A business letter written in Puteoli on 23 July, A.D. 174, was delivered in Tyre a hundred and seven days later,+ though it was sent in the most favour- able season for sailing. This letter would not be transmitted by the Imperial service, but by private agents, travelling doubtless by ship. It could hardly have been sent by one of the large ships running direct to Alexandria, but was more probably sent on a trading vessel which went by Cape Malea and the Asian coast, and probably spent time in vari- ous harbours. St. Jerome sailed in August from Portus Augusti, by Malea, through the Cyclades, by the Asian coasts and Cyprus to Syrian Antioch, whence he went on to Jerusalem, which he reached in winter ;{ this voyage was made along the same route by which the letter to Tyre travelled, but seems to have been quicker.
With similar variation in speed, letters from Rome in Cicero’s time reached Athens—in one case arriving on 14 October in twenty-one days, in another case in forty-six days during July and August :§ the former is mentioned as showing ereat activity on the part of the messenger ; the latter, though so slow, came in the most settled season of the year.
vill, OVERLAND ROUTE AND IMPERIAL Post- ROAD FROM ROME TO THE EAst.—While passen- gers to and from Egypt or Syria seem frequently to have travelled along the coasts of Asia Minor and Crete, it is not probable that the Imperial de- spatches and news went regularly by that route, which was uncertain and (at least during a con- siderable part of the year) liable to great variation in time. The fast sea passage (see § iii.) was of course preferred during the open season ; but it may be regarded as probable that during the rest of the year the Imperial service to the eastern provinces was conducted by the overland route through Macedonia and Thrace. Only in this way could that regularity of communication which was important for administrative purposes be attained. For those purposes reasonable certainty as to when instructions would be received was in many cases even more important than the chance of the mes- sages being delivered more quickly ; and, where speed was important, it was always possible to send a special messenger in addition by the route which offered the chance of more rapid delivery. Hence even Syria and Egypt probably communi- cated regularly with Rome by the overland route during the stormy and the doubtful seasons of the year.
Hudemann (Geschichte des rém. Postwesens, p. 163f.) and other writers have rightly maintained that ships were used only as a subsidiary and occasional method of communication for Imperial
* Cicero, ad Fam. xii. 10. 2 (false number in Friedlander, p. 31, note), ad Att. xiv. 9.
+ The case is quoted by Friedlinder from Mommsen in Ber. d. Stichs. Gesellsch. 1850, ii. p. 61, to which the present writer has not had access.
t Hieron. c. Rusin. iii. 22, ed. Vallars. ti. 51.
§ Cicero, ad Fam. xvi. 21. 1; xiv. 5.1. See also § xii. 5.
384 ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)
purposes, and not as a regular and permanent part of the postal system, at least under the early Empire; but under Hadrian a procurator (pro- curator pugillationis et ad naves vagas) was sta- tioned at Ostia (or Portus Augusti), possibly to regulate the transmission of despatches by occa- sional or special ships (CTL xiv. 2045).*
Moreover, the overland route was the shorter for many provinces, even in the open season, and had therefore to be maintained in full efficiency throughout the year. Hence it must have been the main route for administrative purposes ; and every other route, even the short sea route in summer, was merely subsidiary and additional to the great way for the Imperial couriers.
An incidental proof of the preference of land to sea travel for Imperial communication is furnished by two of Pliny’s despatches to Trajan. He men-: tions (Zp. 63) that a courier came to him at Nica from the king of Bosporus (Pantikapzeum on the European side of the entrance to the Sea of Azoff) ; but it is also implied there and in Ep. 67 that the embassy from Bosporus on its way to Rome would pass through Bithynia, and be obliged in courtesy to pay a call on him as governor in pass- ing. The official way, then, was not to sail from the Crimea to the Hellespont or to Byzantium, but to take ship to Amastris or Sinope, the shortest
sea passage, and then travel by land. The purely land route from the Crimea through South Russia
round the north-western coasts of the Black Sea was not open to the Roman service, because it led through foreign territory.
The regular course for the couriers carrying despatches from Rome was along the Appian Way to Brundisium. Then they crossed from Brun- disium to Dyrrachium or Aulona, and thence went by the Via Egnatia to Thessalonica and Philippi and its harbour Neapolis. The direct and apparently easy route along the coast to Neapolis was avoided by the Roman road (as the Itineraries are agreed): the road turned away from the crossing of the Hebrus at Amphipolis (Ac 16) inland to Philippi, the great Roman colonia, before seeking the harbour ; but there was, doubt- less, always a path in local use from Amphipolis direct to Neapolis.