Roads and Harbors

This chapter provides a survey of the system of public roads in the region of Syria, Arabia, and Judaea/Palaestina and of the harbors on the Mediterranean coast. The systematic exploration of the Roman road network in Palestine started with the mapping activities of the Palestine Exploration Fund, a project which culminated in a series of maps published by the Fund. The road system east of the Jordan was studied by scholars such as Schumacher, Germer-Durand, and Butler. The road system in the province of Judaea/Syria Palaestina was an integrated system of four north-south arteries and a series of east-west routes. A study of the coastal road in Syria has shown that there was a change of organization of the road system in 198. In the plain and valleys, roads followed an alignment as straight as possible, familiar from aerial photographs all over the empire. The eastern Mediterranean coast has few good natural harbors.