The saying “All roads lead to Rome” has a subtext, which is that, among other technological innovations, the Romans built actual roads that wheeled vehicles could travel on. Everywhere else transport was pack animals on narrow trails. Like the caravans of Silk Road fame. The Romans could move far more stuff around on their roads than their neighbors could. It made them quicker on their feet than their roadless opponents. You could call their roads a technological edge.
Let’s recap a myth.
A lot of myths, it has been later discovered, have grown up around events that at some point scientists discover actually happened. Troy, for instance. Homer’s story was described as “mythic” before the ruins of the city were located in far western Anatolia (anciently called Ionia) and excavated in the 1870s.
Well, there was this guy, Aeneas. He was the child of Anchises and Aphrodite, the Goddess, and cousin of King Priam of Troy. Aeneas had a minor but honorable role in Homer’s Trojan War, and was a “good guy,” whom the Gods granted the right to survive the destruction of Troy. He proceeded to wander around for a while.
His story was taken up by the Roman writer, Virgil, in “the Aenead.”
Meanwhile, over in Tyre, the Phoenician city, now in Lebanon, King Belus II died, and the throne passed to his two children: daughter Dido and son Pygmalion. Pygmalion
