But while the Phœnicians for their commercial intercourse with other nations relied chiefly upon the sea, the great highway of nature, they neglected by no means road-building at home. They connected their great cities, Sidon and Tyre, by a coast road, which they extended in time as far as the Isthmus of Suez. They also established great commercial routes by which their merchants penetrated the interior of Europe and Asia. Caravan roads extended south to Arabia and east to Mesopotamia and Armenia, penetrating the whole Orient as far as India, and even the frontiers of China. The Phœnicians thus became the traders of antiquity, Tyre being the link between the east and the west.
The Persian Empire, which under Darius stretched from east to west for a distance of 3,000 miles and comprised no less than two million square miles, with a population of seventy or eighty millions, had, with the exception of the Romans, perhaps the best system of roads known to ancient history. Indeed, it is doubtful whether without it such a vast empire, more than half as large as modern Europe, could have been held together. Each satrap, or prefect of a province, was obliged to make regular reports to the king, who was also kept informed by spies of what was taking place in every part of the empire. To aid the administration of the government, postal communication for the exclusive use of the king and his trusted servants connected the capital with the distant provinces. This postal service was, four or five centuries later, patterned after by the Romans. From Susa to Sardes led a royal road along which were erected caravansaries at certain intervals. Over this road, 1,700 miles long, the couriers of the king rode in six or seven days. Under Darius the roads of the empire were surveyed and distances marked by means of mile-stones, many of which are still found on the road which led from Ecbatana to Babylon. These roads crossed the wildest regions of that great monarchy. They connected the cities of Ionia with Sardes in Lydia, with Babylon and with the royal city of Susa; they led from Syria into Mesopotamia, from Ecbatana to Persepolis, from Armenia into Southern Persia, and thence to Bactria and India.
The Chinese commenced road-building long before the Christian era. They graded the roadway and then covered the whole with hewn blocks of stone, carefully jointed and cemented together so that the entire surface presented a perfectly smooth plane. Such roads, although very costly to build, are almost indestructible by time. In China, as well as in several other countries of Asia, the executive power has always charged itself with both the construction and maintenance of roads and navigable canals. In the instructions which are given to the governors of the various provinces these objects, it is said, are constantly commanded to them, and the judgment which the court forms of the conduct of each is very much regulated by the attention which he appears to have paid to this part of his instructions. This solicitude of the sovereign for the internal thoroughfares is easily accounted for when it is considered that his revenue arises almost entirely from a land-tax, or rent, which rises and falls with the increase and decrease of the annual produce of the land. The greatest interest of the sovereign, his revenue, is therefore directly connected with the cultivation of the land, with the extent of its produce and its value. But in order to render that produce as great and as valuable as possible, it is necessary to procure for it as extensive a market as possible, and, consequently, to establish the freest, the easiest and the least expensive communication between all the different parts of the country, which can be done only by means of the best roads and the best navigable canals.
In Africa the Egyptians and Carthaginians are the only nations of antiquity of which we have much historic knowledge. The former kept up a very active commerce not only with the south, but also with the tribes of Lydia on the west and with Palestine and the adjoining countries on the east. To facilitate commerce, they constructed and maintained a number of excellent highways leading in all directions. One of the most important among these was the old royal road on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, or the "Road of the Philistines" of the Scriptures. This road crossed the Isthmus of Suez and led through the land of the Philistines and Samaria to Tyre and Sidon. Another road led, in a northwesterly direction, from Rameses to Pelusium. This, however, crossed marshes, lagoons and a whole system of canals, and was used only by travelers without baggage, while the Pharaohs, accompanied by their horses, chariots and troops, preferred the former road. A third road led from Coptos, on the Nile, to Berenice, on the Red Sea. There were between these two cities ten stations, about twenty-five miles apart from each other, where travelers might rest with their camels each day, after traveling all night, to avoid the heat. Still another road led from the town of Babylon, opposite Memphis, along the east bank of the Nile, into Nubia. Much of the commerce of Egypt in ancient times, as in our day, was conducted on the Nile and its canals. The boatman and the husbandman were, in fact, the founders of the gentle manners of the people who flourished four thousand years ago in the blessed valley of the Nile. There is one canal among the many which deserves special mention. It flowed from the Bitter Lakes into the Red Sea near the city of Arsinoe. It was first cut by Sesostris before the Trojan times, or, according to other writers, by the son of Psammitichus, who only began the work and then died. Darius I. set about to complete it, but gave up the undertaking when it was nearly finished, influenced by the erroneous opinion that the level of the Red Sea was higher than Egypt, and that if the whole of the intervening isthmus were cut through, the country would be overflowed by the sea. The Ptolemaic kings, however, did cut it through and placed locks upon the canal.
Carthage was a Phœnician colony. The city was remarkable for its situation. It was surrounded by a very fertile territory and had a harbor deep enough for the anchorage of the largest vessels. Two long piers reached out into the sea, forming a double harbor, the outer for merchant ships and the inner for the navy. This city early became the head of a North African empire, and her fleets plied in all navigable waters known to antiquity. Her navy was the largest in the world, and in the sea-fight with Regulus comprised three hundred and fifty vessels, carrying one hundred and fifty thousand men. Though we have but meager accounts of the internal affairs of Carthage, there can be no doubt that much attention was given, both at home and in the colonies, to the construction of highways, which were distinguished for their solidity. It is said that the Romans learned from the Carthaginians the art of paving roads.
European history began in Greece, the civilization of whose people passed to the Romans and from them to the other Aryan nations which have played an important role in the great historical drama of modern times. The physical features of the Balkan Peninsula were an important factor in the formation of the character of its inhabitants. The coast has a large number of well-protected bays, most of which form good harbors. Navigation and commerce were greatly stimulated in a country thus favored by Nature. Nearly all the principal cities of Hellas could be reached by ships, and the need of internal thoroughfares was but little felt. Nevertheless, public highways connected all of the larger towns with the national sanctuaries and oracles, as Olympia, the Isthmus, Delphi and Dodona. Athens, after the Persian wars the metropolis of Greece, was by the so-called Long Walls connected with the Piræus, its harbor. This highway, protected by high walls built two hundred yards apart, was over four miles long, and enabled the Athenians, as long as they held the command of the sea, to bring supplies to their city, even when it was surrounded by an enemy on the land.
Rome is the connecting link between antiquity and mediævalism. The great empire sprang from a single city, whose power and dominion grew until it comprised every civilized nation living upon the three continents then known. Under the emperors, the Roman empire extended from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, a distance of more than three thousand miles, and from the Danube and the English Channel to the cataracts of the Nile and the Desert of Sahara. Its population was from eighty to one hundred and twenty millions. The empire was covered with a net-work of excellent roads, which stimulated, together with the safety and peace which followed the civil wars, traffic and intercourse between the different regions united under the imperial government. More than 50,000 miles of solidly constructed highways connected the various provinces of this vast realm. There was one great chain of communication of 4,080 Roman miles in length from the Wall of Antoninus in the northwest to Rome, and thence to Jerusalem, a southeastern point of the empire. There were several thousand miles of road in Italy alone. Rome's highways were constructed for the purpose of facilitating military movements, but the benefits which commerce derived from them cannot easily be overestimated. These military roads were usually laid out in straight lines from one station to another. Natural obstacles were frequently passed by means of very extensive works, as excavations, bridges, and, in some instances, long tunnels. The resources of the Roman Empire were almost inexhaustible, and no public expenditures were larger than those made on account of the construction of new roads. The fact that many of these roads have borne the traffic of almost two thousand years without material injury is abundant proof of the unsurpassed solidity of their construction. The Roman engineers always secured a firm bottom, which was done, when necessary, by ramming the ground with small stones, or fragments of brick. Upon this foundation was placed a pavement of large stones, which were firmly set in cement. These stones were sometimes square, but more frequently irregular. They were, however, always accurately fitted to each other. Many varieties of stone were used, but the preference was given to basalt. Where large blocks could not be conveniently obtained, small stones of hard quality were sometimes cemented together with lime, forming a kind of concrete, of which masses extending to a depth of several feet are still in existence. The strength of the pavements is illustrated by the fact that the substrata of some have been so completely washed away by water, without disturbing the surface, that a man may creep under the road from side to side while carriages pass over the pavement as over a bridge. The roads were generally raised above the ordinary surface of the ground. They frequently had two wagon-tracks, which were separated by a raised foot-path in the center, and blocks of stone at intervals, to enable travelers to mount on horseback. Furthermore, each mile was marked by a numbered post, the distance being counted from the gate of the wall of Servius. The mile-post was at first a roughly hewn stone, which in time was exchanged for a monument, especially in the vicinity of Rome and other large cities. The most celebrated road of Italy, which has always excited the admiration of the student of antiquity, was the Via Appia, the remains of which are still an object of wonder. It was first built from Rome to Capua by Appius Claudius Cæcus in the fourth century before Christ, and was afterwards continued as far as Brundisium. It was broad enough for two carriages to pass each other, and was built of solid stone. The stones were hewn sharp and smooth, and their corners fitted into one another without the aid of any connecting material, so that, according to Procopius, the whole appeared to be one natural stone. Each side of the street had a high border for foot-passengers, on which were also placed alternately seats and mile-stones. In spite of its age and heavy traffic parts of this road are still in a good state of preservation. After the completion of the Via Appia similar roads were constructed, so that under the emperors seven great highways started from Rome, viz.: the Via Appia and Latina to the south; two, Valeria and Salaria, to the Adriatic; two, Cassia and Aurelia, to the northwest; and the Via Æmilia, serving for both banks of the Po.
Nor were the provinces by any means neglected. During the last Punic war a paved road was constructed from Spain through Gaul to the Alps, and similar roads were afterwards built in every part of Spain and Gaul, through Illyricum, Macedonia and Thrace, to Constantinople, and along the Danube to its mouths on the Black Sea. So, likewise, were the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and Great Britain crossed by them. It has justly been said that the roads of the Roman Empire, whose strong net-work enlaced the known world, were the architectural glory of its people. These military roads caused in the various parts of the empire a wonderful social and commercial revolution. They made it possible for civilization to penetrate into the most remote retreats and to conquer their inhabitants more completely than could Cæsar at the head of his legions.
The Romans also had an efficient postal service, which was first instituted by Augustus and greatly improved by Hadrian. The former, as Gibbon states in his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," placed upon all roads leading away from the golden milestone of the Forum, at short distances, relays of young men to serve as couriers, and later provided vehicles to hurry information from the provinces. These posts facilitated communication through all parts of the empire, and while they were originally established in the interest of the government, they proved serviceable to individuals as well, for there is no doubt, that, together with the official dispatches, every courier carried private letters also.
The expenses of the post were largely defrayed by the cities through which it passed, these cities being obliged to provide the stations established within their territories with the necessary stores. At the principal stations were found inns, where the proprietors were held responsible for injuries suffered by travelers while in their houses.