acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

430 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
permanent greatness. It is the story of almost all
the great Greek cities of the ancient world. Their
greatness was largely the work of their citizens.
These cities were in a sense artificial creations, and
when their Greek citizens degenerated and the cities
declined no deep-seated reasons existed for more virile
races to occupy the same sites.
Aleppo, on the contrary, stood within the area
of the greater influences. Now these were largely
or almost entirely the great natural overland trade
routes and the geographical features which produced
such routes. Antioch, indeed, might intercept the
route which lay to and from the Mediterranean and
the East, but in days of limited sea-trade, accompanied
by countless risks, this was a traffic small in comparison
with that which flowed by the land routes.
The chief overland routes between Europe and Asia
—omitting roads from the Black Sea and Europe
and Africa—went round the head of the Gulf of
Alexandretta and could cross the Amanus range by
only two passes,—the northern one now called the
Baghche Pass, the southern the Beilan Pass. Antioch
lay too far to the south to intercept traffic going by
either of these passes, and therefore was in a sort
of backwater. Traffic crossing Beilan Pass would
go several days' journey out of its way to reach
Antioch and regain the direct route ; and for traffic
by the Baghche Pass, Antioch meant a still greater
diversion. These two passes, one believes, have had
almost everything to do with the impermanence of
Antioch and the permanence of Aleppo.
Another powerful influence which has always exerted
itself in favour of Aleppo and against Antioch as the
chief city and trading centre of these parts is the
attraction of Asia Minor. As a great and rich
territory much of the trade between East and West
originated in Asia Minor, and the tendency of such
trade was to seek a route as little to the south as
possible, and not only a route, but a mart in the
same favourable position. By reason of the routes