The great stages on this road were Cesarea, Syrian Antioch, Tarsus, Cybistra,* Derbe, Iconium, Pisidian Antioch, Apamea, Laodicea, Ephesus, and Corinth or Athens. Each of these was a knot where the roads of a whole district met, and where its trade and intercommunication and education found a centre.
Thus this great artery was the channel in which the life-blood of the Empire mainly flowed. It was not the route along which goods mostly moved, but it was the route of those who directed trade, as well as of thoughts and inventions. Along this road it was St. Paul’s early idea to move towards Rome. In his second journey, Ephesus attracted him as the city ‘in which the East looked out on the West,’ z.e. on Rome ;+ but he was diverted by Divine impulse to Philippi. Again, the last missionary idea which he had in mind before his final imprisonment and condemna- tion was to winter in Nicopolis (Tit 3'°), a point on
* There was a more direct road from Cybistra by Hyde, Savatra, Laodicea Katakekaumene, Philomelium, and Julia, to Apamea (p. 390); but it did not lead through the great cities, and the list of names shows that it did not play such an im-
portant part in early Christian life as the longer road. + See Hort, Lectures on Ephesians, p. 813.
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT) 389
the coasting voyage between Corinth and Brun- disium.
The route involved a good deal of variety, change of transport and method in travelling. It was partly a sea route, partly a land road. From Syria to Ephesus it was usually a land road (though it was free to the traveller to vary it by using the sea for this part of the journey). Be- tween Ephesus and Corinth the communication was by sea; and again between Corinth and the coast of Italy. Though a land road was possible for a great part of the way in this latter stretch, it was rarely or never employed except for purely local communication, since it traversed barren, mountainous, and sparsely populated, almost bar- barous lands, and there were on it no great cities or centres of thought and trade. But the sea way ee several important centres before it reached
aly.
Either of two sea ways to Italy was open from Corinth. Probably the more common was along the coast of Acarnania and Epirus, by Nicopolis, to Brundisium, as described in part in the Itinerariwm Maritimum, p. 488, and thence by the Appian Way, the ‘Queen of Roads,’ through Tarentum, Venusia, Beneventum, and Capua to Rome.
But Ostia or Puteoli was sometimes substituted for Brundisium as the Italian harbour in this route. lius Aristides travelled by this way from Rome to Miletus and Smyrna, starting in Septem- ber A.D. 145. Friedlinder (p. 28f.) thinks he reached Miletus in fourteen days from Rome; but this is certainly erroneous, and the interpretation of Aris- tides’s words must be incorrect. Masson reckons the fourteen days from Corinth to Miletus, which is much more probable. This would be a very slow and tedious passage, but not improbable, if winds were unfavourable. Friedlinder supposes that Aristides sailed in thirty-six hours from Sicily to Cephallenia, which is incredible 3* the steamers of the Messageries Maritimes would take nearly that time for the crossing. The distin- guished German scholar has made the mistake of ignoring the halt which (as we have already pointed out) probably took place at Corinth, and perhaps at islands in the Agean Sea as well as at Miletus. Finally, Aristides says that he did not reach Smyrna until winter had begun, which implies a journey of nearly two months, if not more; for he seems to mean that the bad weather of winter had begun, and it is rare for such weather to begin before the middle of December or even later.
In truth, it is vain to think of reckoning the average time required on this journey. It was not made continuously. Its importance and character arise from the fact that travellers frequented it with the intention of staying at various points on its course, seeing and talking and learning and teaching and transacting private or public business.
These statements should not be taken as involv- ing an assertion that no one ever travelled without halts by this route: there are no universal rules in human conduct. But continuous unhalting travel was not the intention of this route ; and even when halts are not actually mentioned, it cannot be assumed in any case without careful consideration that no halts were made. The two creat breaks and changes, at Corinth and at Ephesus, required new arrangements at those places, thus caused at least some short delay, and easily led to considerable halts. The traveller from
* Aristides, Or. 24, p. 305 (ed. Dindorf, vol. i. p. 481). East- ward-bound ships made for Cyllene in Elis, six days from Sicily (Philost. Apoll. Tyan. viii. 15. 1; Paus. vi. 26. 3). Friedlander quotes Apollonius’s voyage (vii. 10. 1), five days, Corinth to Puteoli; but common men needed longer time.
Rome landed at Lechzeum, on the Corinthian Gulf, and had to find a new vessel at Cenchrez for his eastern passage. He naturally waited for some time at so famous a city as Corinth while making the new arrangements. The diolkos, or portage of vessels across the Isthmus, could be used only for very small vessels, and cannot be reckoned as a factor in the ordinary travelling system.