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or less fortuitous creation.

      [Illustration: FIG. 2.—THE APPIAN WAY BY THE SO-CALLED TOMB OF

       SENECA.]

      Beside the great highways stood milestones in the shape of short pillars, and generally there were in existence charts or itineraries, sometimes pictured, giving all necessary directions as to the turnings, distances, stopping-places, and inns, and even as to the sights worth seeing on the way. Wherever there were such objects of interest—in Egypt, Syria, Greece, or any other region of art, history, and legend—the traveller could always find a professional guide, whose information was probably about as reliable as that of the modern cicerone. In Rome itself there was displayed, in one of the public arcades, a plan of the empire, with notes explaining the dimensions and distances.

      The vehicle employed by the traveller would depend upon circumstances. You would meet the poor man riding on an ass, or plodding on foot with his garments well girt; the better provided on a mule; a finer person or an official on a horse; the more luxurious or easy-going either in some form of carriage or borne in a litter very similar to the oriental palanquin. To carriages, which were of several kinds—two-wheeled, four-wheeled, heavy and light—it may be necessary to make further reference; here it is sufficient to observe that, in order to assist quick travelling, there existed individuals or companies who let out a light form of gig, in which the traveller rode behind a couple of mules or active Gaulish ponies as far as the next important stopping-place, where he could find another jobmaster, or keeper of livery-stables, to send him on further. The rich man, travelling, as he necessarily would, with a train of servants and with full appliances for his comfort, would journey in a coach, painted and gilded, cushioned and curtained, drawn by a team showily caparisoned with rich harness and coloured cloths. This must have presented an appearance somewhat similar to that of the extravagantly decorated travelling-coach of the fourteenth century. The ordinary man of modest means would be satisfied with his mule or horse, and with his one or two slaves to attend him. On the less frequented stretches of road, where there was no proper accommodation for the night, his slaves would unpack the luggage and bring out a plain meal of wine, bread, cheese, and fruits. They would then lay a sort of bedding on the ground and cover it with a rug or blanket. The rich folk might bring their tents or have a bunk made up in their coaches.

      Where there was some sort of lodging for man and horse the average wayfarer would make the best of it. In the better parts of the empire and in the larger places of resort there were houses corresponding in some measure to the old coaching-inns of the eighteenth century; in the East there were the well-known caravanserais; but for the most part the ancient hostelries must have afforded but undesirable quarters. They were neither select nor clean. You journeyed along till you came to a building half wine-shop and store, half lodging-house. Outside you might be told by an inscription and a sign that it was the "Cock" Inn, or the "Eagle," or the "Elephant," and that there was "good accommodation." Its keeper might either be its proprietor, or merely a slave or other tenant put into it by the owner of a neighbouring estate and country-seat. Your horses or mules would be put up—with a reasonable suspicion on your part that the poor beasts would be cheated in the matter of their fodder—and you would be shown into a room which you might or might not have to share with someone else. In any case you would have to share it with the fleas, if not with worse.

      Perhaps you base brought your food with you, perhaps you send out a slave to purchase it, perhaps you obtain it from the innkeeper. That is your own affair. For the rest you must be prepared to bear with very promiscuous and sometimes unsavoury company, and to possess neither too nice a nose nor too delicate a sense of propriety. Your only consolation is that the charges are low, and that if anything is stolen from you the landlord is legally responsible.

      [Illustration: FIG. 3.—PLAN OF INN AT POMPEII.]

      Doubtless there were better and worse establishments of this kind. There must have been some tolerably good quarters at Rome or Alexandria, and at some of the resorts for pleasure and health, such as Balae on the Bay of Naples, or Canopus at the Nile mouth. It is true also that for those who travelled on imperial service there were special lodgings kept up at the public expense at certain stations along the great roads. Nevertheless it may reasonably be asked why, in view of the generally accepted standards of domestic comfort and even luxury of the time—what may be called middle-class standards—there was no sufficiency of even creditable hotels. The answer is that in antiquity the class of people who in modern times support such hotels seldom felt the need of their equivalent. In the first place, they commonly trusted to the hospitality of individuals to whom they were personally or officially known, or to whom they carried private or official introductions. If they were distinguished persons, they were readily received, whether in town or country, on their route. In less frequented districts they trusted to their own slaves and to the resources of their own baggage. Their own tents, bedding, provisions and cooking apparatus were carried with them. If they made a stay of any length in a town, they might hire a suite of rooms.

      We must not dwell too long upon this topic. Suffice it that travel was frequent and extensive, whether for military and political business, for commerce, or for pleasure. Some roads, particularly that "Queen of Roads," the Appian Way—the same by which St. Paul came from Puteoli to Rome—must have presented a lively appearance, especially near the metropolis. Perhaps on none of these great highways anywhere near an important Roman city could you go far without meeting a merchant with his slaves and his bales; a keen-eyed pedlar—probably a Jew—carrying his pack; a troupe of actors or tumblers; a body of gladiators being taken to fight in the amphitheatre or market-place of some provincial town; an unemployed philosopher gazing sternly over his long beard; a regiment of foot-soldiers or a squadron of cavalry on the move; a horseman scouring along with a despatch of the emperor or the senate; a casual traveller coming at a lively trot in his hired gig; a couple of ladies carefully protecting their complexions from sun and dust as they rode in a kind of covered wagonette; a pair of scarlet-clad outriders preceding a gorgeous but rumbling coach, in which a Roman noble or plutocrat is idly lounging, reading, dictating to his shorthand amanuensis, or playing dice with a friend; a dashing youth driving his own chariot in professional style to the disgust of the sober-minded; a languid matron lolling in a litter carried by six tall, bright-liveried Cappadocians; a peasant on his way to town with his waggon-load of produce and cruelly belabouring his mule. If you are very fortunate you may meet Nero himself on one of his imperial progresses. If so, you had better stand aside and wait. It will take him a long time to pass; or, if this is one of his more serious undertakings, there will be a thousand carriages, many of them resplendent with gold and silver ornament in relief upon the woodwork, and drawn by horses or mules whose bridles are gleaming with gold. And, if the beautiful and conscienceless Poppaea is with him, there may be a Procession of some five hundred asses, whose it is to supply her with the milk in which she bathes for the preservation of her admirable velvety skin.

      There are, of course, many other individuals and types to be met with. If you happen to be traversing certain parts of Spain, the mountains of Greece, the southern provinces of Asia Minor, or the upper parts of Egypt, you will perhaps also meet with a bandit, or even with a band of them. In that case, prepare for the worst. Some of the gang have been caught and crucified: you may have passed the crosses upon your way. This does not render the rest more amiable. St. Paul takes it as natural to be thus "in peril of robbers." Perhaps certain regions of Italy itself were as dangerous as any. We have more than one account of a traveller who was last seen at such-and-such a place, and was never heard of again. It is therefore well, before undertaking a journey through suspected parts, to ascertain whether any one else is going that way. There is sure to be either an official with a military escort or some other traveller with a retinue; at least there will be some trusty man bearing letters, or some sturdy fellow whom you can hire expressly to accompany you.

      After allowing for this occasional embarrassment—which was certainly not greater and almost certainly very much less than you would have encountered in the same parts of the world a century ago—it must be declared that, on the whole, travel by land in the Roman world of the year 64 was remarkably safe. If it was not very expeditious, it was probably on the average quite as much so as in the eighteenth century.

      Ordinary travelling by road may not have averaged more than sixty or seventy miles a day, although

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