mile, or about 1600 yards. Unfortunately that
route would generally take you nearly a month.

It is not probable that sea travelling was at all comfortable; but it
was apparently quite as much so, and quite as rapid, as it was on the
average a century ago. Ships were made strong and sound; nevertheless
shipwrecks were very frequent, as they always have been in sailing
days. Wreckers who showed false lights were not unknown. There is also
little doubt that the vessels were often terribly overcrowded; one
ship, it is said, brought no less than 1200 passengers from
Alexandria. That on which St. Paul was wrecked had 276 souls on board,
and one upon which Josephus once found himself had as many as 600. It
is incidentally stated in Tacitus that a body of troops, who had been
both sent to Alexandria and brought back thence by sea, were greatly
debilitated in mind and body by that experience. On the other hand, as
has been already stated, there was generally no such thing as a pirate
to be heard of in all the waters of the Mediterranean.

CHAPTER III

A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE PROVINCES

After thus considering, however incompletely, the manner in which the
people of the Roman world contrived to move about within the empire
itself, we may proceed to glance at the constituent parts of the world
in which they thus travelled to and fro.

And first we must draw a distinction of the highest importance between
the western and eastern halves. Naturally enough, Italy itself was
before all others the land of the Romans. It was the favoured land,
enjoyed the fullest privileges, and was the most completely romanized
in population, manners, and sentiment. Besides its larger and smaller
romanized towns--of which there were about 1200--it was dotted from
end to end with the country-seats and pleasure resorts of Romans.
North and west of Italy were various peoples, differing widely in
character, habits, and religion, as well as in physique. East of it
were various other peoples differing also from each other in such
respects, but for the most part marked by a common civilisation in
which the West had but an almost inconsiderable share. Before the
Roman conquest the nations and tribes of the West had been in general
rude, unlettered, and unorganised. Except here and there in Spain,
where the Phoenicians or Carthaginians had been at work, and in the
Greek colonies sprung from Marseilles, they had hardly possessed such
a thing as a town