ROADS AND TRAVEL (LN NT)
But, in spite of these attempts to keep the peace along the roads, there was a considerable amount of insecurity. The inscriptions often mention guards or travellers slain by robbers.* Juvenal speaks of the brigands of the Campanian roads, who when actively pursued in their usual haunts find it the safest course to take refuge in Rome itself (Sat. iii. 305f.). The case described in Lk 10° was no uncommon one. St. Paul’s ‘perils of robbers’ (2 Co 11°) were very real: it was especi- ally in journeys through mountainous districts, where roads were not carefully guarded, that he had experienced those dangers, as Ac 13145! 1474 16°; but there was sometimes danger on the most frequented roads. Poorer travellers were those who suffered most, as was natural; the rich had large trains: important persons were granted an escort in some cases, e.g. Lucian was escorted by two soldiers through Cappadocia (Alex. 55).
The Roman roads were probably at their best during the Ist cent., after Augustus had put an end to war and disorder. In the troublous period at the close of Nero’s reign, disorder crept in again ; and it is doubtful if the Flavian rule ever succeeded in repressing it so completely as Augustus had done. Thus St. Paul travelled in the best and safest period, and yet the roads even then were in some places far from safe (though probably this was only in exceptional parts). In the decay of the Empire and the general relaxation of order during civil wars and during the growing weak- ness of administration in the 3rd cent., travelling was much less secure. On the whole subject see Friedlinder, p. 46 ff. ; O. Hirschfeld, ‘die Sicher- heitspolizei im roém. Reich’ (Berl. Sitzwngsber. 1891, p. 845ff.), ‘die aegypt. Polizei der rom. Kaiserzeit’ (ib. 1892, p. 815 ff.).
The Roman roads only traversed properly organ- ized provinces, and not either foreign countries or territory not yet administered on thorough Roman principles, such as Cappadocia. That province oc- cupied a peculiar position in the Roman Empire, as we have described it above, § viii. In the Pauline time, therefore, there was no Roman road lead- ing across it from Ancyra to the Cilician Gates. That road could not have been made before A.D. 74, when Vespasian made Cappadocia into a fully organized province.
There was one remarkable exception to this general rule. The road from Derbe to Tarsus led almost entirely through non- Roman territory (governed in St. Paul’s time by Antiochus Iv.). Yet that road had been necessary for Roman com- munication with the province Cilicia ever since that province was organized in B.C. 104. The precise authority which Rome exercised along the road, and the relation between Roman and regal power over it, are wholly obscure. It was impossible to leave a road, along which Roman officials and couriers were frequently obliged to travel in the exercise of their duties, entirely under non-Roman authority ; and yet it seems practically certain that Rome did not exercise authority over the cities on the course of the road before the time of Vespasian. It is in accordance with this anoma- lous position of affairs that no reference is made in Acts to that part of the road : itis wholly dropped out of sight, and the author speaks as if St. Paul passed directly from Cilicia into the Roman terri- tory of Galatia at Derbe. St. Paul and his his- torian were thoroughly penetrated by the Roman spirit, and simply ignored non - Roman, i.e. non- provincial, territory.
ii. CONSTRUCTION, MEASUREMENTS, MILE- STONES.—As to the construction of the Roman _ * CLL ii. 2968, 3479, iii. 2399, 2544; Cities and Bish. of Phr. 1. p. 828, No. 133; Sterrett, Epigr. Jowrney, No. 156; Boissier, Inser, de Lyon, 478, iv. ete.
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT)
ROADS AND TRAVEL (IN NT) 393
roads, itis unnecessary to speak here. The manner and measure varied greatly ; and in the East it is not probable that the roads were built on the same massive scale as the Appian Way. ‘Ten feet seems to have been a common breadth. The road through the long pass over Taurus, which leads from Tarsus to Tyana and to Kybistra, and which was built in a very costly and grand style, was 10 feet broad ; but this breadth was required to be entirely ser- viceable ; and where the road was cut through solid rock, the distance left between the rock walls seems to have been always fully 13 or 14 feet. The road across Taurus from Laranda to Olba and Korykos seems to have been nar- rower: it remains in a fairly complete condition about one to five miles from Korykos. But, again, some miles south of Ancyra, near Gorbeous, the Pilgrims’ Route seems to have been very much broader.
Milestones are frequently found in groups of three or four, new stones having been erected when repairs were made. But the later Emperors, especially those of the 4th cent., were usually satisfied with the substitution of their names for those of some earlier Emperors on an old milestone: this may be classed along with many other ex- amples of slovenliness and carelessness during the degradation of the Empire. _ After the 4th century hardly any milestones are known—one of many proofs that the Byzantine government had greatly