Starting from Sardes, not from Smyrna and Ephesus, there appears to have been one continuous road to Susa (a city second in importance only to Babylon itself). “Royal stations and magnificent caravanserais,” says Herodotus, “continually succeed each other in all parts of it, and it passes through an inhabited and safe region all the way. First (from Sardes) there are twenty stations through Lydia and Phrygia, or ninety-four parasangs and a half (about two hundred and eighty-three miles). Leaving Phrygia we come to the river Halys, near which there is a guarded passage, necessary to be passed on our way over the river. On the other side of the river we come to Cappadocia, and through this country to the Cilician mountains, comprehending twenty-eight stations, or a hundred and four parasangs. We penetrate into these mountains through two sets of gates, at each of which there is a guard posted, and then traverse Cilicia, a space of three stations, or fifteen parasangs and a half. The river Euphrates, which can only be passed by a ferry, separates Cilicia from Armenia, in which there are fifteen stations, or fifty-six parasangs and a half. There is one place where a guard is posted, and four rivers which are crossed in boats. The first is the Tigris, the second and third bear the same appellation,[208] without being either the same river or flowing from the same country, as the first of them comes out of Armenia, and the other out of the land of the Matienians; the fourth is the Gyndes, which Cyrus dispersed by digging for it three hundred and sixty branches.[209] From Armenia into the land of the Matienians there are four stations; and eleven stations, or forty two parasangs and a half, from this country into that of the Cissians (Khuzistan), as far as the river Choaspes, which must likewise be passed in boats; and on the banks of this river stands the city of Susa. Thus, in the journey from Susa to Sardes, there are one hundred and eleven stations with the same number of caravanserais.” Here, then, is a record, four hundred and fifty years before our era, of a well made road of more than one thousand miles in length; and this road is still in existence.[210] [Sidenote: Between Tyre and Gerrha.] The trading routes between Babylon and Tyre, and more especially between Tyre and Gerrha[211] lay, in both cases, through long and uninterrupted deserts; a course, some have thought, chosen as better enabling merchants to preserve the secrecy of their business, and the real character of the wares in which they were trading. Baalath and “Tadmor in the desert”[212] (Baalbek and Palmyra) were, it is supposed, founded by Solomon with the intention of obtaining for himself a share of the commerce which the Phœnicians were at that time carrying on with Babylon and other inland cities. [Sidenote: Length of journey.]