Thus through mountain tract and mountain trough the east found its way into the Anatolian plateau. Conversely the west made several successful scalings of its slopes. The valleys leading westward into the Ægean or northward into the Black Sea acted as breaches which facilitated human travel. Among these the Meander, Gediz and Sakaria are noteworthy. The “Royal Road” of the Persian period connected Ephesus with Susa by way of the Cilician Gates. It is described by Herodotus. Official despatch-bearers traveled over it in the fulfilment of their missions. Ramsay places this road north of the desert center of Asia Minor[202] and considers the southern route as the highway of the Graeco-Roman period. This last road is the shortest and easiest between Ægean ports and the Cilician Gates. The history of inland Asia Minor is the record of travel over the network of the region’s roads. Its chief events consist of military marches and trade travels. Urban life on this section of the peninsula had its origin in caravan halts. The cities of inner Anatolia represent successive stages of east-west travel. Their alignment serves to trace the course of the road. To our own day this part of Turkey has not been a land of settlement. In the southeastern half of Turkey human life has also been confined to highway regions. This part of the world is known to us as Syria or Mesopotamia. Both are depressed regions--channels of human flows--bordering the western and eastern sides of the Great Syrian desert which, wedge-like, interposes its shifting solitude of sand between the two as far as the foothills of the mountains on the north. West of Syria lies the Mediterranean; east of Mesopotamia the mountains of Persia. With such a pattern of land carving, it was natural that life and activity should have gathered in the precise regions where the historian finds them. A dominant fact recurs in every stage of the region’s history. Turkey is so placed that its possession is the goal of every nation which has risen to eminence in or around Turkish lands. Its control ushers in a period of great prosperity in every instance. Trade flows freely in the highways, carrying prosperity in its wake. The energy of the fortunate nation is spent to maintain the economic advantages secured. The loss of the highway zone is accompanied by national decline. A new nation rises and obtains the mastery of the road, and the cycle is repeated. The western Asiatic highway may aptly be named a highway of wealth or of misfortune.