In the east of Cappadocia the old Trade Route was in the time of Trajan, or perhaps already under Vespasian, merged in the military road system for the defence of the Euphrates frontier. _ 2, The Syrian Route coincided with the Trade Route from Ephesus through Tralles, Laodicea, Colossee, Apamea, etc., as far as Laodicea Kata- kekaumene. From that city the most direct path kept away along the north edge of the low range of hills called now Boz-Dagh, by Savatra to Hiera Hyde and Kybistra. But general intercourse avoided this path and turned south to Iconium, Derbe, Laranda, and Kybistra.
We may call this route the Syrian, as the Gates through which it issued from Laodicea on the Lycus were called the Syrian Gates.§ It was identical with the Eastern section of the Central Route of the Empire, § x., and coincided in part with the Overland Route, § viii.
An alternative for part of the way kept east- ward from Apamea through Apollonia and Pisidian Antioch, Neapolis, and Pappa to Iconium, where
* The view taken by many scholars, that St. Paul and the delegates chartered a vessel for their own voyage, is probably incorrect. See St. Paul the Traveller, p. 295.
t Diodorus, iii, 34,
t On these eastern roads, see Anderson in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1897, p. 22 ff. '
§ Cities and Bish. of Phrygia, i, p. 35.
it rejoined the other. This is the line that plays most part in the NT. More important cities lay along it; in practice it seems to have been the most important way.
A modification of this alternative route, made under the Emperor Augustus, was of some im- portance for a time. That Emperor founded a series of six military colonia, with Pisidian Antioch as the centre, to control the barely conquered tribes of the northern Taurus (i.e. Isauria and Pisidia). These six coloni@ were connected by a series of military roads, each of which was called Via Sebaste, the Augustan Way.* The road coming from Apamea coincided between Apollonia and Antioch with the Augustan Way coming from the western colonie ; and again south of Antioch it coincided for a long distance with the Augustan Way that leads to Lystra.
This Augustan Way is mentioned in the Acts of Paul and Thekla as rhv Bacihixhy odov rhv els Avorpavy pépovoay: starting from Antioch it coin- cided with the other road to a point about 24 miles from Iconium (west of the village Kizil- Euren), where it probably turned south to Lystra: in the story of Thekla, Onesiphorus went out to this point on the Basilike or Augustan Way and waited till Paul should pass. This line had more importance in a military and official point of view than in practical life.
Another alternative to part of the Syrian Route ran between Ephesus and Pisidian Antioch; it traversed the higher Phrygian lands,t and was useful only for travellers on foot or on horseback. It kept nearly in an easterly line from the one city to the other, ascending the Cayster valley, cross- ing the high and hilly region where the Cogamis rises, and through which the Meander breaks in a deep cafion, going through Seiblia and Metro- polis, and again crossing a ridge of mountains to reach Antioch. It is mentioned Ac 191.
3. An important route led from the harbours of the Propontis and Bosporus, and from Nicomedia and Nica, almost due east through Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus, keeping nearly parallel to the Black Sea coast. It traversed the long valley of the Amnias in Paphlagonia—a valley which is divided both from the sea and from the Central Plateau by two parallel mountain ridges. Many of the campaigns in the history of the Pontic and Bithynian kings were fought along this valley. The road must have played a considerable part in the development of society and religion in those northern provinces under the Roman Empire; but hardly anything is known on the subject owing to the almost entire loss of evidence.
4. Another very important road from the Propon- tis and Bosporus harbours and from Nicomedia, ran south through Nicaea to Dorylaion. There was a road-knot at Dorylaion: here met many ways: from Smyrna and Philadelphia on the south-west : from Synnada and the south: from Iconium and Lycaonia: from the Cilician Gates and Cilicia: from Ancyra and the East. The last mentioned way was afterwards the great Byzantine military road, which is very fully described in the His- torical Geography of Asia Minor, ch. G. The other roads that radiated from Dorylaion also became far more important in later times, when
*In St. Paul the Traveller, p. 64, the name is given not quite correctly as the ‘ Royal Way’: the Greek term was Baciixt odo, which might be rendered rightly so in English: but the Latin name, recently discovered on three milestones, proves that Pucinsz4 here is to be understood as ‘ belonging to the Emperor,’ who was called BeciAcés in purer Greek, XeBaoros in technical and common Greek.
t The line of the Basilike, as given in the map attached to St. Paul the Traveller, requires to be corrected near Lystra by recent discoveries ; the difference does not affect the argument, or any other opinions in the book.
{@.e, High or Central Phiygia, see vol, iii. pp. 8654, 8674,
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)