What the Roman army was like, whence it was recruited, how it was armed, and what were its operations, are matters to be shown in a later chapter.  Regarded then as a controlling agent, maintaining widespread peace, the Roman Empire answers closely to the British raj in India.  The analogy could indeed be pressed very much further and with more closeness of detail, but this is scarcely the place for such a discussion.

CHAPTER II

TRAVEL WITHIN THE EMPIRE

Of the administration in Rome and throughout the provinces enough will be said in the proper place.  Meanwhile we may look briefly at one or two questions of interest which will presumably suggest themselves at this stage.  Since all this vast region now formed one empire, since Roman magistrates and officers were sent to all parts of it, since trade and intercourse were vigorous between all its provinces, it will be natural to ask, for example, by what means the traveller got from place to place, at what rate of progress, and with what degree of safety and comfort.

In setting forth by land you would elect, if possible, to proceed by one of the great military roads for which the Roman world was so deservedly famous.  Not only were they the best kept and the safest; they were also generally the shortest.  As far as possible the Roman road went straight from point to point.  It did not circumvent a practicable hill, nor, where necessary, did it shrink from cutting through a rock, say to the depth of sixty feet or so.  It did not avoid a river, but bridged it with a solid structure such as often remains in use till this day.  If it met with a marsh, wooden piles were driven in and the road-bed laid upon them.  When it came to a deep narrow valley it built a viaduct on arches.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.—­THE PONT DU GARD (AQUEDUCT AND BRIDGE).]

The road so laid was meant for permanence.  A width of ground was carefully prepared, trenches were dug at the sides, three different layers of road material were deposited, with sufficient upward curve to throw off the water, and then the whole was paved with closely-fitting many-cornered blocks of stone.  In the chief instances there were sidewalks covered with some kind of gravel.  The width was not great, but might be anything between ten and fifteen feet.  Along such roads the Roman armies marched to their camps, along them the government despatches were carried by the imperial post, and along them were the most conveniently situated and commodious houses of accommodation.  For their construction a special grant might be made by the Roman treasury—­the cost being comparatively small, since the work, when not performed by the soldiers, was done by convicts and public slaves—­and for their upkeep a rate was apparently levied by the local corporations.  Besides the paved roads there was, needless to say, always a number of smaller roads, many of them mere strips of four feet or so in width; there were also short-cuts, by-paths, and ill-kept tracks of local and more or less fortuitous creation.