[Avodah] everyone is a liar

[Zev Sero]

Arie Folger wrote:
> On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Zev Sero <zev at sero.name> wrote:
>> The Romans, yes; but that was precisely one of their major inventions
>> that allowed them to establish and control an empire greater than any
>> previous one, for far longer than anyone before them ever managed.
>> And there aren't many Roman roads in EY.  The standard road that Chazal
>> discuss is a pre-Roman cow path, or even one that arose in the old way
>> during Roman times.  "Sratia gedolah haholechet me'ir le'ir" is surely
>> a Roman road, as indicated by the use of the Latin word for it.
 
> How so? Chazal lived in the Roman period, they shared a common
> experience on roads.

The Tana'im lived in the early period of direct Roman rule; how many
roads would the Romans have built by their time?  For that matter, how
many did they ever build in EY, in all their centuries of occupation?
We know Chazal were familiar with the concept of a Roman road, because
they talk about "sratia"; but by that very token we can deduce that a
"derech" is a normal road, i.e. not one of these new-fangled planned
super-highways.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher