines passed through the gorges of the Alps, and connected Italy with Lyons and Mayence on the one side, and with the Tyrol and Danubian provinces on the other. Spain and southern Gaul were connected by a grand road from Cadiz to Narbonne and Arles. Lyons was another centre from which branched out military roads to Saintes, Marseilles, Boulogne, and Mayence. In fact, the Roman legion could traverse every province in the empire over these grandly built public roads, as great and important in the second century as railroads are at the present time. There was an uninterrupted communication from the Wall of Antonius through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons, Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem—a distance of 3740 miles. And these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for travelers erected every five or six miles.
[Sidenote: Commerce.]
[Sidenote: Objects of ancient commerce.]
Commerce under the emperors was not what it now is, but still was very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome. Every year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient navigator. Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over in twenty-four hours. This was the average speed, or about seven knots. From the mouth of the Tiber, vessels could usually reach Africa in two days, Massilia in three, Tarraco in four, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven. From Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate winds, in nine days. But these facts apply only to the summer, and to objects of favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement seasons. But in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and Egypt. This was the most important trade. But a considerable commerce was carried on in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk fabrics, pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, oil. Greek and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the Grecian cities; of wild animals for the amphitheatre; of marble, of the spoils of eastern cities, of military engines, and stores, and horses, required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably belonged, chiefly, to great maritime cities like Alexandria, Corinth, Carthage, Rhodes, Cyrene, Massalia, Neapolis, Tarentum, and Syracuse. These great cities with their dependencies, required even more vessels for communication with each other than for Rome herself—the great central object of enterprise and cupidity.
[Sidenote: The metropolis of the empire.]
[Sidenote: The centre and the pride of the world.]
[Sidenote: Its varied objects of interest.]
In this survey of the provinces and cities which composed the empire of the Caesars, I have not yet spoken of the great central city—the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Rome was so grand, so vast, so important in every sense, political and social; she was such a concentration of riches and wonders, that it demands a separate and fuller notice than what I have been able to give of those proud capitals which finally yielded to her majestic domination. All other cities not merely yielded precedence, but contributed to her greatness. Whatever was costly, or rare, or beautiful in Greece, or Asia, or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were provincial governors. All the great roads, from the Atlantic to the Tigris, converged to Rome. All the ships of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals, were employed in furnishing her with luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St. Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fashion and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fashions, or commerce, or manufactures— centres of influence and power in the countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome, however, monopolized everything, and controlled all nations and peoples. She could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the ships of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons or Bordeaux is to Paris, Corinth or Babylon was to Rome—secondary cities, dependent cities. Paul condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome protects him. The philosophers of Greece are the tutors of Roman nobility. The kings of the East resort to the palaces of Mount Palatine for favors or safety. The governors of Syria and Egypt, reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, return to Rome to squander the riches they have accumulated. Senators and nobles take their turn as sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in which Darius, and Alexander, and Pericles, and Croesus, and Solomon, and Cleopatra have feasted, if unspared by the conflagrations of war, witness the banquets of Roman proconsuls. Babylon and Thebes and Athens were only what Delhi and Calcutta are to the English of our day—cities to be ruled by the delegates of the Roman Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine, for the earth had but one capital—one great centre of attraction. To an Egyptian even, Alexandria was only provincial. He must travel to the banks of the Tiber to see something greater than his own capital. It was the seat of government for one hundred and twenty millions of people. It was the arbiter of taste and fashion. It was the home of generals and senators and statesmen, of artists and scholars and merchants, who were renowned throughout the empire. It was enriched by the contributions of conquered nations for eight hundred years. It contained more marble statues than living inhabitants. Every spot was consecrated by associations; every temple had a history; every palace had been the scene of festivities which made it famous; every monument pointed to the deeds of the illustrious dead, and swelled the pride of the most powerful families which aristocratic ages had created.