=From Ephesus to Rome.= Travellers who preferred a shorter land and a longer water journey took ship from Ephesus to Corinth. Thence they were transferred across the isthmus to a ship which skirted the shores of Epirus and landed them at Brundisium. If they preferred a still longer water journey, they could take ship at Ephesus around the southern end of Greece, either to Brundisium or else through the straits of Messina; thence to Puteoli, or to Ostia, the port of Rome itself. =From Syria to Rome by Sea.= Travellers or merchants making the journey from Palestine wholly by water had before them the choice of two ways. The most common course was to take ship at some one of the ports of Syria: Cæsarea, Accho, Tyre, or Sidon. Thence they skirted the shores of Syria and Asia Minor to Rhodes, seeking a harbor each night or whenever the weather was unfavorable. From Rhodes the ordinary course was to the eastern end of Crete and thence along its southern shores, where favorable harbors could be found. From the western end of Crete the ancient mariners skirted the southern shores of Greece, and then, with the aid of the northern winds, which came down through the Adriatic, made their way to the eastern shores of Sicily and thence through the straits of Messina. From here they sailed to Puteoli or else to the mouth of the Tiber. =From Alexandria to Rome.= The second method of reaching Rome from Syria by sea was by way of Alexandria, which could be reached either by local ship or by the coast road. From this great seaport of Egypt, during the Roman period, fleets of large grain vessels made frequent trips, bearing Egyptian grain to the capital city. According to the Latin writer, Vegetius (IV, 39, V, 9) the open season for navigation on the Mediterranean extended from March tenth to November tenth, although the favorable season was limited to the four short months between May twenty-sixth and September fourteenth. From about the twentieth of July to the end of August the famous Etesian winds ordinarily blew steadily from the west. These winds made it possible for the fleets of east-bound merchantmen to make the trip from Rome to Alexandria in what seemed to the ancients the marvellously short period of from twenty to twenty-five days. The west-bound trip, however, was much more difficult. Owing to the prevailing west winds the mariners were obliged to cross the Mediterranean to some point on the southern shores of Asia Minor and thence to run westward from port to port along the usual route on the southern side of Crete and Greece.[2] [2] Cf. _Roads and Travel in the New Testament_, by Ramsay, in Extra Vol., Hastings's _Dictionary of the Bible_, pp. 375-403.