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Rh auxiliaries recruited from friendly tribes. The transversal road from east to west, connecting the cities of the Tigris and Euphrates with those of the Mediterranean and passing through Palmyra, cut across this territory, bisecting the caravan route from Arabia to Damascus. Political security and the improvement in communications promoted a tend- ency towards settled life on the part of nomadic or semi- nomadic communities. Urbanization was a cardinal point in Roman policy.

In brief, it may be claimed that the chief service which Roman administration rendered the Syrian province was immunity from civil disturbances and protection against external enemies. Incidentally it opened up a wider market, a world market before it. In the first century of imperial rule Syrian recovery from the depression into which it had sunk as a result of foreign and civil wars was rapid. The province found itself an integral part of an empire that stretched from the Atlantic and the North Sea to the Euphrates and from the Rhine and the Danube to the Sahara. Under the shelter of imperial arms order and peace prevailed ; security from brigandage and piracy was established. Parthian and Arabian incursions were checked. Strategic passes, like the Cilician, were well guarded. A network of well-drained roads, an outstanding achievement of administrative and engineering skill, knit all parts of the empire into a relatively compact unit. Augustus instituted a postal service which brought the central government into closer contact with its provincial agents. Trade was stimu- lated. The curve of prosperity tended upward again. After a.d. 70 the entire Roman state enjoyed a long period of immunity from serious civil disturbances. From a.d. 96 to 180 it was fortunate in having an unbroken succession of worthy emperors beginning with Nerva and ending with Marcus Aurelius. Under them Roman Syria attained its widest extent and greatest prosperity. The sense of security, the extension of the road system Rh