On the main routes, special seasons, well known to the merchants and travellers, were appointed for the arrival and departure of the caravans. Their departure was an animated sight. For several days, persons destined for the journey were hourly arriving at the rendezvous with their camels, horses, and merchandise. Provisions had to be provided, and plans arranged for the comfort and safety of all who were about to undertake so long and hazardous a journey. The risk of falling short of food, or of being lost in the deserts, and the danger of attack from the predatory tribes infesting them, required a careful arrangement and strict discipline; but, though generally well armed, the merchants often adopted the safer plan of paying a fixed sum to the Bedouins, to secure a safe transit for themselves and their goods.
Some of the routes, were provided with numerous resting-places and caravanserais, so that travelling along these lines was comparatively safe and easy. Herodotus[207] furnishes a description of one constructed by Cyrus, king of Persia, which was originally, it is true, for military purposes, but which proved also to be of great importance to the merchants trading between the leading cities of Persia, Asia Minor, Babylonia, and India.
The route from Sardes to Susa, described by Herodotus.
Starting from Sardes, not from Smyrna and Ephesus, there appears to have been one continuous road to Susa (a city second in importance only to Babylon itself). “Royal stations and magnificent caravanserais,” says Herodotus, “continually succeed each other in all parts of it, and it passes through an inhabited and safe region all the way. First (from Sardes) there are twenty stations through Lydia and Phrygia, or ninety-four parasangs and a half (about two hundred and eighty-three miles). Leaving Phrygia we come to the river Halys, near which there is a guarded passage, necessary to be passed on our way over the river. On the other side of the river we come to Cappadocia, and through this country to the Cilician mountains, comprehending twenty-eight stations, or a hundred and four parasangs. We penetrate into these mountains through two sets of gates, at each of which there is a guard posted, and then traverse Cilicia, a space of three stations, or fifteen parasangs and a half. The river Euphrates, which can only be passed by a ferry, separates Cilicia from Armenia, in which there are fifteen stations, or fifty-six parasangs and a half. There is one place where a guard is posted, and four rivers which are crossed in boats. The first is the Tigris, the second and third bear the same appellation,[208] without being either the same river or flowing from the same country, as the first of them comes out of Armenia, and the other out of the land of the Matienians; the fourth is the Gyndes, which Cyrus dispersed by digging for it three hundred and sixty branches.[209] From Armenia into the land of the Matienians there are four stations; and eleven stations, or forty two parasangs and a half, from this country into that of the Cissians (Khuzistan), as far as the river Choaspes, which must likewise be passed in boats; and on the banks of this river stands the city of Susa. Thus, in the journey from Susa to Sardes, there are one hundred and eleven stations with the same number of caravanserais.”
Here, then, is a record, four hundred and fifty years before our era, of a well made road of more than one thousand miles in length; and this road is still in existence.[210]
Between Tyre and Gerrha.
The trading routes between Babylon and Tyre, and more especially between Tyre and Gerrha[211] lay, in both cases, through long and uninterrupted deserts; a course, some have thought, chosen as better enabling merchants to preserve the secrecy of their business, and the real character of the wares in which they were trading. Baalath and “Tadmor in the desert”[212] (Baalbek and Palmyra) were, it is supposed, founded by Solomon with the intention of obtaining for himself a share of the commerce which the Phœnicians were at that time carrying on with Babylon and other inland cities.
Length of journey.
Here many caravans assembled, and thence diverged to their different destinations. Those destined for the East proceeded by way of Palmyra,[213] and to this day, the commercial road from Damascus to the Euphrates runs close to the ruins of that city. Seven days were occupied in the journey from Baalbek to Palmyra, four of them in passing through the desert which lay between that city and Emesa (Hems), another celebrated city of Syria. From Palmyra, other four days were required to reach Thapsacus,[214] where the caravan had the choice either of following the course of the Euphrates, or of passing through the plains of Mesopotamia. The southern, or rather the southern and eastern routes, passed through Palestine (where Joseph was sold to the caravan of Midianitish merchants) into Egypt, terminating at Memphis on the Nile. The eastern route diverged from it to Petra,[215] a place perhaps more celebrated than any other in the inland trade of ancient times. From Petra, there were two great routes to the East, both terminating in Gerrha on the Persian Gulf. Opposite to this place, and about fifty miles distant, lay the island of Tylos,[216] a settlement of the Phœnicians, as already stated. One of the routes lay along the line of the eastern shore of the Arabian Gulf, but at some distance from it, except where it touched Leuke Kome, and, most probably, Mecca also, till it reached Saba or Saphar, perhaps, as already suggested, the Ophir of Solomon, a distance of twelve hundred and sixty geographical miles from Petra, or a caravan journey of seventy days; thence the route lay through a great desert to Gerrha. The other route was almost a straight line through a more northern desert, from Gerrha to Petra, and was probably that by which Europe was first supplied with the produce of India.
Importance of Petra.