The Roman Paradox

Picture a single rolled scroll of papyrus, sealed in a leather case, light enough to carry under one arm. Now picture what stood against it: 186,000 miles of stone-paved Roman road, enough to wrap around the whole earth more than seven times, every mile of it laid to move soldiers and collect taxes. Iron, stone, and the largest army the world had yet seen, all aimed at one purpose — to bend the known world to the will of one man in Rome. And yet the strange truth of this chapter is that the empire's own roads and ships would carry the very message that one day replaced it.

Key Terms

Lex Gabinia
The 67 BC law that gave one Roman general sweeping command over the entire Mediterranean Sea to hunt down pirates.
Pompey
The Roman general who divided the Mediterranean into zones and swept out the pirates in about 40 days with roughly 120,000 soldiers.
Cilicia
The rocky coastal region in what is now southern Turkey that sheltered more than 1,000 pirate ships before 67 BC.
Mare Nostrum
The Latin name Romans gave the Mediterranean Sea once piracy was cleared, meaning "Our Sea."
Isis (grain ship)
A Roman grain freighter about 180 feet long that carried roughly 1,200 tons of wheat, the weight of about 200 elephants.
Via Appia
The stone road outside Rome whose surface still humps gently in the middle after 2,000 years, shedding rain into ditches on each side.
Camber
The gentle upward curve built into the middle of a Roman road, letting rainwater drain off into stone ditches on either side.
Via Egnatia
The Roman highway running about 700 miles from the Adriatic coast toward Byzantium, where a walker could cover roughly 20 miles a day.
Pavimentum
The top layer of a Roman road: tightly fitted, cambered stone slabs laid over a dug trench, rubble, and fine concrete.
Lex Julia
The law under which a magistrate who tortured or executed a Roman citizen without a proper trial could himself be put to death.
Provocatio
The legal right of a Roman citizen facing a capital charge to refuse a local court and demand judgment in Rome, guarded, at state expense.
Koine Greek
The common trade language spoken from Asia Minor to Italy, letting a letter written in one province be read aloud in another without a translator.
Erastus of Corinth
The wealthy city treasurer who paved a public square in Corinth at his own expense; his name is still cut into that stone today.
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
The temple near which silver-shrine makers rioted to protect their idol trade when the new teaching threatened their sales.
Cursus publicus
The official Roman courier system that moved about 50 miles a day by relays of horses, but carried government and military messages only.
Phoebe
A deaconess and wealthy patron who spent her own money to sail from Corinth to Rome, carrying a scroll the Roman state could call treason.
Cenchreae
The eastern harbor of Corinth, the dock where a woman boarded a ship carrying a dangerous scroll toward Rome.
Prostatis
The Greek term for a wealthy patron who used her own money to fund and protect others in the early network.
Gallio
The Roman proconsul who held office in Corinth from AD 51 to 52, the exact date confirmed by an inscription found at Delphi.
Pliny
The Roman governor who ordered in AD 112 that anyone refusing to burn incense to the emperor’s statue be executed.