serviceable to individuals as well, for there is no doubt, that,
together with the official dispatches, every courier carried private
letters also.

The expenses of the post were largely defrayed by the cities through
which it passed, these cities being obliged to provide the stations
established within their territories with the necessary stores. At the
principal stations were found inns, where the proprietors were held
responsible for injuries suffered by travelers while in their houses.

The communication of the Roman Empire was scarcely less free and open by
sea than it was by land. Italy has by nature few safe harbors, but the
energy and industry of the Romans corrected the deficiencies of nature
by the construction of several artificial ports.

After the downfall of the Roman Empire its roads were either destroyed
by the people through whose territories they led or by the conquerors,
to render more difficult the approach of an enemy.

Civilization and commerce greatly suffered through the downfall of Rome,
and did not again revive until after the struggles of the Northern
Christian races with the Southern and Eastern nations, which had become
Mohammedan. The sixth and seventh centuries were the darkest in the
history of Europe. Charlemagne, toward the close of the eighth century,
caused many of the old Roman roads to be repaired and new ones to be
constructed. He, as well as several of his immediate successors, made
use of mounted messengers to send imperial mandates from one part of the
realm to the other. The rulers of the succeeding centuries did not
profit, however, by this example, and the roads of the empire again fell
into decay. Moreover, the public safety was greatly impaired by robbers
and feudal knights, whose depredations were so heavy a tax upon commerce
as to greatly discourage it. Trade under these circumstances would have
been entirely destroyed, had it not been for the merchants' unions which
were formed by the larger cities for the protection of their interests.
These organizations maintained the most important thoroughfares, and
even furnished armed escorts to wayfaring merchants. Commerce thus
flourished in, and commercial relations were kept up among, the cities
immediate between Venice and Genoa, as well as the cities on the Rhine
and Danube. Florence, Verona, Milan, Strasbourg, Mayence, Augsburg, Ulm,
Ratisbon, Vienna and Nuremberg were flourishing marts, and through them
flowed the curr