ROADS. In the East, where tmvelling is per formed mostly on some beast of burden, certain tracks were at a very early period customarily pur sued ; and that the rather as from remote ages commerce and travelling went on by means of caravans, under a certain discipline, and affording mutual protection in their passage from city to city, and from land to land. Now vvherever such a band of men and animals had once passed they would form a track which, especially in countries where it is easy for the traveller to miss his way, subsequent caravans or individuals would naturally follow ; and the rather inasmuch as the original route was not taken arbitrarily, but because it led to the first cities in each particular district of country. And thus at a very early period were there marked out on the surface of the globe lines of intercommuni cation, running from land to land, and in some sort binding distant nations together. These, in the earliest times, lay in the direction of east and west, that being the line on which the trade and the civilisation of the earth first ran.
The purposes of war seem, however, to have funiished the fitst inducement to tb.e formation of made or artificial roads. War, we know, afforded to the Romans the motive under which they formed their roads ; and doubtless they found them not only to facilitate conquest, but also to insure the holding of the lands they had subdued ; and the remains of their roads which we have under our own eyes in this island show us with ivhat skill they laid out a country, and formed lines of com munication. To the Romans, chiefly, was Pales tine indebted for such roads.
There seem, indeed, to have been roads of some kind in Palestine at an earlier period. Lang,uage is employed which supposes the existence of arti ficial roads. In Is. xl. 3 are these words, Pre pare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low ; and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.' There cannot be a more graphic description of the operations and re sults connected ivith the formation of a long and impOrtant road. That this is the language of pro phetic inspiration affords no objection, but rathei confirms our view ; for poetry, as being an appeal to widely-spread feelings, grounds itself in such a case as this 011 fact ; nor could such imagery as we find here have been employed, had artificial roads been unknown in Palestine. Nor is the
imagery unusual (comp. Is. xi. 16 ; xix. 23 ; xxxiii. ; xxxv. 8 ; xlix. It ; lxii. to). In I Sam. vi. 12 we read, The kine went along the high way-, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left.' In Numbers also (xx. 17), We will go by the king's highway,' etc.
(xxi. 2 2 ; Deut. 27 ; Lev. xxvi. 22). Whether or not these were roads in the modern acceptation of the term, we know from the law regarding a free, open, and good passage to the cities of re fuge (see that article, and Deut. xix. 3, compared with Mishna. tit. Maccolh), that the minds of the Israelites were early familiarised with the idea : Thou shalt prepare thee a way,' etc., that every slayer may flee thither.' And, much as we hesi tate to differ from so high an authority, we cannot agree with Winer (Real-wort. in Strasse'), that this last-cited passage stands alone ; for other passages have been given which, when taken in conjunction with it, seem to prove that to some extent artificial roads were known to the Hebrews in the commencement of their commonwealth. Indeed, it is highly probable that the Hebrews had become acquainted with roads during their sojourn in Egypt, where, in the Delta especially, the nature of the country would require roads and highways to be thrown up and maintained. Josephus (Antig. viii. 7. 4) expressly says, Solomon did not neglect the care of the ways, but he laid a causeway of black stone (basalt) along the roads that led to Jerusalem, both to render them easy for travellers and to manifest the grandeur of his riches.' Winer, indeed, remarks that Josephus's roads fnul no sup port in the Bible. But although these particular roads may not be mentioned, it does not hence follow that they- did not exist ; but mention is made, as we have seen, of ways and highways in the Scriptural authorities. To the Romans, how ever, Palestine was greatly indebted for its roads. On this subject Reland (Palostina) has supplied useful information. In the East generally, and in Palestine in particular, the Romans formed roads, and set up milestones, in imitation of what they had done in Italy. These stones bore the names antteict, crriAm, and /cloves. From the fact of their existing in Palestine, Eusebius, in his Onomasticon, frequently uses the terms ev ercry o-mhely, and similar phrases. In Reland's time fragments of these milestones still remained.