ABSTRACT
TRANSPORT by water was much more common in ancient times than carriage by road. It is true that, at a period when atmospheric phenomena had not been investigated and navigation was mainly carried out by sailing ship, the merchant fleets refrained for months at a time from putting to sea. The use of the rivers, whose flow was completely unregulated, was also subject to long periods of inaction. They constituted, however, like the sea, natural routes available to all and, again like the sea, they formed the necessary links between the nations.
