owley, in his
Essay on 'Procrastination,' extracts a moral, or, as his Puritan
contemporaries would have phrased it, a "pious use." "Caesar," he says,
"the man of expedition above all others, was so far from this folly
(procrastination), that whensoever in a journey he was to cross any
river, he never went out of his way for a bridge, or a ford, or a ferry,
but flung himself into it immediately, and swam over; and this is the
course we ought to imitate, if we meet with any stops in our way to
happiness." In the time of Theodosius, Caesarius, a magistrate of high
rank, went post from Antioch to Constantinople. He began his journey at
night, was in Cappadocia, 165 miles from Antioch, the ensuing evening,
and arrived at Constantinople the sixth day about noon. The whole
distance was 725 Roman, or 665 English miles.

Gibbon describes bishops as among the most rapid of ancient travellers.
The decease of a patriarch of Alexandria or Antioch caused the death of
scores of post-horses, from the rate at which anxious divines hurried to
Constantinople to solicit from the Emperor the vacant see. On the whole
however, in respect of speed in travelling, the Greeks and Romans were
but slow coaches; and these exceptional instances merely serve to prove
the general slackness of their pace. A Roman nobleman indeed, with all
the means and appliances which his wealth could purchase, and with the
positive advantage of the best roads in the world, travelled generally
with such a ponderous train, that the heavy-armed legions with their
parks of artillery might well advance as rapidly as an Olybrius or
Anicius of the Empire. "In their journeys into the country," says
Ammianus, "the whole body of the household marches with their master. In
the same manner as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy and the light
armed troops, the advanced guard and the rear, are marshalled by the
skill of their military leaders; so the domestic officers who bear the
rod, as an ensign of authority, distribute and arrange the numerous train
of slaves and attendants. The baggage and wardrobe move in the front;
and are immediately followed by a multitude of cooks and inferior
ministers, employed in the service of the kitchen and of the table. The
main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of slaves, increased by the
accidental concourse of idle or dependent plebeians."

At an even earlier period, in the age of Nero, before luxury had made the
gigantic strid