VIII. COMMERCE OF DORIC STATES
On the commerce of Greece, which would supply materials for an interesting work, it is not my design to enter into very numerous details, though a brief view of the subject belongs to this undertaking. The blessings of commerce are well understood in our times, and the grand scale upon which it is now conducted may perhaps induce some to look back with something like contempt on its feeble beginnings in the Mediterranean.[1465] There, however, lay the centre of that circle which has gone on increasing until it at length embraces the whole world, and almost renders the most distant races necessary to each other. It must be interesting, therefore, to look
“O’er the dark backward and abysm of time,”
at the first movements of men towards forging the links of this chain which binds together the whole human race in one society, disturbed sometimes by evil passions, but cohering nevertheless, and apparently becoming more interfused daily.
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Footnote 1465:
The reader will find in the work of Monsieur F. Thiersch, De l’Etat actuel de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 72, sqq., an interesting and instructive chapter on the trade carried on by the descendants of that people whose manners and customs I have undertaken to describe. He there enters at length into the advantageous position of the country, and the upright and honourable character of its inhabitants, of whose singular probity he produces many proofs. Other writers have taken a different view of the modern Greek character. But I am disposed to place more reliance on the statement of M. Thiersch than on that of those prejudiced travellers who desire to obtain a reputation for exactness by an ill-natured interpretation of a free people whose hospitality they have enjoyed, and in too many cases abused.
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In this movement there were, doubtless, several nations that preceded the Greeks. The civilisation of the East existing anterior to that of Greece, it was the Orientals who made the first step towards opening up that intercourse which afterwards became so intimate between the inhabitants of Hellas and the Arabs of Phœnicia, the Egyptians, the Persians, and other nations of the East. At first, indeed, the camel,[1466] that important instrument of human improvement, revealed to the rude tribes bordering on Arabia, the existence of wants within them, of which they before knew nothing. He came with sweets and luxuries on his back to the hamlet or the encampment, and by the sight of them created desires, to gratify which the aid of industry was to be called in. At a very early age strings of camels, laden with perfumes and spices, and gold, traversed the plains of western Asia, ascended and descended along the Nile, penetrated the northern coasts of Africa, and, by barter and traffic, diffused the productions of the East much further even than their own footsteps reached, as now the manufactures of England find their way into the countries never beheld by an Englishman.
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Footnote 1466:
See a picture of this beast and his baskets, Antich. di Ercol. t. v. p. 5. In the book of Genesis, chap. xxxvii. v. 25, we find a brief picture of the commerce carried on by means of this animal, and an enumeration of some of the principal commodities which he bore from country to country. “And they (the sons of Jacob) sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes, and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.”
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Presently the blue and beautiful waters of the Mediterranean tempted the adventurous Arabs who had settled in Phœnicia, the country of the palm-tree, to launch their barks on it, and push from isle to isle till they found themselves in Hellas, where the beauty of the women occasionally, perhaps, when they were not to be enticed away, may have tempted an adventurer[1467] to remain as other Arabs have done in every land whither they have wandered.[1468] This, I am persuaded, is all that can be conceded to those who see so many proofs of Oriental colonies in Greece. But though the Orientals did not colonize Greece, they no doubt aided very powerfully in civilizing it. For when the rude natives saw that there were many desirable things to be obtained from the strangers if they could give them any thing valuable in return, it must have set their wits at work to invent new means of obtaining the things they coveted. At the outset it was a rough system of barter. The Phœnicians took the produce of the country in exchange for their merchandise, and secured their own success by awakening an appetite for pleasures which they alone could furnish.
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Footnote 1467:
This is, moreover, the common opinion. Thus Dionysios (Perieg. v. 907, seq.)
—πρῶτοι νήεσσιν ἐπειρήσαντο θαλάσσης, Πρῶτοι δ᾽ ἐμπορίης ἁλιδινέος ἐμνήσαντο.
They first in ships the billowy ocean tried, And first sea-wandering commerce gave to man.
On this account Cicero observes: “Eos primos mercatores mercibus suis avaritiam, magnificentiam et inexplebiles cupiditates primum in Græciam intulisse.” De Rep. fr. l. 111. ap. Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 10. 1.
Footnote 1468:
Some such event as this is no doubt alluded to in the story of Cadmos.
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However, tradition has preserved evident traces of voyages of discovery and commercial adventure undertaken by the Greeks[1469] themselves, in imitation of the Phœnicians,—for, into this the Argonautic expedition, in what direction soever it proceeded, resolves itself, in fact. The Greeks possessed manufactures, ships, commerce, and, as a consequence, considerable wealth, long before the birth of history, a circumstance which goes far to overthrow the wild theories of certain modern scholars respecting the Iliad and Odyssey; for, if the Greeks had constant dealings with nations who were indisputably in possession of the art of writing, with abundant materials, they must have been the slowest and most stupid of mankind if they neglected to imitate those nations. Besides, the Phœnicians would be as ready to supply them with paper, parchment, and whatever else they wrote on, as with any other articles of commerce, and must have desired to awaken in them the wish to consume what they were deeply interested in supplying. Thus, if the Phœnicians and Egyptians understood the art of writing, as from the sacred Scriptures we know they did, it is all but impossible that the Greeks should have remained ignorant of it.
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Footnote 1469:
Apollodoros, recounting the exploits of the Argonauts, mentions incidentally a curious particular respecting the women of Lemnos, who, he says, were deserted by their husbands on account of the ill odour they exhaled. Their places were supplied by female slaves from Thrace; upon which, in revenge, they murdered all the men in the island, with the exception of Thoas, who was saved by his daughter, Hypsipyle. Biblioth. i. 9. 17. Cf. Pind. Pyth. iv. 159, sqq. ed. Dissen. whose commentary may be consulted, t. ii. p. 235.
Homer, of course, supplies the best account we can possess of Grecian commerce in remote antiquity, though it had been carried on ages before his time. Mariners, in the Odyssey, obtain the name of πρηκτῆρες, or “merchants,” and are elsewhere said to plough the seas, ἐπὶ πρῆξιν καὶ χρήματα,—“for traffic and gain.”[1470] The most celebrated mariners known to Homer were the Phœnicians, whom he therefore terms,
Ναυσίκλυτοι ἄνδρες Τρῶκται, μυρί᾽ ἄγοντες ἀθύρματα νηῒ μελαίνῃ.[1471]
Famous mariners, Roguish, numerous trinkets bringing in black ships.
Footnote 1470:
Odys. θ. 162. Hymn. in Apoll. 397.
Footnote 1471:
Odyss. ο. 414, seq.
That from the beginning, moreover, they obtained celebrity for their piratical arts, the story of Eunæos, in the Odyssey, and the rape of Io, as related by Herodotus,[1472] clearly show. Nay, Thucydides himself, in a recapitulation of the ancient history of Greece, observes that the islanders, chiefly Carians and Phœnicians, were no less renowned than their neighbours for piracy.[1473] The Phœnicians, however, would appear to have led the way, and, probably, by their successes excited the emulation of the Carians, who drove them from the island, and adopted the business of piracy in their stead.[1474]
Footnote 1472:
L. i. c. 2. See, also, Philost. Vit. Apollon. iii. 24. p. 114.
Footnote 1473:
Thucyd. i. 8. Tournefort, Voyage, i. 154. The Phocians, also, about the time when they founded Marseilles, distinguished themselves at once by their mercantile and piratical habits. Namque Phocenses exiguitate ac macie terræ coacti studiosius mare quam terras exercuêre: piscando, mercando plerumque etiam latrocinio maris quod illi temporibus gloriæ habebatur, vitam tolerabant. Justin. 43. 3.
Footnote 1474:
Conon. Dieg. 47. ap. Phot. Cod. 141. a. 20. Hudson, ad Thucyd. t. i. p. 302. See in Scheffer, De Re Militiâ Navali, Addenda, Lib. Prim. p. 313, a list of the nations who anciently exercised the piratical art.
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Though the value of the precious metals was already well understood, they had not been adopted as the sole instruments of exchange; for, from the often-cited passage of the Iliad,[1475] it is clear that the practice of barter still prevailed. The poet describes certain ships arriving at the Grecian camp with a cargo of wine from Lemnos, on which the chiefs and soldiers flock to the shore, and provide themselves with what they needed, some giving in exchange for it a quantity of brass, iron, skins; and others, oxen or slaves. Among the rustic population of Greece, if the poets may be relied on, the system of barter prevailed down to a very late period, since we find the goatherd, in Theocritus,[1476] giving a she-goat and a cheesecake for a pastoral cup. The Spartans, too, after the death of Polydoros, purchased his palace from the widow for a certain number of oxen; whence it was afterwards called βοώνητα,[1477] or “bought with oxen,” unless the legend was invented to account for the name. Pausanias, however, states as a reason for the transaction, that neither gold nor silver money was yet in use, but that things were disposed of after the ancient fashion of exchanging goods for their value in some other article,—oxen, slaves, or gold or silver in ingots. He adds, in illustration, that the Indians, even in his age, were ignorant of the use of money, though abounding with the precious metals, and used to barter their own manufactures for the merchandise brought by the Greeks: besides, at Sparta, there was a law, attributed to Lycurgos, which prescribed barter in lieu of purchase and sale.[1478]
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Footnote 1475:
Il. η. 472, sqq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 1.
Footnote 1476:
Eidyll. i. 57, seq. where, for τυρόεντα, both Porson and Kiessling propose τυρῶντα. Ἄρτον τυρῶντα occurs in a fragment of Sophron. ap. Athen. iii. 75.
Footnote 1477:
Paus. iii. 12. 1-3.
Footnote 1478:
Justin, iii. 2.
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From a passage in the Iliad, which would seem to signify the direct contrary, it has been inferred, that the use of money in commerce was known among the Greeks in the Homeric age. Speaking of the exchange of armour, between Glaucos and Diomedes, the poet says:
Χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι ἐννεαβοίων.[1479]
Gold armour for brazen, a hundred-ox value for nine.
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Footnote 1479:
Il. ζ. 236.
An ancient scholiast on the passage understands by βοῦς a piece of money, stamped on one side with the figure of an ox, and on the other with that of a king.[1480] But one of the scholia published by Villoison, observes on the word ἑκατόμβοια, “worth a hundred oxen, for they did not as yet make use of money.” Another scholion,[1481] however, remarks, οἱ γὰρ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐν τοῖς ἐαυτῶν νομίσμασι βοῦν ἐνετύπουν. Pollux[1482] relates the same fact, observing that, in remote antiquity, the Athenians made use of a piece of money called βοῦς, because it had impressed upon it the figure of an ox, and that, by many, Homer was supposed to have alluded to this Attic coin in the verse above cited, “indocte,” however, as Heyne[1483] observes. Mention of a fine called δεκάβοιον occurred, according to Pollux, in the laws of Dracon; and in the procession (θεωρία) to Delos, the herald used to proclaim when a certain prize was given, that so many oxen were bestowed on such a one. The value of the coin was two didrachmæ, so that the Bous was simply a didrachma.[1484] The ox was stamped by the Athenians on their coins as the symbol of peace and abundance.[1485]
Footnote 1480:
Ap. Feith, Antiq. Hom. ii. 10. 3.
Footnote 1481:
Tom. i. p. 188. ed. Bekk.
Footnote 1482:
Onomast. ix. 60.
Footnote 1483:
Ad Il. t. iv. p. 238. He remarks, that Arist. Ethic. v. 11, quotes this verse on showing that no man can be injured voluntarily—ἀδικεῖσθαι ἑκούσιον. That it became a proverb may be inferred from Cicero, ad Ath. vi. 1.
Footnote 1484:
Διδραχμον· τὸ δ`ε παλαιὸν τοῦτο ἦν Αθ᾿ηναῖοις νόμισμα καὶ ἐκαλεῖτο βοῦς, ὅτι βοῦν εἶχεν ἐντετυπωμένον Pollux. ix. 60.
Footnote 1485:
Spanheim, de Præstantia et Usu Numismatum Antiquorum, p. 129, 267.
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Plutarch[1486] assigns, by conjecture, two reasons; first, that Theseus, whom he regards as its inventor, may have meant by the figure of the ox to recall the memory of Minos’s general Tauros; or, second, because he wished to turn the mind of the citizens to agriculture.
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Footnote 1486:
Thes. § 25. Cf. Goguet, t. iv. p. 228.
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The talent of gold is mentioned more than once by Homer;[1487] but we are not to imagine with Feith[1488] that there was a piece of money so called, though in the case of Homer he supposes it to signify a certain weight of gold, and not a coin. Modern critics get over all difficulties in the usual way by pronouncing the passage spurious.[1489] No doubt the people of those early times did not greatly abound in wealth, which, arising from the assiduous cultivation of the useful arts, could not be plentiful where these arts were scarcely at all known. Even tyrants, who always contrive to obtain their share of whatever riches exist in their country, were long after the Homeric age possessed of but little wealth, any more than their people.[1490] Money, however, does not constitute opulence. There was a rude plenty of all the necessaries of life, and as the secret representative of wealth had not been invented, men sought to possess the realities,—herds of oxen, flocks of sheep, lands, houses, and splendid apparel. Fine studs of horses, also, were naturally desired, being at once useful in war, and showy in peace.[1491]
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Footnote 1487:
Il. ι. 122. 264. σ. 507, sqq. Cf. Herod. i. 14. et Adnot. ad Ælian. i. 22. Goguet, iv. 229.
Footnote 1488:
Antiq. Homer. ii. 10. 3.
Footnote 1489:
Heyne, ad Il. σ. 507, who observes, justly no doubt, that we are ignorant what the Homeric talent weighed. Cf. Serv. ad Æneid. v. 112.
Footnote 1490:
Herod. viii. 137.
Footnote 1491:
Hymn. in Herm. 400. Pausan. iv. 3. 6.
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We observe in these ages, however, as well as in all others, that men no sooner enjoyed the necessaries than they desired the luxuries and ornaments of life. In several countries bordering upon the Mediterranean, there was already great magnificence displayed. The kings of Midian, for example, wore purple garments, golden earrings, and jewelled collars; their camels, moreover, were covered with costly trimmings and ornaments of gold.[1492]
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Footnote 1492:
Judges, viii. 21, sqq.
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Of the internal commerce of Greece, in the earlier ages, little, comparatively, is known. Goguet[1493] appears to suppose, that hardly any traffic can be carried on without the aid of sumpter animals, such as camels, mules, or asses. But the natives of Canara[1494] drive a pretty thriving trade, though nearly every article of merchandise is transported on men’s heads. In Greece, however, the use of vehicles was very ancient, its origin being lost in fable.[1495] Boats, canoes, &c., came early into vogue also; and yet Thucydides relates, that the intercourse of the rural tribes of the Hellenes was for many ages so slight as scarcely to merit attention. Bad roads, the absence of inns, the want of a police, the great number of robbers, were great obstacles; but the very existence of robbers attests the fact, that attempts were constantly made to extend inland commerce, though it may have been long before it was established on a solid basis.
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Footnote 1493:
Origine de Loix, t. iv. p. 204.
Footnote 1494:
Buchanan, Journey through the Mysore, ii. p. 347. Hindoos, i. p. 44.
Footnote 1495:
Ælian. iii. 38.
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Descending towards the historical periods we find the Æginetans first distinguishing themselves as a commercial people. Their history, as far as ancient fragments supply it, has been composed by a modern scholar[1496] of eminence, whose researches must prove of the utmost utility to all succeeding inquirers. This people, living on a small and nearly barren island, early directed their attention to the arts, to the various processes of industry, and to commerce, the only employment suited to the nature of their soil. Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid on the situation of Ægina, which will not at all explain the commercial turn of its inhabitants, since Crete, with more abundant means, and possibly a better situation, was never very remarkable as a trading country. However, poverty and a good position combined with the genius of the people to render them commercial. They enjoyed still fewer advantages in the matter of soil even than Attica; their lands were of little value; they could neither become hunters nor shepherds; nor could even the most slender population subsist on the produce of the mines. Fishing they, probably, tried at the outset, as well as piracy, but, finding that neither led to opulence, they adopted the mercantile life; for which reason they have, with much ingenuity, been termed the Phœnicians of Greece,[1497] though no colonies from Phœnicia ever settled in their island. The Æginetæ were already famous, however, from remote antiquity, as mariners, and, in the course of time, converted their whole island into an emporium.[1498]
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Footnote 1496:
Müller, in his Æginetica. See on the subject of Commerce and Industry, c. iii. 74, sqq. And compare the account of Coronelli, Mémoires, &c., p. 187, sqq.
Footnote 1497:
By Müller, Æginetica, iii. p. 74.
Footnote 1498:
See Michaelo d’ Jorio, Storia del Commercio, i. 225, seq. and Caryophilus de Mercatura Veterum.
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On the antiquity of the Æginetan trade a very curious passage occurs in Pausanias. This writer relates, that, in the time of Pompos, king of Arcadia, who flourished during the second century before the first Olympiad, Æginetan ships landed at Cyllenè, the great harbour of Elis, whence they transported their merchandise, on strings of sumpter animals, to Arcadia. The king was so much pleased with them on this account, that he named his son Æginetes, in remembrance of their traffic.[1499] It was about this period that the Greeks first began to trade in their own bottoms, and to possess merchandise of their own. It has been observed, that in Homer the word ἔμπορος never signifies merchant, and that where mention of real merchants occurs they are always barbarians, or semi-barbarians,[1500] Phœnicians, Cretans, Tyrsenians, Lemnians, Taphians, or Phæacians.[1501] No Achaian or Argive is found who derived his subsistence from commerce, though there seem to be passages from which the contrary may be inferred. But in Hesiod, who lived later, and describes more homely scenes and manners, we find commerce already spoken of as a profitable employment.[1502]
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Footnote 1499:
Pausan. viii. 5. 5.
Footnote 1500:
Hom. Hymn. in Dionys. 8.
Footnote 1501:
Müller, Æginetica, p. 75.
Footnote 1502:
Opp. et Dies, 644.
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Originally, the Æginetans were led by their piratical propensities to apply themselves to maritime affairs; finding, no doubt, that robbery was an easier and more agreeable profession than any modification of industry, particularly as in those tolerant ages there was no disgrace, but the contrary, attached to it, when exercised against men of a different class. These worthy islanders, however, were impartial in their rapine. For, no sooner had they thrown off the yoke of the Epidaurians, than they made incursions[1503] into their mother country, which they soon extended to the coasts of Attica; and they were, probably, the buccaneers against whom the tyrant Hippias fitted out a fleet.[1504] Afterwards, forming an alliance with the Thebans, they plundered and devastated all the maritime towns of Attica, and even lay in ambush to intercept the sacred galley on its way to Delos.
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Footnote 1503:
It was owing to such piratical descents that the early inhabitants of Greece, for the most part, erected their towns and villages at some distance from the sea-coast, in situations difficult of access. Thucyd. § 7. Similar reasons have elsewhere led in modern times to similar results. Thus, in Alicuda, the remotest and most exposed of the Lipari islands, the dwellings of their simple natives and their priests are perched high in the hills among rocks and steep acclivities, through fear of the Barbary corsairs, who, from time to time, land there, and carry away into captivity whomsoever they are able to seize and subdue. Further, to guard against these incursions, a sentinel is stationed on the Monte della Guardia, in the principal isle, where he keeps watch day and night. Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 140, sqq. We have here a picture which carries back the imagination to the most barbarous ages of Grecian history.
Footnote 1504:
Æginetica, p. 76.
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Having been restored to their country, after the Peloponnesian war, they resumed their plundering habits, and obtained from the Spartan Ephori permission to infest the Attic coasts, which they frequently did in times of profound peace. Their taste for piracy was lasting. In the age of Demosthenes their island was a nest of pirates, and a fair for the sale of their plunder, which it continued for many centuries after.[1505]
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Footnote 1505:
Demosth. de Nicostrat. § 3.
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Reverting, however, to the trade of Ægina: its ancient traffic with Arcadia was marked by many curious circumstances. In the first place we must infer from it, as the historian of the island remarks, the existence of previous traffic elsewhere.[1506] For, if their merchandise consisted merely of raw materials, these must still have been procured from other lands; and, if of manufactured goods, then, in addition to the existence of a foreign trade to supply them with the raw articles, we must suppose in them the existence of considerable skill. Again, as Pompos, the Cypselid, probably reigned at Orchomenos, they must have been able to perform long voyages by sea, and long journeys by land; though we can account for their taking the dangerous route round capes Skylleion and Malea, and the mountainous roads from Eleia to Arcadia, in preference to the shorter way from Corinthia or Argolis, only by supposing them to have been driven to it by the rivalry of the Argives and Corinthians. It must be admitted to be honourable to their ingenuity thus to have opened up a road into Arcadia, which would seem to be shut out by nature from all commerce.
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Footnote 1506:
Æginetica, p. 77.
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With the Arcadians alone, however, could inland trade be carried on upon a large scale; among every other Hellenic people possessing sea-coasts and harbours, it degenerated into mere peddling. Hence, the Æginetans obtained the character, once possessed in this country by the Scotch, of being a nation of pedlars—sometimes travelling from village to village, with their packs; at other times settling, like the Maltese of the present day, in towns on the coast of Greece, they became corn-chandlers, vintners, toymen, or victuallers, in established shops or stalls in the agora. Hence, all kinds of humble wares, or pedlary, obtained the appellation of Æginetan wares. Like the Jews, too, both they and the Cretans (noted liars, as St. Paul[1507] assures us) were regarded as skin-flints, and, in many cases, betook themselves to the practice of usury.[1508]
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Footnote 1507:
Epist. to Titus, i. 12, where he cites the testimony of Euripides, though without naming him.
Footnote 1508:
Eustath. ad Il. β. p. 604. Hesych. v. Ἀιγιναῖα. Cf. Interp. i. 137. Schol. Pind. Ol. viii. 26. Erasm. Adag. 71, 72.
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Frequently, however, they soared above these petty arts, and became merchants on a large scale, trading with distant lands and acquiring very great wealth. The entire island, in Strabo’s time, was regarded as an emporium; and, even so far back as the age of Aristotle, their whole marine was employed in commerce. In some cities, he says, nearly all the shipping is engaged in one kind of service; those of Byzantium and Tarentum in the fisheries; those of Athens in war; those of Chios and Ægina as merchantmen; and those of Tenedos as transports.[1509] It has been conjectured, not without reason, that Sostratos, the son of Leodamos, celebrated by Herodotus for his riches, was a merchant. “The Samians,” says this historian, “induced by divine command to undertake the voyage of Tartessos, brought home with them greater wealth (sixty talents) than any other Greeks ever gained by trade, if we except Sostratos, with whom no one can contend in opulence.[1510]”
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Footnote 1509:
Polit. iv. 4. 1.
Footnote 1510:
Herod. iv. 152. Cf. Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 9.
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But the Æginetans also engaged in foreign trade, sending ships to Tartessos towards the west, and to the Black Sea towards the east. It is related, for example, that when Xerxes was at Abydos, he saw merchantmen sailing down the Dardanelles with corn for Ægina and the Peloponnesos,[1511] which were stopped by his fleet with the design of taking both ships and men. But when Xerxes learned they were bound for Greece, he dismissed them, considering the corn as so much provision for his own army, which, he doubted not, would be able to subjugate the whole country. From which Müller conjectures, but without reason, that the great corn markets of the Black Sea were at that time exclusively in the hands of the Æginetans; though afterwards, during the Peloponnesian war, when Ægina fell, they passed over to the Athenians. The reason “that the Æginetans stood so much in need of the supply, that they would not have endured a rival,” could only hold good if they had the power to command a monopoly, which, for any length of time at least, is highly improbable, since although they are said to have been masters of the sea about the age of Darius Hystaspes,[1512] their domination was extremely short-lived.[1513] It would seem, however, that they were at that time in the habit of supplying the Peloponnesos with grain. Slaves they imported both from Pontos and from Crete, and it is doubtful whence they obtained the greater number. A large proportion of their exports found their way into Crete, where they had established a colony at Cydonia. Besides lying one day’s sail distant from the Peloponnesos, and that of a day and a night from Africa, this great island formed an excellent midway station between Ægina and the mouth of the Nile.
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Footnote 1511:
Herod. vii. 147. Polyæn. Stratag. vii. 15. 3.
Footnote 1512:
Perizon. ad Æl. xii. 10. Gog. v. 302.
Footnote 1513:
The jealousy excited in antiquity by the Æginetæ, was, in the seventeenth century, inspired into all the maritime states of Europe by the Dutch, who somewhat resembled those hardy and unscrupulous islanders. Observe the ingenuous alarms of our countryman, Sir Josiah Child, whose studies had evidently carried him beyond the counting-house,—“I think no true Englishman will deny that the season cries aloud to us to be up and doing, before our fields become unoccupied, and before the Dutch get too much the whip-hand of us, whom (in such a case, were they freed from their French fears which they labour under at present) I fear we should find as severe task-masters as ever the Athenians were to the lesser trading cities of Greece.” Discourse of Trade, Preface, p. 39.
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The port at which all the Greeks resided during their stay in Egypt was Naucratis in the Delta, which the Pharaohs granted them in the same way as the Chinese emperors now do Canton to the Europeans, as their only abode. Here, by permission of Amasis, such Greeks as merely traded with Egypt built altars and erected sacred enclosures in the neighbourhood of the city, though I vainly sought, when on the spot, to discover the slightest trace of them. The nine cities of Ionians, Dorians, and Æolians erected at their common expense a sacred edifice, which they called Hellenion. The Ionian cities were Chios, Teos, Phocea and Clazomenæ; the Dorian, Rhodes, Cnidos, Halicarnassos, and Phaselis; of the Æolian, Mitylene only. The Æginetans raised for their own use a temple to Zeus,—the Samians to Hera,—the Milesians to Apollo.[1514] At this time, however, Naucratis was the only harbour in Egypt; and as this was pretty generally known, ships making land anywhere else were naturally suspected of being pirates; for which reason the captain was required to swear that he had come hither involuntarily. This done, he was to steer from the Canopic mouth of the Nile; or, if the weather were contrary, his cargo was conveyed round the Delta in barides to Naucratis, which the historian[1515] understood to be done for the benefit of the foreign settlers, for so greatly, says he, was Naucratis honoured. At this time, one of the principal articles exported into Egypt by the Greeks would appear to have been wine, since all then drunk in the country was foreign, the vine not having been as yet introduced.
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Footnote 1514:
Herod. ii. 178.
Footnote 1515:
Hist. ii. 179. Müll. Æginet. p. 82.
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Of the trade of Sparta extremely little is known. In fact, until a comparatively late period, it appears to have been inconsiderable, and to have been conducted in the rudest manner possible. Each citizen, on receiving the proceeds of his lands, laid up in his storehouses what he judged sufficient for the consumption of the ensuing year, and disposed of the remainder in the Agora, not, it has been conjectured, for money, but by the ancient manner of barter.[1516] It is said that the Lacedæmonians exhibited much ingenuity in their mode of preserving the fruits of the earth; but in what that ingenuity consisted we are not informed. They were likewise noted for the care and order with which the implements of domestic economy were kept, so that everything was ready at hand when wanted.[1517] The fact that they had granaries on their estates, which were locked up and sealed, argues much greater connexion with the country, than they are supposed to have maintained; for had they never lived on those estates, it is not probable they would have left their property there, subject, as Mr. Müller[1518] thinks, to the conscientious visits of every poor man who might choose to out-hunt his provisions.
-----
Footnote 1516:
Müll. Dor. ii. 218.
Footnote 1517:
Aristot. Œcon. vi. 6. 11. p. 278, seq. Cf. Xen. Rep. Lac. vi. 3. 4. Aristot. Pol. ii. 2. 5. Plut. Laced. Instit.
Footnote 1518:
Dorians, ii. 218.
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Money, we are incessantly told, was prohibited at Sparta; but, nevertheless, it seems to have been in constant use. It is affirmed, indeed, by a writer somewhat too prone to panegyric, that “it was employed more often as a medium of comparison than of exchange; small coins were chiefly used, and no value was attributed to the possession of large quantities.”[1519] But I do not see what is meant by employing money “as a medium of comparison;” and with regard to the value set on money by the Spartans, history incapacitates us for accepting the generous gloss of Mr. Müller. It is perhaps true that Lycurgos aimed at eradicating avarice from the Spartan breast, but, in the means to be adopted for that end, only showed his ignorance of human nature; since, though he might bring his vinegar-cooled iron medium of comparison into contempt, he could not thereby diminish the value of the things exchanged, that is of real wealth, which accordingly was estimated as highly at Sparta as elsewhere. Thus we see that poor men, not able to contribute their quota of provisions, were excluded from the common tables, which therefore resembled the hospitality and common tables of an inn,[1520]
Where the Red Lion staring o’er the way, Invites each passing stranger—that can pay.
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Footnote 1519:
Müll. Dor. ii. 219. Bœckh. Econ. of Athen. ii. 389.
Footnote 1520:
Ἀναγκαῖον ἐν τῇ τοιαύτῃ πολιτείᾳ τιμᾶσθαι τὸν πλούτον, ἄλλως τε κἂν τύχωσι γυναικοκρατούμενοι, καθάπερ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν στρατιωτικῶν καὶ πολεμικῶν γενῶν. Aristot. Polit. ii. 9.
-----
The learned, with all their leaning towards scepticism, sometimes interpret too literally the language of authors in whom license and exaggeration are a merit. Thus Bœckh[1521] conceives “that, even in the time of the Trojan war, the precious metals were well known in the Peloponnesos,” because Homer describes Menelaus as possessed of both gold and silver.[1522] But the Achæan prince had travelled in the East, whence, according to the poet, he brought his gold, and it does not appear historically that the precious metals were “well known,” which extensive use only could render them, till some ages after the Trojan war. The Dorians, however, whatever may have been the case with the Achæans, long continued to be scantily supplied with the precious metals, which may be accounted for from their isolated mountainous country, want of industry, and aversion for all intercourse with strangers, without adopting the unphilosophical fancy, that they were instigated by a kind of argyrophobia strictly to prohibit the use of gold and silver.[1523] Conceiving that, by cutting his people off from human intercourse, he might render them more warlike, as dogs are made savage by chaining, Lycurgos, or whoever was the author of the Spartan constitution, may have desired to keep them poor, and therefore have prohibited commerce. But even in their own domestic traffic, the necessity of some instrument of exchange was soon perceived, and iron[1524] being as plentiful as gold and silver were scarce, he adopted the expedient of employing iron money. At first the metal was used in bars or spits (ὀβελοὶ, ὀβελίσκοι) which were stamped with some mark in the furnaces of Laconia, just as in other countries bars of silver or copper were used; “whence the obolos or spit and the drachma or handful received their names.”[1525]
-----
Footnote 1521:
Econ. of Athen. ii. 385.
Footnote 1522:
Od. δ. 80, sqq. 351, sqq. Cf. Strab. i. 2. p. 62.
Footnote 1523:
Which is Bœckh’s fancy. ii. 386.
Footnote 1524:
The people of Byzantium are said by some writers to have imitated the Spartans in their numismatic taste, and like them to have used iron money. Πλάτων Πεισάνδρῳ “χαλεπῶς ἂν οἰκησαίμεν ἐν Βυζαντίοις, ὅπου σιδαρέοισι νομίσμασι χρῶνται.” Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 250.
Footnote 1525:
Bœckh, ii. 386. Plut. Lysand. § 17. See too the authorities quoted by Bœckh. l. i. § 15.
-----
When the Argives, in the reign of Pheidon, abandoned the use of metallic bars, and began to coin money, the Spartans followed in their train, but still adhered to the use of iron, so that the coins which first proceeded from a Laconian mint, probably resembled quoits more than crown-pieces. Mr. Müller observes, but I know not on what authority, that the chief coin was called from its shape, and perhaps also from its size, πέλανορ, the cake used in sacrifices. If this was the case it must have been a coin of extraordinary conformation, for the pelanos resembled, in figure, a bull, horns and all,[1526] and was habitually offered to Apollo, Artemis, the Moon, and Hecatè. This odd-looking piece of money was in value about four chalci or hemioboloi, that is, about three farthings. But such an unwieldy coinage, which, as tokens, might serve very well for the home currency, would be of no service abroad; so that when Sparta began to aim at foreign conquest, it found it necessary to set aside the ancient laws, and create a currency for effecting its purpose. A tribute was therefore imposed on the islands, and a contribution of a tenth was demanded from all those Greeks who acknowledged its supremacy.[1527]
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Footnote 1526:
Pollux. vi. 76.
Footnote 1527:
Bœckh, ii. 387. Without such a currency, Sparta, says Mr. Müller, would have been unable to send ambassadors to foreign states, or to take foreign mercenaries into pay. ii. 220.
-----
It seems, however, to have been intended by the legislator, that individuals should not possess gold and silver money; but the severity of the punishment[1528] awarded transgressors, instead of proving how strong the hold of this ancient custom (of being without money) was upon the Spartan mind, shows the direct contrary, for there is no necessity to be severe with men who obey from habit, but with those who evince a disposition to break through all restraint. Besides, the law seems to have permitted the use of the precious metals when wrought into ornaments or articles of furniture. Offerings of gold, such as the stars of the Dioscuri, were dedicated by the state at Delphi, and statues of gold and ivory, the works of native artists, were set up within the city about the period of the Persian war.[1529] A hundred years earlier, when the state desired to gild the face of Apollo, at Thornax, they travelled as far as Lydia[1530] in search of the necessary gold, which wholly disproves the assumption of Bœckh mentioned above.
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Footnote 1528:
See the remarks of Monsieur Bitaubè, in his “Dissertation sur La Richesse de Sparte.” Nouveaux Mémoires de l’Acad. Roy. des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, de Berlin, t. xxxvii. 560.
Footnote 1529:
Müller. Dor. iii. 2. 3.
Footnote 1530:
Herod. i. 69.
-----
But after all the learned researches of modern writers, this Spartan ordinance respecting the possession of money is surrounded by insurmountable difficulties. For Sparta, unquestionably, carried on some commerce, which it could not have done without possessing a coinage of universal currency; though Mr. Müller is not authorized to state, as he does, that there was a constant export of corn from Laconia and Arcadia downwards to the coast of Corinth, since the passage in Thucydides,[1531] on which he relies, merely relates in the words of the Corinthians, that unless they joined in the war against Athens in aid of the maritime states, they would find no market for the produce of their lands, (including corn, no doubt,) nor would they be able to import what they might stand in need of from abroad.[1532] However, so far back as the Persian war, the Peloponnesos did not produce corn sufficient for home consumption, since we find it importing it from the countries of the Black Sea. It is, therefore, extremely improbable that it should have done so in the time of the Peloponnesian war, when it had grown far more populous, so that possibly among the things which ἡ θάλασση τῇ ἠπείρῳ δίδωσι corn may have been included.
-----
Footnote 1531:
I. ch. iv. § 7
Footnote 1532:
Thucyd. i. 120.
-----
It appears, therefore, that Sparta both exported and imported; but who were the agents? The state, which alone it is supposed possessed an available instrument of exchange, could not, it is argued, have carried on the trade. But wherefore? “Because it would have required a proportionate number of public officers.”[1533] Those officers, however, might easily have been found, and, therefore, this is no reason; and that no such officers existed, our knowledge of the government is too scanty to enable us to affirm. Accordingly, it does not follow from this that the trade “was in the hands of the Periœci.” However, if such was the case, the possession of a gold and silver coinage must have been permitted to them, which at once places the great majority of the free inhabitants of Laconia in precisely the same condition as other nations in this respect. Admitting this, it will be difficult to believe that their neighbours and acquaintances, the military and ruling class, would abstain from what they enjoyed. In fact, we cannot consent to believe, that such a state of things “could not have had much influence on the Spartans, since they had not any personal connexion with the Periœci, the latter being only tributary to the state.” The reverse of all this is true, as any one might know without any other testimony than his own experience. Our countrymen in India occupy the same position as the Dorians in the Peloponnesos, and for a short time kept much aloof from the natives. But personal intercourse became inevitable, and it would now be absurd to say, that the wealth of the Hindûs would exercise little influence on the English, supposing the latter to be poor and proud as the Spartans. The fact of the Periœci being tributary, which seems to be offered as a reason, is no reason at all. It were far better to confess our ignorance at once, than by a series of groundless conjectures, put forward with confidence, to create a semblance of knowledge. There does not appear to be any foundation for the statement, that none but iron money was used in the Spartan market, where the landlords and their serfs disposed of the produce of their lands. On the contrary, it seems probable, that as, in many cases, it must have been sold to the Periœci for exportation, (foreigners being excluded,) the landlords would receive gold and silver unminted, perhaps, to evade the law in return. Again, the kings of Sparta, it is evident, could possess gold and silver. This, history proves so clearly that Mr. Müller is constrained to confess it. And if the kings and the Periœci, nay, even the very Helots could amass and enjoy the precious metals, and the luxuries they purchase, it is too much to suppose that the masters of the kings, of the Periœci and all, would have dwelt in ascetic forbearance in the midst of so many temptations. Besides, we constantly find the Spartans in situations in which their iron money could be of no service to them. What, for example, could it have availed them at Olympia? Yet there they were, the men in person, the women by proxy, with their horses and their chariots, and every mark and indication of wealth.
-----
Footnote 1533:
Müller, iii. ch. x. § 10.
-----
But to men travelling beyond the borders money was allowed. This sum they might expend, or they might not. If they did not, were they searched on their return, and the surplus taken from them? Otherwise men would make journeys and accumulate cash in that way. Again, we are told, that great obstacles were placed in the way of foreign travel by the necessity of obtaining a passport along with the travelling expenses (ἐφόδια) from the magistrates or the king, and reference is made to Herodotus. But that historian in the passage referred to is speaking of king Demaratos, who being driven from the country by his mother’s bad character, takes what money he needs for his journey, and departs without asking leave of any one.[1534]
-----
Footnote 1534:
Herod. vi. 70.
-----
However, when straitened in circumstances individuals had sometimes recourse to the kings or to the state as to a bank; and that the thing was customary appears from the fact, that princes, in order to start with a popular measure, always upon their accession remitted the debts of the citizens both to themselves and to the state.[1535] On this occasion they destroyed all the bonds or instruments of mortgage (κλάρια), bringing them into the agora, and there piling them up into a heap and setting them on fire.[1536]
-----
Footnote 1535:
Id. vi. 69.
Footnote 1536:
Plut. Agis, § 13. But this was at a late period, when rich men and usurers had monopolised all the wealth of Sparta.
-----
It is certain, therefore, and admitted even by Mr. Müller, that whatever may have been the intention of the original Spartan institutions, their severity was soon relaxed, and wealth with all its concomitants, introduced into the state. Even so far back as the ages before the Persian war, as we learn from the speech of Leutychides,[1537] at Athens, foreigners found no obstacle to prevent their bringing gold and silver to Sparta, where one of the most distinguished citizens undertook the keeping of a rich Milesian’s money, whose children he afterwards endeavoured to defraud. Could he have made no use of this money he would scarcely have desired to retain it. The share of the plunder accruing to Sparta in the Persian war was evidently not confined to the public coffers, though we may possibly allow that the Persian subsidies went to the defraying of national expenses.[1538] At all events certain it is that Sparta, about the time of Socrates, was by many regarded as the wealthiest state in Greece, and that not as a community, but individually, reckoning their estates in Messenia, the number of their slaves, Helots and others, their splendid studs, and vast droves of cattle. Nay, their wealth in gold and silver is particularly specified, with the additional remark, that for many ages the precious metals had been flowing into that country, both from Grecian and barbarian sources,[1539] but that no one had ever seen any flow out, an observation which Montesquieu,[1540] and others have applied without reflection, to Hindústân.
-----
Footnote 1537:
Herod, vi. 86.
Footnote 1538:
Müller, l. iii. ch. x. § 11.
Footnote 1539:
Plat. Alcib. i. t. v. p. 342, seq. This inferior production, with its admiration of courts and eunuchs, cannot be Plato’s, but contains, nevertheless, several curious facts. On the subject of Spartan wealth, however, it perfectly agrees with Plato’s own opinion in the Hippias, t. v. p. 414. Cf. Bitaubè, Sur la Richesse de Sparte. Nouveaux Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, de Berlin, xxxvii. 559.
Footnote 1540:
Esprit des Loix, xxi. 12.
-----
It exceeds our faith in human nature to believe, with Mr. Müller, that, in spite of these untoward circumstances, “the citizens maintained the same proud indigence.” History, in fact, renders inexcusable the belief in such virtue, though men occasionally arose at Sparta, as well as at Athens and elsewhere, who, with a stoical firmness, resisted the allurements of riches and pleasure. The greater number fell, and yielded themselves up with so much enthusiasm to the pursuit of gain, adding acre to acre and gold to gold, that from the Ephoralty of Epitadeus downwards, the city was infested with usurers, great capitalists, and extensive landed proprietors, who, by degrees, got into their hands the whole property of the country. Much less ingenuity than the Spartans possessed would, in fact, have enabled them to evade the old law, which seems to have immediately grown obsolete when the arts of rendering it powerless had been invented. They deposited their surplus wealth at Delphi, in Arcadia, and several other countries, so that if driven into exile,[1541] of which there was always a probability, they might be able to subsist in splendour in their new country.[1542] But these speculations sometimes failed; in the case of the Arcadians, the possession of the gold converted bankers into enemies, as, by picking a quarrel with the owners, they hoped to be able to defraud them.[1543] Lysander, though he did not commence this practice, at least countenanced it by his example. Gylippos, inheriting from his family the thirst of gold, was condemned and starved to death, by the Ephori, for purloining public property. His father Cleandridas, in conjunction with king Pleistoanax, had accepted bribes from Pericles, and ended his days in exile.[1544] From this period, as seems to be undeniable, the possession of gold and silver by private individuals was permitted by law, or connived at; and the Spartans proceeded, after the manner of all other nations, to divide themselves into very rich and very poor, to house together, in the same city, misery and splendour, extreme luxury and extreme want, until the common fate, foreign conquest and slavery, overtook them.
-----
Footnote 1541:
This was thought necessary even by so great a man as Lysander. Plut. Lysand. § 18.
Footnote 1542:
As in the case of Cleandridas, father of Gylippos.
Footnote 1543:
Athen. vi. 24.
Footnote 1544:
Thucyd. vi. 104. Plut. Pericl. § 22. Müller, ii. 225.
-----
The trade which, meanwhile, was carried on by Laconia must have been at times very considerable, though there were few points on the coast provided with roadsteads, or harbours, capable of receiving ships of burden. To facilitate intercourse with foreign nations, an artificial harbour was constructed at Trinasos, around which the inhabitants of Gythium, situated on an eminence some distance inland, gradually clustered, deserting their ancient residence for one more convenient and profitable. From hence the productions of Laconia, which will be enumerated elsewhere, were shipped for foreign countries, Libya for example, and Egypt, whence merchandise of various kinds were obtained in return. But, as this port appears to have been little commodious or secure, the merchantmen, on their return from Africa, usually put into the island of Cythera,[1545] where are several harbours, amongst which that of St. Nicholas, anciently Scandeia,[1546] on the eastern coast, is sheltered and spacious, and provided with so narrow an entrance that it may at pleasure be closed with a chain. The inhabitants of this island, like those of the Laconian territories on the main, were free Lacedæmonians, who appear to have directed their attention entirely to commerce and agriculture, and the management of the productive purple fishery, carried on among the shoals and rocks encircling their island.[1547] Besides its use in dyeing, this fish is said to have been employed as a bait in taking the pelamys, and there was, likewise, in this sea, a considerable whale fishery. The nerves of these leviathans, properly prepared, were used in stringing the psaltery, and other musical instruments, and also for bowstrings. It may, therefore, be presumed, that they formed an important article of commerce.[1548]
-----
Footnote 1545:
Thucyd. iv. 53.
Footnote 1546:
Pausan. iii. 23. 1. Steph. de Urb. p. 672.
Footnote 1547:
Strab. viii. 5. l. ii. p. 186. Plin. Nat. Hist. ix. 60. xi. 22. xxxv. 26. Horat. Carm. ii. 18. 8. The purple of Laconia was esteemed only second to that of Phœnicia:—κόχλους δὲ ἐς βαφὴν πορφύρας παρέχεται τὰ ἐπιθαλλάσσια τῆς Λακωνικῆς ἐπιτηδειοτάτας μετά γε τὴν Φοινίκων θάλασσαν. Pausan. iii. 21. 6.
Footnote 1548:
Dapper, Description des Iles de l’Archipel. 554. Ælian. De Animal. xvii. 6.
-----
Here, likewise, were quarries of porphyry,[1549] from which, in earlier ages, the island is said to have obtained the name of Porphyrussa. At the distance of a mile and a quarter from Scandia stood the city of Cythera, with an Acropolis situated on a very high rock. At this place was a temple of the celestial Aphroditè, esteemed one of the most ancient in Greece,[1550] the inhabitants having addicted themselves to the worship of this goddess, because, when she first sprang from the waves, she is said to have come floating thither on a shell of mother-of-pearl.[1551] How many of the productions of this island passed annually into commerce cannot be known. But, it is described as abounding, in modern times, with wild asses, and deer, and hares, and quails, and turtle-doves,[1552] which last were, of old, sacred to the goddess of the isle. Corn, also, and oil, and wine of excellent quality, were found in Cythera, though by no means in abundance. It likewise produces tragoriganon and bastard dittany. The island being thus productive, it is by no means surprising that the Spartans should have set a high value on it, and sent thither, annually, a magistrate, named Cytherodices, together with a garrison of heavy-armed men. Another advantage which Sparta derived from the possession of this island was, that it served it as a kind of defence against the incursions of pirates, commanding, in some sort, the narrow sea between Peloponnesos and Crete.
-----
Footnote 1549:
At least I find this notion in Dapper, Desc. de l’Arch. p. 375-378, who observes “D’autres assurent qu’elle avoit été ainsi nommée à cause du porphyre qu’on y trouve en abondance.” The name has with more probability, however, been derived from the purple fish (Πορφύρα) which abounds on the coast, ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ Πορφύρουσσα, διὰ τὸ κάλλος τὸ παρὰ τῶν πορφυρῶν, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης. Steph. de Urb. 487, a. To the same purpose, Eustathius ad Dion. Perieg. 498: ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ, φασὶ, καὶ Πορφυροῦσσα ποτὲ, διὰ τὸ καλλίστας ἔχειν πορφύρας. Cf. ad Il. ο. p. 1031. 13. Plin. Nat. Hist. iv. 19.
Footnote 1550:
Paus. iii. 23. 1.
Footnote 1551:
This mythological incident is beautifully engraved in the Museo Real Borbonico, from an ancient painting found at Pompeia. Honest Buondelmonte, who, instead of describing the island, amuses himself with relating its mythology, delineates, elegantly enough, another picture of the floating goddess: “Sculpebatur etenim puella pulcherrima, nuda et in mari natans, tenens concham marinam in dextrâ, ornata rosis et à columbis circumvolantibus comitata, &c.” Christ. Buond. Lib. Insul. Archip. c. ix. p. 64.
Footnote 1552:
Dapper, Desc. de l’Archip. 375-379.
-----
That this was no small advantage will be evident if we consider to what extent, and with how much cruelty, piracy was exercised in old times. It dogged incessantly the heels of commerce, appearing on every sea and penetrating to every land whither industry betook itself for the acquisition of wealth. It may be said, indeed, to have been a kind of bastard brother of trade, both proceeding from the desire of gain. Against the masters of this craft the first war-galleys appear to have been fitted out in the Mediterranean. For, among the principal exploits of the half-fabulous king of Crete is enumerated his clearing the sea of pirates, his object being to secure the transmission of his revenues from the smaller islands to the seat of empire. For, in old times, both the Greeks and barbarians of the continent, inhabiting the sea-coast, and all those who dwelt in the islands, no sooner addicted themselves to navigation, than they took to piracy, being led by their most powerful fellow-citizens, partly for their own advantage, and partly with a view of providing for the poor; and falling suddenly on unwalled cities, or people dispersed in villages, they plundered the whole country, and thus chiefly procured themselves subsistence. Nor, in fact, was this sort of life attended with disgrace, but with some degree of honour. Even in Thucydides’ own time, many tribes of the continent gloried in their piratical skill, and from the ancient poets, he says, it was clear the same feeling had always prevailed; for, the first question put to seamen, on their landing, was, whether they were pirates or not; and this without the persons interrogated considering it to be any offence, or those who asked intending any.[1553] No idea of caste seems to have existed. The reception of Pelops, who came with great wealth from Asia into Peloponnesos, shows that riches, however acquired, were valued before both; for he might have been, and, probably, was, a pirate.[1554]
-----
Footnote 1553:
Hom. Odyss. γ. 312.
Footnote 1554:
Thucyd. i. 9.
-----
In the interior, also, plundering expeditions were carried on by land, as on the borders of England or Scotland, and more anciently on the Welsh marshes. And up to the period of the Peloponnesian war, many Greek nations still continued to live after the ancient manner, as the Ozolian and Epicnemidian Locrians, the Ætolians, the Acarnanians, and other neighbouring tribes, of which their habit of wearing arms may be considered as a memento. To repress the ravages of these half-civilized races was often an object of great concern to the Athenians, who, to check the cruises of the Opuntians, long accustomed to enrich themselves by plundering the coast of Eubœa during the Peloponnesian war, took and fortified the uninhabited island of Atalantè.[1555] Some ages before, they had, under the conduct of Cimon, expelled from Scyros the piratical Dolopians, who not only scoured the neighbouring seas, but even plundered such vessels as put into their harbour.[1556] Nothing, however, could extirpate the evil, which has always continued to be the curse of those seas, sometimes denounced, sometimes encouraged, by the princes of the neighbouring countries, who, like Philip of Macedon, find it convenient, according to the exigencies of their affairs, to make war upon the buccaneers, or to unite with them in pursuit of plunder.
-----
Footnote 1555:
Thucyd. i. 151.
Footnote 1556:
Plut. Cim. § 8.
-----
Of all the Doric states the most commercial was undoubtedly Corinth. That, situated on the isthmus by which the Peloponnesos is united with the rest of Greece, became very early an emporium, and rose to opulence[1557] and splendour; for whatever merchandise was transported from northern Greece into any of the states of the peninsula by land, necessarily passed through this city, and paying, as was customary, transit dues, tended greatly to enrich it. The same thing may be said of the productions of the Peloponnesos, which, by this road, found their way into Hellas. Afterwards addicting themselves to navigation, the Corinthians, from their two ports of Lechæum and Cenchreæ,[1558] carried on an extremely extensive commerce with Italy and the countries on the Adriatic on the one hand, and with Asia Minor[1559] and the islands on the other; so that whatever articles of commerce are reckoned among the imports of Athens were likewise in a measure to be found at Corinth. The aversion of the ancient mariners to double Cape Malea long secured its trade to Corinth. There was a proverb[1560] which said, that whoever sailed round that redoubtable promontory must be unmindful of his friends at home; and, in truth, the boisterous and contrary winds which still encounter the mariner who passes from the Myrtoan to the Ionian sea might well appear terrible to the small craft of remote antiquity. To avoid this dangerous navigation these barks themselves, together with the merchandise they carried, were drawn across the isthmus, and launched again on the opposite sea. The project of Nero, therefore, who designed to open a canal at this place, would, if completed, have proved of the greatest service to the Corinthians, whose city might have continued to be enriched by it to the present day.
-----
Footnote 1557:
Luc. Dial. Mort. 11.
Footnote 1558:
Steph. de Urb. p. 464. d.
Footnote 1559:
Strab. viii. 6. t. ii. 213. Pausan. ii. 2. 3.
-----
With respect to the articles which Corinth herself supplied to commerce, they will be found enumerated among the exports and imports of Greece. Her manufactures were numerous and important,[1561] consisting, among others, of rich coverlets, fine woollen garments, costly pottery, and works in that rich metal known under the name of Corinthian bronze. This, it is said, consisted of a small mixture of gold and silver with brass; though, according to another account, it was produced by heating the metal red-hot, and in that state plunging it into the waters of Peirenè.[1562]
-----
Footnote 1560:
Μαλεὰ δε κάμψας ἐπιλάθου τῶν οἴκαδε. See the long and interesting note of Berkelius ad Steph. de Urb. p. 531, seq.
Footnote 1561:
And, doubtless, worked by their forty-six myriads of slaves. Athen. vi. 103. The Pythian Oracle calls the Corinthians Chœnix Measurers, probably because they allowed their slaves a chœnix of corn per day.
Footnote 1562:
Paus. ii. 3. 3. Florus, ii. 16.
-----
Much trade was carried on in the territories of Corinth during the celebration of the Isthmian games, which, bringing together a vast multitude of people from Ionia, Sicily, Italy, Libya, Thessaly, and the extremities of the Black Sea, necessarily attracted thither, among the rest, the retailers of all kinds of provisions. These finding a speedy market for their goods, other tradesmen followed their example, so that at length assemblies, originating in religion, resembled prodigious fairs,[1563] whither every description of merchandise was conveyed for the admiration and purchase of the pilgrims.[1564]
-----
Footnote 1563:
It is said, moreover, that Iphilos established a fair at Olympia, together with the sacred games. Vel. Paterc. i. 8. Strab. viii. 3. t. i. p. 178.
Footnote 1564:
Dion Chrysost. i. 289.
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It is, however, with much difficulty that we obtain an insight into the manner[1565] in which the inland traffic of Greece was carried on in the earlier ages; but it is probable, that, as in India, Egypt, and Arabia, great fairs were held on some convenient spot, whither the sellers and buyers resorted from all the countries around. That this was the case in many places we know. There was, for example, a monthly fair held at Aleision,[1566] near Amphidolis in Eleia, on the mountain road from Elis to Olympia, to which all the peasants of the neighbourhood resorted. Among the Romans smaller fairs or markets were held every nine days, and were thence called nundinia.[1567] On these occasions the rustics intermitted their usual employment and repaired to the city, as well to furnish themselves with what they needed, as to learn what new laws or regulations might have been promulgated in the interim.
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Footnote 1565:
Plat. De Rep. ii. t. vi. p. 79. 84. See in Mons. Thiersch Etat. Actuel de la Grèce, t. ii. p. 74, a somewhat detailed description of the internal trade of modern Greece.
Footnote 1566:
Strab. viii. 3. t. ii. p. 151.
Footnote 1567:
Columel. i. Præf. ii. 1. Dacier, in Fest. i. p. 501.
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The Epidamnians, who, as Müller[1568] observes, “retained much of ancient custom, paid great attention to the intercourse with foreigners,” and held great annual fairs, which were frequented by the neighbouring Illyrians. By this is meant, strange as it would seem, that they sought to cut off all such intercourse. For, as Plutarch[1569] relates in his Greek Questions, the people of Epidamnia living in the vicinity of the Illyrians, and observing, that such of their citizens as associated with them grew corrupt, and fearing innovation, elected one of their chief citizens to conduct the necessary intercourse and the barter which took place annually at a great fair. This officer, called Poletes, acted as broker-general for his fellow-citizens.
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Footnote 1568:
Dorians, ii. 223.
Footnote 1569:
Quæst. Græc. 29. Var. Script. t. ii. p. 317. Cf. Steph. de Urb. voce Δυῤῥάχιον, p. 316, sqq. Palmer. Descrip. Græc. Antiq. p. 73, sqq. 118, sqq. Pausan. vi. 10. 8.
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IX. COMMERCE OF ATTICA
To speak now of the commerce of Attica, the most extensive and important in the ancient world. It is an error shared by persons in other respects above the vulgar, that a commercial people is necessarily sordid; and hence Napoleon considered it opprobrious to the English, that they are a nation, as he expressed it, of shopkeepers. There are some lessons in the science of human nature that Napoleon had not learned, among which this is one,—that the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of mankind have risen and flourished in trading communities, and been themselves in many instances engaged in commerce. No country in the modern world has produced men of more chivalrous honour or heroic disinterestedness than England; and in antiquity the Athenians, as a community and as individuals, far outshone in wisdom, high-mindedness, and patriotism, every other people with whom we could compare them. In one word, they were the English of antiquity;—bold, adventurous, indefatigable people, equally renowned in trade, philosophy, and war. That they were less fortunate may be accounted for from their geographical position, lacking the inestimable advantage which we enjoy in being seated on an island,—a misfortune well understood by Pericles, who alludes to it in his first oration for the war.[1570]
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Footnote 1570:
Thucyd. i. 143. Bœckh, therefore, is certainly in error when he says, that Attica enjoyed all the advantages of insular position. Book i. § 9.
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No country, however fertile, produces all that its inhabitants, when advancing in civilisation, require, which tends more than any other circumstance to promote the amelioration of society; and Attica, from its comparative barrenness and very limited extent, peculiarly experienced the necessity of foreign commerce. To this accordingly the Athenians from a very early period applied themselves, and with so much success, that whatever commodities the ancient world produced were generally to be found in the greatest abundance in their city.[1571] They enjoyed as has been already observed, most of the advantages of insular position, that is,[1572] excellent harbours conveniently situated, in which they received supplies during all winds,[1573] and, in addition to these, some of the compensating advantages of being situated on the continent, in facilities for inland traffic. Chief of all, however, were the blessings flowing from the wisdom, and moderation, and liberality, of its government, which rendered Athens the resort of all the enterprising and enlightened men of every other country. Its dealings with foreigners were facilitated by the purity of the coin, as the traders who did not choose to purchase merchandise might take bullion, which, as Xenophon expresses it, was a very handsome article, and of so little alloy as everywhere to pass for more than its nominal value, like the old Spanish dollars, and English gold currency in the East.[1574] Prohibitions to export money, as Bœckh observes, were unknown in ancient times, and are only compatible with bills of exchange.[1575]
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Footnote 1571:
Cf. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 6.
Footnote 1572:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
Footnote 1573:
Xenoph. de Vectig. i. 7.
Footnote 1574:
Id. iii. 2.
Footnote 1575:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
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Though war to a certain extent interfered with Athenian commerce, yet, being masters of the sea, they could generally command a plentiful supply of foreign commodities, so that many articles regarded as rare in other countries might be found abundantly in the warehouses of the Peiræeus. “Hither, on account of the richness of our city,” says Pericles, “are borne the products of all lands, so that we are not more familiar with the use of wheat grown in Attica than with the productions of other countries.”[1576] So Isocrates: “the Peiræeus, has been established as an emporium in the heart of Greece, and so far excels all its rivals, that articles with difficulty met with singly in other ports may be readily found here altogether.”[1577] And true it is, that every region of the east and island of the Mediterranean poured their productions into Attica, whence they were distributed throughout Greece. Thither were brought the magnificent carpets and fine wool of Persia, Phrygia, and Miletos; the gloves and purple of Tyre and Sidon; the fine linen of Egypt;[1578] the gold and ivory of Africa; the pearls of India and the Red Sea;[1579] white and black slaves, and corn, and timber, and spices, and costly wines, and perfumes from Spain, Sicily, Italy, Cypros, Lydia, the Black Sea, and the farthest regions of the east.[1580]
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Footnote 1576:
Thucyd. ii. 38.
Footnote 1577:
Isocrat. Panath. § 11.
Footnote 1578:
Demosth. cont. Aphob. § 6.
Footnote 1579:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2. See chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of this book.
Footnote 1580:
Bœckh, i. 66.
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This extended commerce, and the encouragement which strangers of all countries found to settle at Athens, rendered it the home of all languages and religions,[1581] and led to the adoption of many barbarous words. But she thus created a boundless market for her own exports, whether consisting of manufactures or the surplus produce of the soil; and as we now retail to the Continental nations many productions of Eastern Asia, so the Athenians disposed, in the uncommercial countries around, of the commodities they had elsewhere collected. For example, they found a vent among the nations on the Black Sea for the wines of the islands and shores of the Ægean, Peparethos, Cos, Thasos, Mendè, Skionè, Lemnos, and Crete.[1582] From a passage in Xenophon, it would appear either that Greek sailors amused themselves by reading on their voyages, or that books were exported to Pontos, for there seems to be no foundation for the suspicions that they were blank books.[1583] “Here,” says Xenophon, speaking of the coast of Thrace, “are found numerous beds, cabinets, books, and such other things as shipmasters are accustomed to transport in chests.”[1584] Theopompos represents the Persians as carrying books (χάρται βιβλίων) along with them in their invasion of Egypt, and the Greeks could have been scarcely less literary.[1585] Certain, at all events, it is, that there was a book-market at Athens, probably resembling the bazars of the East, where the dealers in manuscripts kept their shops;[1586] and thence, in all likelihood, the Greek cities on the Black Sea were supplied; and this is by no means inconsistent with the proverb respecting Hermodoros, Plato’s Sicilian publisher, who was said, contemptuously, to traffic in words; for, as he himself was one of Plato’s hearers, it may have been thought beneath him to turn trader.[1587] Somewhat later we read of Zeno, a stranger in the city, going into a bookseller’s shop to sit down, where he finds the owner reading Xenophon, and is recommended by him to follow Crates.[1588]
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Footnote 1581:
Strab. ix. 1. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 7.
Footnote 1582:
Bœckh, i. 66. Demosth. in Laert. § 8.
Footnote 1583:
Bœckh, i. 67.
Footnote 1584:
Anab. vii. 5. 14. Larcher would read βυβλία, and translate “beaucoup de cordages;” but where he learned that sailors used to carry cables, or cordage either, in their sea-chests, does not appear.
Footnote 1585:
Ap. Longin. De Sublim. § 43.
Footnote 1586:
Pollux, ix. 47, with the commentary, t. vi. p. 934, seq.
Footnote 1587:
Cicero ad Att. xiii. 29. Suid. in v. λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται. t. ii. p. 54. b.
Footnote 1588:
Diog. Laert. vii. p. 164. c.
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So extensive a trade as Athens carried on could not be conducted without protecting regulations, and the co-operation of a commercial police. Accordingly the government exhibited much wisdom and liberality in whatever related to commerce, by all means seeking to encourage enterprise and industry. Numerous officers were appointed to watch over the commercial dealings of the citizens; such as the superintendents of the harbour, ten persons appointed annually by lot; the overseers of the market, likewise ten, of whom five superintended the markets in the city, the other five, those in the Peiræeus; fifteen inspectors of weights and measures, ten of whom attended in the city, the other five those in the port; and subordinate, probably, to these were the public meters, who seem to have been Scythians, and therefore slaves of the state: their duty was to measure whatever grain was sold in the market,[1589] for which was paid a small sum, applied, it may be supposed, to the augmentation of the revenue. Great care, in fact, was bestowed on the subject of weights and measures, and to the market regulations generally; and yet we find from the comic poets[1590] that much fraud was occasionally committed.[1591]
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Footnote 1589:
Harpocrat. in v. προμετρητὴς; and see the note of Gronovius, p. 111, seq. Bekker omits more than half the article, p. 158.
Footnote 1590:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 1591:
But see Bœckh, Corp. Inscript. i. 164.
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It is, by some writers, supposed that credit was at a low ebb in Greece; but this notion seems to have been formed hastily, without allowing for circumstances, as the condition of the times sufficiently accounts for the facts which suggested it; for all large and established houses are known to have possessed almost unlimited credit, since they were able, on the mere security of their name, to raise whatever money they needed; so that none, probably, but persons little known, or not known advantageously, were required to give security.[1592] The inhabitants of certain cities, as, for example, of Phaselis, enjoyed, as we say, a bad reputation,[1593] and were, no doubt, among those whom people refused to trust.
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Footnote 1592:
Vid. Bern. adv. Polycl. § 15. Compare Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce, ii. 78, seq. 85.
Footnote 1593:
See the opening of the speech against Lacritos (§ 1), where the orator heaps his compliments unsparingly upon those “honest dealers,” whom he describes as “the most unjust and villanous of mankind:” πονηρότατοι ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀδικώτατοι.
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If severity, however, in the laws of debtor and creditor have any tendency to support credit, the confiding portion of the community had little reason to complain at Athens, since the spirit of this branch of Athenian jurisprudence was unusually stern. The man who obtained the loan of money and fraudulently withheld his security, was deemed to have committed a capital offence, nor could his high rank or honourable connexions skreen him from punishment.[1594] For it was considered, observes the orator, that an offender of this description not only defrauded the individuals with whom he dealt, but also made an attempt against the sources of public prosperity, commercial operations depending not on the borrower but on the lender, without whose coöperation no ship, or captain, or passenger, can move. On which account the most effective protection was afforded them by law.
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Footnote 1594:
Dem. in Phorm. § 17. Mr. Bœckh, if the English translation exactly represents his meaning, understands this passage differently, and his interpretation is more favourable to the Athenian law: “Even a citizen, who, in his capacity of a merchant, withdrew from a creditor a pledge for a sum vested in bottomry, could be punished with loss of life.” (Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 69.) It may be doubted, however, whether οὐ παρασχόντα τὰς ὑποθήκας can mean anything more than “withholding the securities;” and I, therefore, suppose Bœckh’s translators to have employed the verb “withdraw” for “withhold.”
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Merchants and sea-captains were also defended by very severe enactments against false accusers, who, upon conviction, were heavily fined, and, in default of payment, deprived of the rights of citizenship.[1595] Causes of this kind were tried in the Commercial Court of the Nautodikæ, which was also empowered to examine the claims of citizens accused of foreign extraction.[1596] The causes were introduced by the Thesmothetæ, and in lawsuits between citizens of different nations, by virtue of a particular agreement, there existed an appeal from one state to the other.[1597] Nothing more clearly shows the consideration in which nautical and mercantile affairs were held at Athens, than the laws which regulated the proceedings of this court: in the first place, not to interrupt the course of business and occasion loss to individuals, the Nautodikæ sat during the winter months, from September till March, when navigation was usually suspended. At first, indeed, they did not commence their sittings till January;[1598] but this was found inconvenient, the decision of the court being frequently delayed till late in the spring or summer, to the great loss and detriment of the litigants. Consequences still more disastrous, perhaps, ensued when the cause stood over till the ensuing winter, when, as new judges would be appointed, the whole business had to be commenced de novo. To remedy this evil a plan of reform was conceived by Xenophon,[1599] but with nothing like a statesman’s views, its chief merit consisting in proposing a prize to be awarded to the most able and expeditious judge. His scheme, however, may have had the merit of fixing the attention of wiser men upon the subject, which at length produced the monthly suits to which belonged all causes concerning trade-clubs, dowries, and mines.[1600] Upon the introduction of this improvement in the practice of the commercial court the advantage proposed by Xenophon was fully obtained, since causes could not, as some have imagined, stand over from month to month, but must absolutely be decided within the term.[1601] The more completely to protect and advance the interests of commerce, each state had its consul[1602] (προξένος) who represented the interests of his country, and, like our own consuls in the Levant, was bound to receive and entertain such citizens as arrived at the port where he resided. Besides, when a merchant or trader died abroad, it was part of the consul’s duty to take charge of his property, and transmit immediately to his friends an account of what had taken place, with the necessary particulars.[1603] Occasionally, however, very improper persons obtained this respectable and, no doubt, lucrative situation, as the man Lycidas, formerly one of Chabrias’s slaves, who contrived, by intrigue, to be appointed consul of Messina; and Dionysios, a man of like origin and character, and by birth a Megarean, who enjoyed the honour of representing Athens at Megara.[1604]
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Footnote 1595:
Liban. arg. ad Orat. in Theocrin. t. viii. p. 334.
Footnote 1596:
Poll. viii. 126. Petit, v. 5. p. 522.
Footnote 1597:
Bœckh, i. 69. Cf. Kühn ad Poll. viii. 63. t. iv. p. 675.
Footnote 1598:
Lysias, περὶ δημος. χρημ. § 4. Harpocrat. v. ναυτοδίκη, p. 131. Suid. t. ii. p. 208, seq. Cf. Sigon. de Repub. Athen. iv. 3. 441.
Footnote 1599:
De Vectigal. iii. 3.
Footnote 1600:
Poll. viii. 63. 101, with the Notes. Bœckh. i. 70.
Footnote 1601:
Demosth. in Apatur. § 7, in Pantænet. § 1.
Footnote 1602:
Demosth. in Callip. § 3, adv. Leptin. § 14. Suid. in v. p. 609. a. b. Poll. iii. 59. viii. 91. Προξένους ἐκάλουν, τοὺς τεταγμένους εἰς τὸ ὑποδέχεσθαι τοὺς ξένους τοὺς ἐξ ἄλλων πόλεων ἥκοντας. Schol. Aristoph. Av. 1022. Kust.
Footnote 1603:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 71.
Footnote 1604:
Demosth. adv. Lept. § 28. Cf. Dem. in Callip. § 3.
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It has been made a question, whether or not perfect freedom of trade existed among the ancients, and upon the whole it appears, that among the Athenians, at least, no unwise or vexatious interference habitually took place.[1605]
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Footnote 1605:
Publ. Econ. of Athens, i. 71, seq. Xen. de Vectigal. passim. Cf. Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
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Bœckh remarks that, in the plan of Xenophon for restoring the revenue, no allusion is made to the removal of onerous restrictions on trade; from which it may be inferred that none such existed. Heeren[1606] is clearly of this opinion: “nothing was known of the balance of trade, and consequently all the violent measures resulting from it were never devised by the Greeks. They had duties as well as the moderns; but these duties were exacted only for the sake of increasing the public revenue, not to direct the efforts of domestic industry by the prohibition of certain wares. There was no prohibition of the exportation of the raw produce; no encouragement of manufactures at the expense of the agriculturist. In this respect, therefore, there existed a freedom of industry, commerce, and trade. And such was the general custom. As every thing was decided by circumstances, and not by theories, there may have been single exceptions, and perhaps single examples, where the state for a season usurped a monopoly. But how far was this from the mercantile and restrictive system of the moderns!”
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Footnote 1606:
Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
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This it appears to me is the philosophical view of the matter, which is not modified materially by the remarks of Bœckh. No doubt the interests of the state were regarded as paramount, comprehending, as in just states they do, the interests of all individuals; but for this very reason they would, to the best of their knowledge, beware of interfering capriciously or unnecessarily with private interests, since a prosperous community cannot be constituted of unprosperous members. Mr. Bœckh seems, with all his learning and acuteness, to misapprehend the political theory of the ancients, and to imagine that, because the right of governments to regulate the actions of individuals was recognized, they might safely do so on all occasions without rhyme or reason. But in this he is certainly in error. The object of government was understood then as well as it is now; so that I am apt to think that the erudite professor advances, in the following passage, a doctrine which would have met with but a cold reception among the Athenians, though adopted literally by the historians of the Doric race: “Not in Crete and Lacedæmon alone, two states completely closed up, and from their position unsusceptible of free trade, but generally throughout the whole of Greece, and even under the free and republican government of Athens, the poorest as well as the richest citizen was convinced that the state had the right of claiming the whole property of every individual; any restriction in the transfer of this property, regulated according to circumstances, was looked upon as just, nor could it properly be considered an infringement of justice before the security of person and property was held to be the sole object of government; a light under which it never was viewed by any of the ancients.”[1607]
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Footnote 1607:
Public Economy of Athens, i. 72.
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It would be difficult to select from any writer, ancient or modern, a passage more abounding than this with erroneous conclusions. Neither Lacedæmon nor Crete was excluded by its position from the advantages of free trade; and at Athens there was no citizen, however poor or ignorant, who acknowledged in the state any such right as Mr. Bœckh speaks of, except for the purpose of providing for the general safety, in which case it would be as cheerfully acknowledged in every modern community. While penning the concluding sentence, Mr. Bœckh must have been thinking of the despotic governments of Germany. An Englishman considers the preservation of his political rights as much an object of government as the protection of his person or his property, and would as strenuously contend for it, in which feeling he resembles the Athenian. But I will not permit even this theme to tempt me from the matter in hand.
There can be no difficulty in admitting that, as the very existence of commerce, properly so called, depends on the existence of political communities, the state has a right to interfere, under certain circumstances, with the movements of commerce. For example, merchants may justly be prevented by the laws from furnishing their country’s enemy with arms, with ammunition, with provisions, in short, with any article whatsoever, which, by strengthening the hands of the foe, may tend to the detriment of their own community. Again, in famines and scarcities, the law of self-preservation authorizes states to restrain the exportation of articles absolutely required for home consumption; because distress produces discontent and tumult and insurrection, and may thus endanger the very existence of the government itself. Prohibitions to export, originating in such motives, are perfectly defensible. But so much can scarcely be said for monopolies, which were not unknown to the Greeks, though it is not denied that they were of short duration.[1608] “It can, however, be safely asserted,” says Mr. Bœckh, “that no republic ever demanded of its citizens that they should furnish commodities to the state in specific quantities, and at prices arbitrarily fixed at a low rate, with a view to secure to itself a monopoly: such a demand could only have been enforced in countries under the government of a tyrant.”[1609] The folly, as well as the wickedness, of such despotic interference, I witnessed in the depopulation and misery of Egypt, which at length proceeded so far as to alarm the Pasha himself, and produce some amelioration of his vicious system.
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Footnote 1608:
Aristot. Polit. i. 7.
Footnote 1609:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 73.
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It is, no doubt, possible, that many monopolies of which we know nothing may have existed in antiquity;[1610] but it will be quite evident that, upon such possibility, it would be useless to reason. The monopolies which we know to have existed were few, and of short duration. Aristotle, while observing what advantages both individuals and states sometimes derived from them, attributes a better policy to Athens. He gives two or three examples of private monopolies, the well-known story of Thales and the oil-presses, and that of a man who bought up all the iron[1611] at Syracuse, and adds, that, in great pecuniary straits, governments were sometimes found to imitate them.[1612] Thus, at a late period of their history, the Athenians are supposed to have monopolised the lead obtained from the silver mines of Laureion, which they did, we are told, at the instigation of Pythoclos; that is, they bought it up at the usual price of two drachmas the commercial talent, and sold it at six drachmas.[1613] At Rome the price was higher. As there can be little doubt that the lead was for exportation, no injury was inflicted on individuals. With respect to the monopoly granted by the Byzantines to a banker, it may be observed, that it was only one of the many shifts to which the nakedness of their treasury compelled them to have recourse. The list is given in the second book of the Economics, and is not without interest. I would not affirm that their contrivances were innocent.[1614] Again, the Selymbrians, in a period of public difficulty, constituted themselves monopolists in a manner which Mr. Bœckh might fearlessly have pronounced “less defensible.” By law they were not permitted to export in times of scarcity; but being in want of money, they decreed that the state should purchase all the old stock at a fixed price, leaving individuals sufficient for their yearly consumption, after which they sold the surplus at a higher price, with permission to export.[1615]
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Footnote 1610:
Id. Ibid.
Footnote 1611:
Dr. Gillies translates “corn,” and calls the man a banker! “Ethics and Politics,” ii. 52.
Footnote 1612:
Aristot. Pol. i. 11, seq. 18, seq. Bekk.
Footnote 1613:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 37. Bœckh it is who conjectures the commercial to be meant, no weight being mentioned in the original. Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 44. 73. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 48. Dr. Wordsworth restores, with great felicity, the true reading in the passage of Aristotle: τῶν ἀργυρίων for τῶν τυρίων. Athens and Attica, p. 208. Bœckh’s conjecture, though ingenious, is less probable. Publ. Econ. ii. 429.
Footnote 1614:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 4.
Footnote 1615:
Id. ii. 18. From Mr. Bœckh’s account it might seem as though the exportation of corn was always prohibited at Selymbria (Pub. Econ. i 73); whereas this was the case during famines only.
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It is difficult to say what men will agree to consider “perfect freedom of trade;” but it appears to me, that commerce was as unshackled at Athens as it could have been consistently with the welfare of the community. Mr. Bœckh says, “There are abundant proofs that exportation and importation were regulated according to the exigencies and interests of the community, which is by no means consistent with the perfect freedom of trade.”[1616] There appears to lurk a fallacy in this. Such freedom as this writer would call perfect is inconsistent with the very existence of civil society, whose fundamental laws require that no man’s freedom shall trench upon the freedom, and still less upon the life, of another. But if in commerce the exigencies and interests of the community could have been set at nought, there would have been an end of such community, since frequently its well-being, if not its being, depended on its commercial relations with foreign states.
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Footnote 1616:
Pub. Econ. i. 73, seq.
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So far, therefore, it must, doubtless, be admitted, that commerce was not free. To this extent, and no further, does Aristotle counsel or contemplate interferences with trade: “With regard to importation and exportation,” he says, “it is necessary to know how large a supply of provisions the state requires, and what proportion of them can be produced in the country and what imported, and what imports and exports are necessary for the state, in order that commercial treaties and agreements may be concluded with those of whom the state must make use for this purpose.”[1617]
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Footnote 1617:
Rhet. i. 4.
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With regard to the prohibition to export attributed to Solon, it is necessary either to abandon the subject altogether, or to understand it in the contrary sense to that usually given. Plutarch, as his text now stands, tells a very strange story, observing, that the exportation of every thing but oil was prohibited by Solon, and therefore he adds, it is not wholly improbable that figs also were prohibited.[1618] I understand the matter differently. Solon, probably observing that Attica, at that time, produced barely sufficient oil for its own consumption, prohibited its exportation, though as agriculture improved, the law fell into desuetude, and oil became a principal export. From this example, Plutarch thinks it not improbable, that figs also may at some time or another have been prohibited. The matter is thus clear and natural. Besides, the Scholiast on Pindar, alluding no doubt to some particular period, observes, that the exportation of oil was not permitted.[1619] It is therefore surprising that Bœckh should have laid any stress at all on so contradictory a passage, without endeavouring to restore it, particularly as Solon was himself a merchant and a transgressor of his supposed law. That the exportation of corn should not have been allowed is both intelligible and reasonable, as Attica never produced sufficient for its own consumption; and they were not disposed to adopt the system of the modern Tuscans, who would sell their own corn to the English, and subsist on an inferior sort from the Black Sea, if indeed it be inferior.[1620]
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Footnote 1618:
Plut. Solon. § 24.
Footnote 1619:
Pind. Nem. x. 64. Shulz. Cf. Dissen. t. ii. 505. Petit, p. 417.
Footnote 1620:
Bowring, Statistics of Tuscany, p. 15. Ulpian, to whom Bœckh, i. 74, refers, merely repeats the well-known prohibition to ship-captains to take a cargo of corn to any foreign port. Orat. x. p. 271. a.
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Certain commodities were, however, undoubtedly not allowed to be exported, as for example, timber, tar, wax, rigging, and “leathern bottles, articles which,” as Bœckh observes, “were particularly important for the building and equipment of the fleet.”[1621] But the word which this distinguished scholar conceives to mean “leathern bottles,” had a very different signification, and meant that leathern defence through which the oars passed, and which was designed to keep the sea from rushing in at the row-port. This we gather as well from the scholiast on Aristophanes,[1622] as from several passages of Pollux overlooked by Bœckh. This writer observes, that the leathern defence of the row-port was called ἄσκωμα,[1623] and elsewhere he says that a woman’s breast, when full of milk, was also so called;[1624] from which we may conjecture what form the askoma assumed, when the oar forced it outwards during the act of rowing. Nor do I suppose that such prohibition existed only during time of war, for it would have been equally imprudent to furnish such articles to men preparing for war, as men always are in peace, as to such as were actually engaged in it. From a passage in Theophrastus, it has been inferred that permission to export timber for ship-building was sometimes granted free of duty to individuals; but as it is the Boaster who makes the assertion, adding that, to avoid envy, he never made use of it,[1625] it may be regarded as no less a joke than the reason for prohibiting lamp-wicks from Bœotia, viz., that they might set the fleet on fire![1626]
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Footnote 1621:
Economy of Athens, p. 75.
Footnote 1622:
Ran. 364: ἄσκωμα δὲ δερμάτιον τι ᾧ ἐν ταῖς τριήρεσι χρῶνται, καθ᾽ ὁ ἡ κώπη βάλλεται.
Footnote 1623:
Pollux. i. 88: τὸ δὲ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ σκαλμῷ δέρμα ἄσκωμα.
Footnote 1624:
Pollux. ii. 164: τὸ δε ὑποπιμπλάμενον τοῦ γάλακτος, κὸλπος καὶ ἄσκωμα. Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 97. Hescych. Etym. Mag. et Suid. in v. But more especially Scheffer, De Militiâ Navali, p. 13, Cf. Brunck ad Ran. 364. This confirms the extremely ingenious conjecture of Mitford, though he was mistaken in supposing the thing to have been called ὑπηρέσιον, which meant simply “a cushion.” Hist. of Greece, iii. 154. Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 344, is very unsatisfactory.
Footnote 1625:
Theoph. Char. p. 63. Casaub. 344.
Footnote 1626:
Aristoph. Acharn. 916.
-----
The prohibition to export arms during war to the country of the enemy, and that under pain of death,[1627] was an obvious measure of self-defence. In time of peace, however, the trade in arms was as free as any other trade; and the Athenians imported from their neighbours, the Bœotians, helmets,[1628] in the manufacture of which this people excelled. No doubt, as states derive the sinews of war, in part at least, from commerce, the Athenians had the sagacity to attack their enemies in the vulnerable point of their pride, for the purpose of bringing them the sooner to reason. They thus, too, taught the inferior states, such as Megara and Bœotia, that Athens was independent of them in all respects, while it was for them to consider whether they were equally independent of her.[1629] Thus the Ocean Queen of antiquity was said to exercise (as Great Britain formerly) a despotic sway over trade; as when, for example, she exacted a tenth from all ships sailing to or from the Black Sea;[1630] though in this, as in all human affairs, the despotism[1631] arose naturally from the possession of superior power, and could scarcely have been guarded against. To weaken the enemy by every possible means was the object of a wise policy; so that in contemplating every coast belonging to a power not in alliance with Athens as in a state of blockade,[1632]—in seizing, capturing, or detaining, all vessels of every description by which her interests could be infringed, Athens only acted in self-defence. That she was hated for her superiority we need not be surprised, who know with what heart-burnings and secret aversion our own maritime supremacy has ever been beheld by the nations of the Continent, who repeat against us all the accusations anciently muttered by the surrounding states against Athens.
-----
Footnote 1627:
Dem. de Fals. Legat. § 90.
Footnote 1628:
Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1629:
Conf. Acharn. 660, sqq. and Bœckh, i. 76.
Footnote 1630:
Xen. Hellen. iv. 8. 27. Dodwell, Chron. Xenophon. § 21.
Footnote 1631:
Xen. Rep. Athen. ii. 3. 11. 12.
Footnote 1632:
Xen. ut sup. Thucyd. v. 83.
-----
Utopian speculators, reading history in their easy chairs, find it facile to condemn the measures of ancient statesmen. But allowing them to have been reprehensible, it remains to be seen whether, in the same circumstances, we could have carried any better into execution; for the ability to imagine better is nothing, unless we suppose that events always allow men to act up to their knowledge. However this may be, the Athenian government found itself compelled by its position sometimes to interfere with the course of trade; but it may well be doubted whether any other freedom of trade than there existed be either possible or desirable. For, both commerce, and every other mode in which the energies of a nation can develope themselves, should no otherwise exist than as they are beneficial to the nation at large; and of this the managers of public business ought always to be better judges than merchants or speculators, who only consider their own interests, which may not always be identical with those of the state. I am far, however, from designing to maintain that the commercial regulations of Athens were in no case oppressive. Perhaps in the matter of the corn-trade they were so; and yet much may be said for a populous city surrounded by a barren country, and therefore solicitous about its own subsistence. Let us examine those regulations. According to the letter of the law, which was often transgressed, no inhabitant of Athens could land a cargo of corn anywhere but on the Peiræeus; but, arrived there, and the necessities of the state provided for, the remainder could be disposed of elsewhere. This was the full amount of the grievance, if it ought to be so called.
With respect to the law which is supposed to have restrained capitalists from lending money on any vessel not returning to Athens with corn or other commodities, it would be highly unreasonable, with Mr. Bœckh, to denominate it “excessively oppressive,” until we understand it.[1633] For my own part, until something better be proposed, I must adopt the interpretation of Salmasius, that it was not permitted to lend money for the purpose of buying corn in other countries except upon the condition, that that corn should be imported into Athens.[1634] There no doubt are difficulties attending this view of the matter; but this is equally the case in whichever way we understand it. It may have been that, in order to render Athens as far as possible the emporium of the world, the law required that money should not be lent to merchants or supercargoes, unless it was their intention to return thither with a lading, whether of corn or some other commodity. But even this seems very doubtful.
-----
Footnote 1633:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 77. i. 65.
Footnote 1634:
De Modo Usur. ap. Vet. p. 193, sqq. Bœckh, i. 78.
-----
But, by whatever laws this branch of trade was regulated, no doubt can exist as to its extent and importance. For, as the population of Attica had, at a very early period, outgrown the means of subsistence supplied by the country itself, the republic found itself constrained to depend for the primary article of food upon the productions of foreign states, to the amount of nearly one-third of its whole consumption; that is to say, while there were grown at home two hundred and ninety-two thousand three hundred and ninety-two quarters, as may be proved by calculation,[1635] there were imported a hundred and eighteen thousand quarters in the age of Demosthenes. Earlier its importation of corn was still more considerable, when the greater part of the supply was obtained from Eubœa, by the way of Oropos and the pass of Deceleia.[1636]
-----
Footnote 1635:
Adv. Lept. § 9. Consult on this subject the note of Clinton. Fast. Hellen. t. ii. p. 392, seq.
Footnote 1636:
Thucyd. vii. 28.
-----
Of the hundred and eighteen thousand quarters abovementioned, about sixty thousand were obtained from the countries on the Black Sea, chiefly from Theodosia, now Kaffa,[1637] in the Crimea, the remainder from Thrace, the islands of the Ægæan, Egypt, and Sicily.[1638]
-----
Footnote 1637:
Cf. Strab. vii. 4. t. ii. p. 95. Dem. adv. Lept. § 9. Herod. vii. 147. The climate of this country was regarded as extremely severe by the ancients, so that at Panticapæum, a city lying between the modern Kertsh and Yenikale, neither the myrtle nor the laurel would grow on account of the cold, though many attempts had been made to rear them for sacred purposes. And yet the laurel was found to brave the inclemencies of the season on Mount Olympos. Most fruit-trees, however, as apples, pears, figs, and pomegranates flourished in the Crimea abundantly, though the pomegranate required to be covered in winter, and all fruits ripened later. The usual timber trees of the country were the oak, the elm, and the ash; the pine, the silver-fir, and the pitch-tree, finding the climate uncongenial. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 5. 3. The nitrous plains around Panticapæum are still bare of wood, though covered thickly by the harmala, a plant which grows spontaneously upon saltpetre grounds. Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, iii. 356.
Footnote 1638:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. Lysias in Diogit. § 5. Athen. ii. 13. xiii. 50.
-----
Yet the people of Athens were subject to few scarcities; and those they experienced happened in later times, when their enemies had acquired the superiority at sea. For so long as this state attended to her own navy and maintained her maritime supremacy, there was never, I believe, a deficiency of the grain in Peiræeus,[1639] though attempts were frequently made by the corn-dealers to create a monopoly and extort famine prices from the public,[1640] for which they were sometimes punished with death. Numerous proofs of the ease with which Athens could provision herself, occurred during the latter years of the Peloponnesian war, and the age immediately succeeding. Thus, when the Spartans, with their king Agis, were in possession of the pass of Deceleia, and ravaged habitually the whole territory of Attica, they felt that even the occupation of that important post was scarcely of any avail to them so long as Athens remained mistress of the sea, since they daily saw numbers of corn ships from all parts of the Levant, sailing into the Peiræeus.[1641] Afterwards, when the Spartans had begun to apply themselves to naval affairs, one of their first endeavours was to distress Attica, by attacking her corn ships, as on the occasion when Pollis sought to capture the transports in the neighbourhood of Geræstos, which however were relieved by the fleet under Chabrias.[1642]
-----
Footnote 1639:
Though afterwards in the decline of the republic it was otherwise. See in Plutarch an account of the base infraction of the law of nations by Demetrius which caused a famine in Athens. Demet. § 33. Cf. Xenoph. Hellen. v. i. 23.
Footnote 1640:
See the whole oration of Lysias, against the Corn Monopolists in the Oratores Attici, ii. 523. Cf. Dem. cont. Dionysod. § 2.
Footnote 1641:
Xenoph. Hellen. i. 35.
Footnote 1642:
Id. v. 4. 61.
-----
No inconvenience was ever experienced from the reluctance of the corn-growing states to export their produce. On the contrary, the petty kings of the countries on the Euxine were so anxious to secure to themselves the custom of Athens, that they conferred on that state numerous privileges and made her great presents, in order to tempt her corn ships into their harbours and prevent the application to rival states. It may indeed be said, that peace was scarcely ever interrupted between Athens and the exporting countries, and that not through the Athenians truckling to them to obtain their corn, but through their truckling to the Athenians to be allowed to supply them. Thus, as far as the experience of antiquity can be relied on, it must be concluded, that the country which purchases agricultural produce invariably exercises a paramount influence over the countries which supply it. It is in fact a rule all the world over, that it is the customer who coerces the dealer, not the dealer who influences the customer.
But, further, this immense importation of grain did not throw any of the lands of Attica, however poor and barren, out of cultivation.[1643] On the contrary, the powers of the soil were still taxed to the utmost, and the processes of agriculture carried to a much higher degree of perfection than in any other part of Greece.[1644] In fact, with its vineyards, the whole of Attica resembled a continued garden up to the very walls of the city.[1645] From which, as well as from positive testimony, it appears evident, that the Athenians always retained their partiality for rural labours,[1646] notwithstanding the extent to which the manufacturing system was carried among them. The cultivation of the soil has, indeed, so many charms for mankind, that they will never desert it so long as it is able to provide for their wants. Men become manufacturers only when they can no longer live by agriculture.
-----
Footnote 1643:
Xenoph. de Vectigal. ch. i.
Footnote 1644:
Xenoph. Œconom. passim.
Footnote 1645:
Dicæarchos, p. 1.
Footnote 1646:
Aristoph. Acharn. 32, sqq.
-----
It should, perhaps, he added, that of the grain imported into the Peiræeus the surplus was frequently exported to other parts of Greece, when the wants of the commonwealth had been properly supplied, and that a slight fixed duty, for the sake of revenue, appears to have been always levied on imported grain.[1647]
-----
Footnote 1647:
Dem. cont. Neær. § 9.
-----
But this necessary of life was not generally paid for in specie. On the contrary, it was with manufactures that Greece purchased the corn of the rude nations on the Euxine, whom, by her trade, she gradually reclaimed from barbarism, inoculated with a taste for harmless luxuries, and, at length, even for Hellenic literature.[1648]
-----
Footnote 1648:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 14.
-----
In one case we find that the Nomadic Scythians applied themselves to the cultivation of the soil, and, of course, became stationary merely for the purpose of supplying Greece with corn.[1649] Again, in the later ages of the Roman republic, when a corn-field was a rarity in Italy, which had been almost entirely converted by the nobility into gardens and pleasure-grounds,[1650] Sicily, Egypt, and other agricultural countries of the Levant, furnished so ample a supply of grain, that scarcity was never experienced, except when the public officers were grossly negligent of their duty. In fact, the carrying trade devolved upon the Phœnicians, who, to a great extent subsisting by it alone, were necessarily most careful, for their own sake, to keep up the supply.[1651] Had the Romans been themselves a commercial people, like the English, their traffic might have been still better regulated.
-----
Footnote 1649:
Herod. iv. 17.
Footnote 1650:
Varro de Re Rust. l. 1.
Footnote 1651:
Lucian. Navig. § 6.
-----
To return, however: it is admitted, that liberal as, upon the whole, the principles of trade were in antiquity, those of the Athenians were the most so of any.[1652] The Argives and Æginetans, at one period, prohibited the importation of Athenian manufactures, particularly their pottery, or, at least, prohibited the use of them in religious ceremonies, though up to that period they had been allowed. The object, of course, was to bring their own earthenware into use, Argos,[1653] especially, possessing a manufacture which at length rivalled that of Attica itself. It is regarded as a mark of ancient simplicity, that neither gold nor silver, nor jewelled plate, but fictile vases merely, were originally employed in making libations to the gods.[1654]
-----
Footnote 1652:
Bœckh. i. 80.
Footnote 1653:
Herod. v. 88. Athen. iv. 13. xi. 60.
Footnote 1654:
Valcken. ad Herod. Wessel. p. 416.
-----
The same principles which regulated maritime commerce governed also the intercourse which nations carried on by land. It would, therefore, be unreasonable to look for what is, oddly enough, denominated “unrestricted freedom,” since, without at all admitting that “the police mixed itself with everything,” we cannot deny that the state, in this, as in all other respects, sought to advance its own interests. Foolish attempts were sometimes made to bring down the price of certain necessaries, as salt, an example of which is mentioned by Aristophanes; but the law was soon abrogated.[1655] Had the state been disposed to interfere tyrannically in anything, it would have been where corn was concerned. It is, however, admitted by Bœckh, who has taken the wrong side on this question, that in this article “we certainly find a great freedom of prices,” though the law interfered to prevent the evil consequences to the public of combinations among corn-dealers for the purpose of creating a monopoly.[1656]
-----
Footnote 1655:
Concion. 813, with the Scholiast.
Footnote 1656:
Econ. of Athens, i. 81.
-----
In general, the business of retail-dealing in the market was confined by law to the citizens, but this was not always rigidly enforced, since we find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other foreigners, had their stalls there, for which, it would appear, they paid a distinct duty.[1657] They were more especially found among the fishmongers and dealers in small wares. But, in the Peiræeus, the number of foreign traders greatly exceeded that of the natives. For their use, moreover, a species of exchange (δεῖγμα) was created, whither they brought specimens of their merchandise for exhibition, the place being usually crowded with buyers from all the neighbouring countries. This was, possibly, the most striking scene in Greece, crowded with merchants from the East, in their gorgeous and varied costumes, intermingled with Greeks of all classes, and gay women who came hither to see and be seen.[1658]
-----
Footnote 1657:
It is thus that Bœckh understands a passage in the speech against Eubulides, § 10, which both Wolf and Taylor interpret very differently. With respect to the fact, however, of foreign dealers actually holding stalls, we are not left to depend on any doubtful testimony.
Footnote 1658:
Pollux, ix. 34. Comm. t. ii. p. 911, seq.
-----
On the prices of things in antiquity, compared with those at present prevailing, we have only one way of judging, and that is by ascertaining whether a greater degree of labour was required to provide the necessaries of life. The contrary was certainly the case in Attica, which, nevertheless, was, probably, the most expensive place of residence in the world. Even the slaves would appear to have enjoyed more leisure and exemption from toil than the industrious classes of our own most industrious community: and the citizens themselves, with their numerous festivals and amusements, public and private, evidently devoted a far greater proportion of their time to pleasure than would now be possible to any save the opulent. This, in fact, resulted from the moderate custom duties charged by the state, but much more from the superior fertility of the soil, which yielded greater returns for less labour, and from the comparative fewness of unproductive inhabitants. In modern language, the supply was greater in proportion to the demand. Still, it appears quite certain, that, though the duties laid on by the state were moderate, the merchants and retail dealers made very great profits. “This,” as Bœckh observes, “is sufficiently proved by the high rate of interest on money lent upon bottomry, in which thirty per cent for one summer was not unfrequently paid.”[1659]
-----
Footnote 1659:
Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 81, seq.
-----
I am not quite sure that, as a general rule, “a high rate of interest and profit is an infallible sign that industry and trade are yet in their infancy,” and still less that lowness of interest is a sign of a flourishing country.[1660] On the contrary, I should infer, from the former, that trade was in that healthy state in which it is scarcely a speculation; and, from the latter, that its current had become stagnant. However, a high interest was paid, and great profits were made in antiquity. Of this a striking example is furnished by Herodotus. A Samian ship trading with Egypt was, by some accident, led to push its way westward, as far as Tartessos, in Iberia, antecedent to the period at which the Greeks began to trade regularly with that port.[1661] What the nature and value of its cargo may have been is not known, any more than the articles which it received in exchange. The conjecture, however, that it received silver at a low rate, as the Phœnicians anciently did, is not improbable. At all events, the merchants engaged in this adventure cleared upon that one cargo the sum of sixty talents, of which, in pious gratitude, they dedicated a tenth to Hera the tutelar goddess of their island. And this historian adds, that, with the exception of Sostratos of Ægina, the most fortunate of mercantile adventurers, no Grecian merchant had ever up to his time made so successful a voyage.
-----
Footnote 1660:
Compare Hume’s Essay on Interest, p. 172, sqq. with Mr. Bœckh’s Public Economy of Athens, i. 82.
Footnote 1661:
Herod. iv. 152.
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X. NAVIGATION
As the art of navigation was not invented by the Greeks, it will be in this place unnecessary to inquire very minutely into its rude beginnings. Most maritime tribes doubtless discovered for themselves the means of traversing such rivers, and creeks, and bays, and arms of the sea, as lay in their immediate neighbourhood and impeded their communication, whether hostile or friendly, with the various tribes on their borders. Another motive, moreover, which probably tempted men to trust themselves very early upon the waters, was the desire to regale on those dainty fish which abound on nearly all shores, and constitute among the most savage nations an important article of food. It will readily be believed that history cannot pretend to name the individual who in any country first launched his raft or canoe upon the deep. Nevertheless, tradition among the Phœnicians, endeavoured to supply the defect of history. Ousoös, we are told,[1662] a primitive Arab hero, observing the trunk of a large tree overthrown, perhaps by a hurricane, near the shore, lopped off the branches, set it afloat, and committed himself along with it to the mercy of the waves. He had very soon an abundance of imitators. In every part of the Red Sea, on the Nile, the Indus, and the Persian Gulf, hardy navigators made their appearance, who undertook voyages more or less hazardous, in piraguas constructed of a single bamboo, or the shell of a vast tortoise, or of a wicker-work frame covered with leather[1663]—the coracles of our British ancestors still in common use on many streams in Wales. Occasionally, too, more especially on the rivers and shores of the Euxine, capacious, long, and sturdy barks[1664] were scooped out of the trunks of enormous trees, which were denominated Monoxyla, and seem to have been at one time or another in general use all over the world from the island of Australasia to the Arctic Circle. A specimen of those employed by our own forefathers may be seen in the colonnade of our national Museum. On the Nile were several kinds of barks peculiar to Egypt, such for example, as those which were plaited from the papyrus plant,[1665] or from rushes. Most extraordinary of all, however, were their boats of earthenware, in which, furnished both with sails and oars, they glided over the serene bosom of the river.
-----
Footnote 1662:
Sanchoniath. ap Euseb. Præp. Evang. i. p. 23, bis. Leroy, Marine des Anciens Peuples, p. 188.
Footnote 1663:
Herod. i. 194.
Footnote 1664:
In the sea of Marmora, a boat somewhat similar in form, though different in construction, is still used, and known under the name of piade. It is narrow, and “from twenty to forty feet in length, very sharp both in the prow and stern; it is built of willow, and often beautifully carved and ornamented.” Douglas, Essay, &c., p. 13.
Footnote 1665:
Herod. ii. 96. Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 8. 4.
-----
As soon as the Greeks began to apply themselves to maritime affairs, they constructed ports and docks in various parts of the country, where they built numerous ships, rude enough at first, perhaps; but improving by experience and study[1666] they in time equalled, and at length surpassed, the Phœnicians, by whom at the outset they may perhaps have been instructed. Among the greatest difficulties they had to encounter was the scarcity of ship-timber, for which they were always compelled greatly to depend on other countries. The materials, however, being collected, their shipwrights appear to have proceeded in much the same manner as those of modern times, laying down the keel, fixing in the ribs, planking, decking, caulking, and pitching, until the hull was completed.
-----
Footnote 1666:
Cf. Hom. Il. α. 316. Thucyd. i. 10.
-----
In their war-galleys,[1667] constructed under the superintendence of a naval architect elected by lot, they exhausted all the resources of art in their endeavours to communicate to them the greatest beauty of form and splendour of appearance. Painting, carving, and gilding,[1668] were called in to cover both stern and prow with images and ornaments of the most fanciful kinds, glowing with bright blue or vermilion,[1669] intermingled with scrolls and flourishes of other colours, and figures of burnished gold. Occasionally beneath the rim of the prow were bright cerulean bands,[1670] painted in encaustic and defended by so durable a varnish that they could neither be blistered by the sun, nor dimmed by the action of the sea-water. In this part, beneath the roots as it were of the acrostolion, were placed those ornaments resembling eyes, one on either side, over which the name of the ship was written.[1671] The sweep of the deck was a gentle curve, the lowest dip of which was at the ship’s waist. On the poop stood a deep alcove in which the pilot took his station,[1672] protected in a great degree from wind and weather, and having over his head a large lantern, in which a bright light was kindled at nightfall.
-----
Footnote 1667:
Vid. Gyrald. de Navig. c. xvi. t. i. col. 646. Thucyd. i. 13, seq. Athen. xi. 49. Aristoph. Lysist. 173. On the names of different classes of vessels, see Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 143. Eq. 1363. Thucyd. iv. 67.
Footnote 1668:
Poll. i. 84. Goguet, iv. 261. Winkel. i. 26. n.
Footnote 1669:
Lucian. Charidem. § 25.
Footnote 1670:
Athen. v. 37.
Footnote 1671:
Poll. i. 86.
Footnote 1672:
In this he had a seat which was called ικρία. Hesych. in v.
-----
Firm and lofty bulwarks rose along the ship’s sides, protecting the mariners from being swept off in tempests by the passing surge. On the bows again, there was usually a square tower furnished with lofty portals, through which the combatants, protected from annoyances on both flanks, poured, in close fight, their darts into the enemy’s ship, or rushed forward to board it. At the very front of the prow, where our bowsprit is now placed, arose an elegant winding scroll, which though projecting slightly beyond the hull, could never touch the corresponding part of the enemy’s galley until the iron or brazen beaks[1673] below had met and shattered each other. The rudder[1674] consisted of two paddles placed one on either side of the ship, which was impelled along by oar and sail. The row-ports of these galleys being somewhat capacious might, if left open, have shipped a great deal of water, on which account they were furnished with strong leather bags, in form like a woman’s breast, projecting outwards, nailed to the circle of the row-port, and fitting tight about the oar. The rowers, to render their condition more comfortable, were furnished with cushions or soft-dressed fleeces.[1675]
-----
Footnote 1673:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 552.
Footnote 1674:
Spallanzani in describing the preparations made by the Portuguese for the first doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, mentions, among other things, a double rudder, so “that in case one should be damaged there might be another to act.” Travels in the Two Sicilies, iv. 201.
Footnote 1675:
The sea-term ὑπηρέσιον which occurs in Thucydides, ii. 93, is very variously explained. Mitford (Hist. Greece, iii. 154) contends, that it means a sort of bag placed in the τρῆμα, or aperture through which the oar passed, and was designed to prevent the flowing in of the waves. This bag, however, as I have already remarked in pp. 289, 290, was called ἄσκωμα. Poll. ii. 154. Potter (ii. 136,) thinks it was a skin on which the rowers sat. Lilius Gyraldus, (De Navigiis, c. vi. p. 627,) supposes it to have been that part of the galley on which the oar rested, and sometimes signified the oar itself. The Greek scholiast on Thucydides, (t. v. p. 399,) agrees with Potter, saying, that it means a sheep-skin with the fleece which covered the rowers’ benches.
-----
The merchantmen differed considerably both in form and general arrangements from the war-galleys. As in our own ships of burden, under the old system of admeasurement, the hull instead of sinking down sharp towards the keel, bellied outwards at the sides, so as to render the bottom almost flat. They were very much shorter, moreover, in proportion to their height than ships of the line,[1676] which, from their slender elongated figure, obtained the appellation of long galleys. In trading vessels,[1677] much greater stress was laid on sails than on oars, since the crews could never be sufficiently numerous to furnish constantly fresh relays of rowers; and, in their protracted voyages, it would have been impossible for the same men to remain perpetually on the benches. The masts consequently were here of very great height, equalling, according to rule, the length of the ship, which rendered it practicable to crowd an immense quantity of canvass, but at the same time rendered them liable to capsize in a heavy gale, as is still the case with the Levant-built ships, which are generally much taller rigged than ours. They commonly gave a greater length to the hull of transports, though not altogether so great as to ships of war. Pirate luggers were always built without decks,[1678] and extremely low that they might be the better able to approach their prey unperceived. Their sloops, smacks, and lighters,[1679] together with all the other small craft employed in the coasting trade, exhibited every variety of form, but appear to have been generally stout-built and well-appointed.
-----
Footnote 1676:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 1363.
Footnote 1677:
One of these vessels, when built for speed, would, with a fair wind, make a hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. Herod. iv. 86.
Footnote 1678:
Thucyd. i. 10. Schol. t. v. p. 311.
Footnote 1679:
Much of the coasting trade of the Mediterranean is still carried on in extremely small barks or open boats. See Spallanzani, Travels in the Two Sicilies, iii. 122, sqq. In the Adriatic, however, the necessity has at length been felt of employing vessels of a broad and flat construction, and extremely solid, to resist the violence of the storms so frequent in that sea, id. iv. 200.
-----
Respecting the tonnage and dimensions of the largest class of merchantmen, we possess little positive information. It would appear, however, that in comparison with the vessels engaged in the corn-trade, between Alexandria and Italy,[1680] they were of very moderate burden, since the appearance of one of those large ships in the Peiræeus excited general astonishment. The size of this Egyptian trader, which seems to have been no way distinguished from others engaged in the same traffic, may perhaps assist the imagination in forming some definite idea of an ancient merchantman: its length, from stem to stern, was one hundred and eighty feet, its breadth nearly fifty, and its clear depth in the hold about forty-five. It was furnished with one enormous mast, with yards in proportion, and a capacious mainsail, composed of numerous tiers of ox-hides. The cables and anchors, capstains, windlasses, with all the other appurtenances of a ship, were on a suitable scale, while the crew was so numerous as to be compared to an army. In the stem were airy and spacious cabins, above which rose the gilded figure of a goose. On either side of the bows stood an image of Isis,[1681] bending over the waves and appearing to afford her divine protection to those who had chosen her for their tutelar goddess. Among the Greeks, however, the place assigned to the tutelar divinity was sometimes the stern, where oaths were taken, expiations made, prayers and sacrifices offered up, and where such of the crew as had committed any offence took sanctuary. On the top of the mast was a vane[1682] of burnished metal which, turning and flashing in the sun, appeared like a streak of flame. As their ships, more especially during long voyages, ran perpetual risk of being assailed by pirates, they were abundantly supplied with all kinds of arms and implements of war, which were ranged along the cabin partitions and elsewhere with so much order and regularity, that they could always, by night or day, be found at a moment’s warning.
-----
Footnote 1680:
Lucian. Navig. § 5.
Footnote 1681:
On the bows of the Athenian war-galleys a wooden statue of Athena, richly gilded, occupied the place here assigned to Isis. Aristoph. Acharn. 457, et Schol.
Footnote 1682:
See on vanes, flags, &c., Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 161. As many of our sailors carry about their persons a child’s caul as an amulet to protect them against the dangers of the ocean, so the mariners of Greece attributed a sort of miraculous power to the skins of the seal and the hyæna, which they bound around the summits of their masts as a safeguard against lightning and thunderbolts. Plut. Sympos, iv. 2. 1.
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It was by very slow advances that the ancients arrived at that high degree of excellence in the art of ship-building, which, in the most flourishing ages of Greece, its maritime states exhibited. In the Homeric age, the largest vessels known were of very moderate burden, since even the poet, who would doubtless allow himself some licence, speaks of no transport which could carry more than one hundred and fifty men. These barks, too, Thucydides thinks, were undecked, like the pirate vessels of his own times, and indeed in ours also, in most parts of the Ægæan, though I have myself sailed in a large Greek brig, of piratical construction, which carried several guns, and was not only decked, but so admirably built, that after labouring ten days in a storm, she made not an inch more water than when in port.
The various stages in improvement have not been marked. They went on, however, each age excelling that which had preceded it, until at length having reached the utmost perfection of which their system was susceptible, they began to apply their skill to the creation of huge fabrics merely for show and magnificence, and calculated rather for the gratification of an insane luxury than for the genuine purposes of trade. One of these naval monsters was constructed at Syracuse under the eye of Archimedes, and at the expense of king Hiero.
Having procured from the forests of Mount Ætna timber sufficient for the building of sixty triremes, together with a variety of other materials from Italy, Spain, and Gaul, as crooked timber for ribs, hard wood for pegs, with pitch and hemp, and Spanish broom[1683] for cables, he assembled a sufficient number of ship-wrights, with Archias, the Corinthian, at their head, and set them to work under the inspection of Archimedes, though he himself spent the greater part of his day overlooking the workmen at the dock. When in about six months the planking had been carried to about half the height of the hull, and properly sheathed with lead in lieu of the copper at present employed, the ship was launched[1684] by means of a machine, invented for the purpose by Archimedes, into a sort of floating dock, where it was completed in other six months. The planks were fastened to the ribs with copper bolts, of which some were of ten and others fifteen pounds’ weight, passed through holes prepared for them by the auger; and over the heads of these bolts plates of lead were fixed, having been first lined, as it were, with a layer of wadding steeped in pitch.
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Footnote 1683:
Athen. v. 40.
Footnote 1684:
By what ceremonies a ship-launch was accompanied in antiquity, I have nowhere discovered. Those which take place on the occasion in modern Greece are extremely pleasing, and may, perhaps, have had a classical origin. A crown of flowers “is suspended from the prow of a vessel when it is first launched, and the ‘καρόβακηρι,’ or master of the ship, raises the jar of wine to his lips as he stands upon the deck, and then pours it on the ground. Surely, nothing can be more beautifully classical; and it were to be wished that we could trace some part of a ceremony that takes place with us upon the same occasion to this source, and not consider it as an imitation of one of the most sacred rites of our religion.” Douglas, p. 65.
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They next proceeded to the interior arrangements, the explanation of which is replete with difficulty. The whole depth of the ship seems to have been divided into four stories, of which the lowest, or hold, was filled by the cargo; the second, descended to by long flights of steps, was appropriated to the rowers, who were ranged in twenty banks; the third was laid out in cabins for the use of the crew, while the military officers and the men occupied the uppermost. The kitchen was situated in the stern.
All these cabins were adorned with pavements in mosaic, representing in a long series of compartments the entire action of the Iliad; while the furniture, doors, and ceilings were furnished with proportionate splendour and elegance. On the upper deck was a gymnasium, exactly proportioned to the dimensions of the ship, together with a number of walks running through the midst of gardens laid out on leaden terraces, and containing all kinds of odoriferous plants and flowers. All these alleys were arched with trellis-work, overlaid with the intermingled foliage of the white-ivy and the vine growing out of troughs filled with earth, arranged along the promenades, and watered like other gardens. In a different part of the ship was a magnificent apartment called the Aphrodision, furnished with three couches, and having a pavement variegated with agates, and all the richest and most beautiful marbles of Sicily. It was wainscotted and roofed with cypress, while its doors were of Atlantic citron-wood inlaid with ivory. On all sides, moreover, it was adorned with pictures and statues and vases and goblets, of the most fanciful and varied forms. Contiguous to this chamber was the library, furnished with five couches and store of books. Its doors and wainscot were of box, and on its roof was a sun-dial, constructed in imitation of that in the Achradina. There was also a bath, in which were three couches, and three caldaria of bronze, together with a basin containing five metretæ, lined with Taurominian marble of various colours. There were numerous cabins fitted up for the soldiers and the crew, from whom was selected a number of persons whose sole business it was to superintend the pumps.[1685] The ship likewise contained twenty stables, ten on either hand, well supplied with fodder, and every convenience for the grooms.
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Footnote 1685:
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 432.
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In the bows was a prodigious reservoir of fresh-water, lined with tarpaulin, and kept under lock and key; and near it lay the piscina or fish-pond, overlaid with lead, and filled with sea-water, in which was preserved an ample supply of fish for a long voyage. On projecting galleries, extending along the ship’s sides, were situated the wood-house, the kitchen, the bake-house, the mills, and other conveniences. At different distances along the sides were ranged numerous figures of Atlas, nine feet in height, supporting the triglyphs and the projecting portions of the ship: its whole surface, moreover, was adorned with suitable paintings.
There arose from the deck eight towers, two on the stern, two on the prow, and four in the ship’s waist, in diameter and elevation proportioned to the dimensions of the whole. From the outer battlements of each of these turrets projected two immense beams, hollowed out like troughs, which being balanced in the middle on the edge of the tower, could be filled with huge stones, that, by elevating the inner extremity of the machine, were launched into the enemy’s ship as it sailed beneath. These engines were probably worked by ropes and pulleys attached to the opposite battlements. Six armed men, two of whom were archers, took their station in each turret, the whole interior of which was filled with stones and darts. All round the ship, supported by a series of triangles, ran a gallery, defended by a parapet and battlements. On this stood a catapult, invented by Archimedes, which cast darts eighteen feet long, with stones upwards of three hundred and fifty pounds in weight, to the distance of a furlong. This gallery, as well, I presume, as the men who worked the engine, was protected by a close net-work of large ropes suspended from brazen chains. To each of the three masts was attached a couple of engines, which darted iron bars and masses of lead against the enemy. The sides of the ship bristled with iron spikes, designed to protect it against boarding; and on all sides were likewise grapples, which could be flung by machines into the galleys of the foe, so as to retain them within reach of the missiles from on board. Along the galleries, and round the masts and catapults, were drawn up two hundred and forty men in complete armour. In the fore, main, and mizen-tops were stationed other warriors, who were supplied with stones and similar missiles by baskets running on pulleys, and worked by boys. The ship was supplied with twelve anchors, of which four were of wood, and eight of iron.[1686]
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Footnote 1686:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 23, p. 110, with the amusing conjectures of Goguet, &c., on the origin of anchors, Origine des Loix, ii. 221. Pausanias attributes the invention of the anchor to Midas, i. 4. 5. Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 753. If we may trust to the testimony of Lucian, a small boat-anchor could be bought for five drachmas. Dialog. Mortuorum, iv. 1.
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Very little difficulty was experienced in discovering pines sufficiently lofty for the fore and mizen-masts of this huge galley; but it was only by accident that a swineherd in the mountains of the Abruzzi found a tree of sufficient magnitude for the mainmast. It was conveyed to the sea by Philias, an engineer of Taurominium. The pump, notwithstanding its great depth, was easily worked by the screw of Archimedes, and only required the labour of one individual. The name first bestowed on this ship by Hiero was “The Syracusan;” but when afterwards he despatched it as a present to King Ptolemy, he changed it to that of the “The Alexandrian.”
Besides the individuals already enumerated, there were six hundred men stationed on the prow; and to administer justice in this floating commonwealth a court was instituted, consisting of the captain, the pilot, and the principal officers in command in the forecastle, who judged according to the laws of Syracuse. It was followed on the voyage to Egypt by a number of smaller craft, of which the majority were fishing-smacks.
The cargo of “The Alexandrian,” which, together with the vessel itself, was presented to King Ptolemy at a time when famine raged in Egypt, consisted of sixty thousand medimni of corn, two thousand jars of salt-fish, twenty thousand talents of wool, and an equal quantity of other commodities. The poet Archimelos having written a copy of verses on this nautical castle, Hiero felt so greatly flattered by the compliment that he sent the author a thousand medimni of wheat, which he landed for him at the Peiræeus.
In order to convey some idea of another department of nautical architecture among the ancients, in which there was probably a greater display of fancy than of science, we shall here introduce the description of a pleasure-barge in which Ptolemy Philopater and the ladies of his court used to sail upon the Nile.[1687] Among the caliphs and sultans of the East we find traces of a similar taste for gorgeous and magnificent barks; but neither in history nor fiction do we remember to have met any account of a vessel so curiously constructed, or so superbly and sumptuously adorned. It was, in the first place, half a furlong in length, flat-bottomed, and rising high above the water on account of the swell, with projecting keel, and prow of most graceful curvature,—or, I should rather, perhaps, say, prows, for it appeared double in front, as though a pair of galleys had been lashed together. Along the sides and stern ran two galleries, the one above the other, where the persons on board might stroll and take exercise as the barge was wafted along by the wind. Of these the lower one resembled an open peristyle, the upper a close arcade furnished at intervals with windows looking out upon the river.
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Footnote 1687:
The great attention paid to navigation by the Egyptians, under the government of the Ptolemies, may be inferred from the fact, that they possessed at one time upwards of four thousand ships of all sizes. Athen. v. 36.
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Considering the whole barge as one great building, the architect placed the extreme hall encircled by a single row of columns at the extremity of the stern, where it was, doubtless, approached from the upper gallery. Having traversed this, you next beheld a propylæon erected with the most precious wood and ivory. This led into a proscenion roofed over, in the vicinity of which lay a variety of chambers. Of these the most remarkable was a vast peripheral hall fitted up with twenty couches. This apartment was wainscotted with cedar and Milesian cypress; the doors, twenty in number, were formed of panels of citron wood richly inlaid with ivory. The hinges, the nails, the knockers, and door-handles, were of copper, gilt. The shafts of the columns were cypress wood, and the Corinthian capitals of gold and ivory were surmounted by an architrave richly overlaid with gold. Above this again was a broad frieze adorned with numerous figures of animals roughly sculptured in ivory, but remarkable for the costliness of the materials. The ceiling was of cedar wood elaborately carved and covered with a blaze of gilding. Close at hand were the apartments of the women, in the structure and ornaments of which equal magnificence was displayed. In another part of the bark was a chapel of Aphroditè surmounted by a dome. It contained a statue of the goddess in Parian marble. This sacred edifice was surrounded by other suites of apartments among which was a symposion adorned with pillars of Indian marble. Towards the prow was a saloon sacred to Dionysos, surrounded on all sides with pillars furnished with numerous couches, and adorned with gilded cornices. The roof was enriched with ornaments suited to the character of the god, that is, in all probability orgeastic processions of Bacchantes and Bacchanals, with crowns of ivy and vine leaves. On the right hand this saloon opened into a grotto or cavern, in which the colours of rocks were imitated by an incrustation of precious stones, whose brilliance was in various parts relieved by ornaments of gold. The busts of the royal family sculptured of Parian marble were ranged round the grot.
On the roof of the great saloon was erected a small symposion, in the form of a tent, exceedingly agreeable from its airiness and the fine prospect it commanded over the whole valley of the Nile. It was completely open in front, and the roof consisting of a series of semicircular hoops like the top of a calèche, it could be bent down and drawn forward at pleasure, and was covered with purple hangings. By a winding staircase constructed in a different part of the bark, you ascended to another hall, constructed and decorated after the Egyptian manner, being adorned with a number of round pillars composed of a succession of blocks of equal height, alternately white and black. Their capitals, likewise were round, but contracting rather than expanding at the top like an elongated rose-bud.
In all this part of the column, technically denominated calathos, there were neither volutes nor rows of open and projecting foliage as in Greek architecture, but bells of the river lotos, or other flowers, intermingled with newly formed fruit of the date palm. To correspond with these columns, the walls of Egyptian edifices were frequently lined with black and white slabs alternating with each other. Of these the white were sometimes of alabaster.
This bark was furnished with but one mast, one hundred and five feet in height, to which was fitted a single sail of byssus with purple fringe. The dimensions of the sail must, however, have been prodigious, but from the fineness of its fabric it could never have been hoisted in rough weather.
If we turn now to the materials wherewith the ships of the ancients were constructed we shall find that they here differed as much from the practice of modern nations, at least in the north, as in the form and style of rigging. With us scarcely anything but oak or teak is employed in those parts which come in contact with the water, whereas the Greeks constructed their war galleys, in which speed was of the greatest moment, of fir,[1688] while they chiefly made use of pitch pine in the building of merchantmen, as that wood long resists the corrosive action of the sea.
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Footnote 1688:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 6. 5. Plat. de Legg. iv. t. vii. 333.
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The Cypriotes appear in all cases to have given the preference to the pine which abounds in the island, and was esteemed superior to the pitch tree,[1689] though the latter was sometimes appropriated to the building of ships of war. Among the Syrians and Phœnicians, in whose country a supply of pine was not to be obtained,[1690] the custom prevailed of building ships entirely of cedar.[1691] The practice of employing oak[1692] had, likewise, already been introduced, though it does not appear to have been common; but in the larger classes of ships the keel was always of that timber, in order that, when drawn on shore, it might be able to sustain the weight of the superincumbent mass. In the holcades or merchantmen, the keel, like the ship itself, was of pitch pine; but all such vessels were in those days supplied with a false keel, called chelysma,[1693] of oak, or oxya, designed to act as a protection when they were drawn up into dry dock. Masts and yards were commonly of the silver fir;[1694] oars of such timber as grew on the northern slopes of mountains.[1695] The turned work used in ornamenting the interior was commonly of mulberry, ash, elm, or platane wood, of which the last was least esteemed.[1696]
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Footnote 1689:
Cf. Artemid. Oneirocrit. ii. 25, p. 113.
Footnote 1690:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 5.
Footnote 1691:
Id. iv. 5. 5. v. 6. 5. There were cedars on Mount Lebanon eighteen feet in circumference, v. 8. 1.
Footnote 1692:
Theophrastus appears to give the preference to the oak of Epeiros, the acorns of which had been frequently sown in other parts of Greece, but produced, he says, inferior timber. Hist. Plant. ii. 2. 6. Cf. Orph. Argonaut. 130. Cf. Valer. Flacc. viii. 161. i. 303.
Footnote 1693:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 2, seq. iii. 10. 1.
Footnote 1694:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 1. 7.
Footnote 1695:
Id. iv. 1. 4. The oar was usually fastened to the row-port by a stout thong, which, of the size used in boats, seems to have cost about two oboloi. Lucian. Dial. Mortuor. iv. § 1.
Footnote 1696:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 3.
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Sails were made and manufactured from a variety of materials. It has been seen above, in speaking of the Egyptian war ships, that they sometimes consisted of a number of hides sown together. They were, likewise, in various countries, plaited, as now in China,[1697] from reeds, or rushes, but the sailcloth of the Greeks was generally, like our own, woven from hemp.[1698] For this, in Egypt, the papyrus was sometimes substituted. Princes and grandees occasionally, in their pleasure-boats, employed, in lieu of these rude materials, cotton or fine linen, dyed, to augment their beauty, of the most brilliant purple. To this Shakespeare alludes in the following passage, which though familiar, perhaps, to the reader, I must, nevertheless, beg permission to quote:
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, Burnt on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love-sick with ’em: the oars were silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar’d all description. She did lie In her pavilion, (cloth of gold of tissue,) O’er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancy out-work nature. On each side her, Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids, With diverse-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool; And what they undid, did.—— Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, or So many mermaids, tended her i’ th’ eyes’, And made their bends adorning; at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackles Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs.[1699]
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Footnote 1697:
Goguet, iv. 260.
Footnote 1698:
Theoph. Hist. iv. 8. 4.
Footnote 1699:
Anthony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Scene 3.
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An ancient anonymous writer on the art military describes a vessel closely resembling our steamboats in construction, but in which bullocks, stationed in the hold, worked the paddle-wheels instead of an engine. It flew along the water, says the author, without oars or sails, simply by the impulses of wheels, which, rising partly above the waves, operated, when in action, like a succession of oars.
Ropes and cables[1700] were manufactured in antiquity from a great variety of materials. At first, the cordage most in use would appear to have been composed of twisted thongs; for which, in process of time, was substituted goats’ hair,[1701] the Spanish broom,[1702] the bark of the cornel[1703] and linden-tree,[1704] with byblos, hemp,[1705] and flax.[1706] The enormous cables which supported the bridge thrown by Xerxes over the Hellespont were manufactured from mixed materials, of which two-thirds were byblos and one-third white flax.[1707] They were of dimensions so vast that a piece half a yard in length weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds.
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Footnote 1700:
Schol. Aristoph. Eq. 129. Æschyl. 175.
Footnote 1701:
Geop. xviii. 9. Common sacks and cushions for rowers on board the galleys were likewise manufactured from the same material. Cf. Var. de Re Rustic. ii. 7. Columel. 7. 6. 2.
Footnote 1702:
Athen. v. 40.
Footnote 1703:
Plut. Alexand. § 18.
Footnote 1704:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. v. 7. 5.
Footnote 1705:
Dioscor. iii. 165.
Footnote 1706:
Herod. vii. 25.
Footnote 1707:
Id. vii. 34. 36.
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Of the sailors, upon whose energy, skill, and courage, the success of every voyage necessarily depended, ancient writers have been more than usually scanty in their communications. We know, however, that the mariners as well on board the merchantmen of Athens as those of the other states of Greece, were partly citizens, partly strangers, and in many instances slaves. Leading a life full of hardship and danger, engaged as it were in a perpetual conflict with the elements, their tempers grew fierce, their manners boisterous and rude,[1708] and their morals none of the most elevated. During the intervals they spent on shore, they endeavoured by snatching at all the coarse pleasures within their reach, to make themselves some amends for their habitual privations. The excuse, however, for this conduct was often sophistically borrowed from religion, for during the prevalence of storms at sea, it was customary to make vows to Poseidon, or Castor and Polydeukes, or some of the other patrons of the nautical art; and on reaching port the victims were slain and offered up, and the sacrifice of necessity was accompanied by a feast. To these their boon companions, dancing-girls, female flute-players, hetairæ, jugglers, and low parasites, were invited, and the whole usually terminated in excessive intoxication and a battle royal. Most mariners were attached to some dame of equivocal reputation in the Peiræeus or elsewhere, to whom on their return from voyages they were in the habit of bringing presents, such as a pair of gilded slippers, a dainty cheese, a jar of pickles, or saltfish, or a measure or two of onions. What was the amount of wages, which enabled them to indulge in this kind of liberality, I have nowhere been able to discover, though in all probability it was at least equal to the pay received by seamen in the war-galleys, that is from three to four oboloi a-day. Their operations while on board, were regulated of course by circumstances and the accidents of the weather. Thus, when the breeze was strong and favourable, they might lounge or sit about the decks, or sleep, during the greater part of the twenty-four hours, without shifting a sail or handling an oar, though a man was always stationed at the prow to keep a sharp look-out, and watch the aspect of the sky.[1709] In calms, however, or when the swell and roar of the sea foretold an approaching tempest, the whole crew took to their cushions, and raising at the command of the boatswain,[1710] a loud chant,[1711] which contended in volume with the angry voice of the ocean, they strained every nerve to augment the velocity of their bark, and gain some friendly port before the storm fairly set in. Occasionally, however, they were overtaken by tempests in the neighbourhood of rocky islands or bleak and inhospitable promontories like the Chelidonian rocks, where from whatever point of the compass the wind might blow a heavy surge beat upon the shore perpetually. Under these circumstances it was observed, more especially during the darkness of the night, that two brilliant glancing lights played evermore about the masts and yards, shooting hither and thither, and kindling up the crest of the surge by their luminous appearance. These were the Dioscuri, the tender and affectionate brothers of Helen, whose benevolence towards mankind in general was only to be equalled by their attachment to each other. When matters came to extremities and the waves appeared ready to engulf both crew and passengers, all on board became keenly sensible to the irregularities of their past lives, and the whispered interrogation passed round the bark: “have you been initiated?” Because those to whom the truths treasured up in the sanctuary of Eleusis had been revealed, were supposed to be better prepared than other men for meeting death, and appearing at the judgment-seat of heaven. It was now that vows and prayers were heard, and that feelings of repentance were sincere, and it would have required a more than ordinary degree of apathy to forget such circumstances when, by an unlooked-for interposition of Providence, they were snatched from the jaws of death, and restored to their kindred and their homes. We may remark here, by the way, that, to passengers labouring under the effects of sea-sickness, a decoction of a species of thyme[1712] (thymum tragoriganum) was administered.
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Footnote 1708:
Plat. Phædr. t. i. p. 34.
Footnote 1709:
Aristoph. Eq. 548.
Footnote 1710:
Suid. v. κελευστὴς. Stallb. ad Plat. Rep. i. 198.
Footnote 1711:
Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 909.
Footnote 1712:
Dioscor. iii. 35.
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In their political predilections,[1713] the mariners of Greece were almost invariably observed to be democratic, probably because being possessed of superior energy they naturally spurned all control save that of the laws, and were ready at all times and under all circumstances to contend for liberty. This was more especially the case with the Athenian seamen, who, in the flourishing periods of Hellenic history bore much the same relation to the other seafarers of Greece, as the sailors of England do to those of the neighbouring European states.
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Footnote 1713:
Plut. Themist. § 19.
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Although the mariners’ compass had not yet been invented, the ancient sailors did not, as appears to be generally supposed, creep timidly from headland to headland along the shore, but traversed boldly the open sea, directing their course by the constellations, more particularly that of the greater bear. In this practice the Arabs of Phœnicia led the way as in most other early improvements connected with seamanship.
It is sometimes believed that, in very remote ages, mankind possessed no names for the winds,[1714] because as they had not yet addicted themselves to navigation, it concerned them very little to observe how or which way they blew. Possibly, however, we somewhat exaggerate the heedlessness and ignorance of the remoter generations of men who must have been singularly obtuse in their intellect if they could not tell whether the wind blew up or down a valley, or on the back or front of their houses, and had failed to designate the several currents of the atmosphere by distinct appellations, whereby to distinguish them when they had occasion to speak of their effects. About the period of the Trojan war some inventive genius sprang up who gave a name to the north and the south winds, and already in the time of Homer the Greeks had contrived to have four points to their compass, at least the poet speaks but of the four cardinal winds, Boreas, the north; Euros, the east; Notos, the south, and Zephyros, the west. To these other four were afterwards added, and at the same time some change was introduced into the ancient nomenclature, the north-east was called Cæcias;[1715] the south-east, Euros; the name of the east being changed to Apeliotes; the south-west, Libs; the north-west, Argestes, and sometimes Olympias,[1716] or Iapyx, or Sciron; which, however, according to Pliny differed from the Argestes, and was peculiar to Athens. These are the winds represented on the tower of Andronicos Cyrrhestes at Athens, spoken of by Varro, Vitruvius,[1717] and many modern travellers. Pliny,[1718] Galen, and Aulus Gellius differ from Aristotle in confining the name of Aparctias to the north wind, and giving that of Boreas to the north-east, or Aquilo of the Romans.[1719]
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Footnote 1714:
See Gœttling’s note on v. 379, of Hesiod’s Theogon. p. 38, seq.
Footnote 1715:
Called also Ἑλλησποντίας, by Aristot. Probl. xxvi. 58. Plin. ii. 46. Cf. Aristoph. Eq. 435.
Footnote 1716:
Cf. Theoph. Caus. Plant. v. 2. 5. Hist. Plant. iv. 14. 11.
Footnote 1717:
l. i. c. 6.
Footnote 1718:
Nat. Hist. ii. 46.
Footnote 1719:
See further in Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. § 61.
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Winds blowing from the northern points of the compass are most frequent in Greece. Aristotle[1720] remarks, that Boreas is strong at its commencement, but feeble towards its close; and that of the south wind, the reverse is true.[1721] It may, moreover, be added, that the north wind was not only the most common, but also the dryest and most severe, though sometimes accompanied by lightning, and hail, and snow. The same wind brought rain on the Hellespont, and at Cyrenè. The Cæcias commonly prevailed about the vernal equinox, and, in Attica and the islands, was a rainy wind;[1722] the Apetiotes was a humid but soft wind felt chiefly in the morning.[1723] The Euros, which, as Gœttling[1724] observes, is the Scirocco of the Italians, prevails about the winter solstice, and at first is warm and dry, but afterwards by blowing long over the sea becomes moist, and brings rain, particularly in Lesbos.[1725] Aristotle, however, speaks of the Notos as the chief rainy wind in this island,[1726] and observes what I have myself verified in the Delta, that during the Simoom objects appear greater than their natural size.[1727] The Notos blows chiefly about the end of autumn in Greece, as I found it also on the Nile immediately after the winter solstice, and at the commencement of spring.[1728] It likewise prevails during the dog-days[1729] (ἐπὶ κυνὶ). Naturally moist and warm, it was at first weak, but grew powerful as it drew towards its end, when it covered the sky with clouds and ended in rain.[1730] South winds blowing from the sea, by which they were cooled, were considered favourable to vegetation particularly in the Thriasian plain in Attica, lying between the Sciros and the Cephissos. These same winds were supposed to be cold in Libya; I think erroneously, since the south winds are warm in Egypt. The Libs is moist and cloudy, though less so than the Cæcias; but the clouds which it brings are quickly dispersed; it blows chiefly about Cnidos and Rhodes.[1731]
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Footnote 1720:
Meteorol. ii. 6.
Footnote 1721:
Problem. xxvi. 41.
Footnote 1722:
Arist. Problem. xxvi. 58.
Footnote 1723:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 6. Problem. xxvi. 33. 34. 57.
Footnote 1724:
Ad Hesiod. Theogon. 379.
Footnote 1725:
Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. § 61.
Footnote 1726:
Problem. xxvi. 58.
Footnote 1727:
Aristot. Problem. xxvi. 55.
Footnote 1728:
Id. xxvi. 16.
Footnote 1729:
Aristot. Prob. xxvi. 12.
Footnote 1730:
Id. xxvi. 2.
Footnote 1731:
Theophrast. De Ventis, § 51.
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The Zephyr[1732] which prevails in the spring, at mid-summer and in autumn is felt chiefly in the evening and never in the morning. According to Aristotle it is the gentlest wind that blows.[1733] Theophrastus, however, remarks, that it is cold in some countries, though less so than Boreas;[1734] but in the opinion of Hippocrates, it is most of all winds charged with rain.[1735] The Argestos is no less dry and serene than the Aparctias, though it sometimes brings thunder-clouds and hail.[1736] This wind is remarkably cold at Chalcis in Eubœa. When about the winter solstice it happens to blow, it dries up and withers the trees more than long continued heats and droughts.[1737] At Rhodes and at Cnidos it is usually accompanied by heavy clouds.[1738]
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Footnote 1732:
Ζέφυρος, τὴν ᾠδὴν τοῖς κύκνοις ἐνδιδοὺς. Philost. Icon. i. 9. p. 779.
Footnote 1733:
Meteorol. ii. 5. 6. Problem. xxvi. 33. 35. 37. 54. 57.
Footnote 1734:
De Ventis, § 31.
Footnote 1735:
De Aër. et Loc. § 26.
Footnote 1736:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 6.
Footnote 1737:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. iv. 17. De Caus. Plant. v. 16.
Footnote 1738:
De Ventis, § 51.
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The Etesian winds which commence immediately after the summer solstice, and continue through the dog-days, are in reality northern winds, but occasionally point obliquely both towards the west and towards the east. They prevail chiefly at night;[1739] and are sometimes exceedingly powerful on the coast of Egypt.[1740] Another class of Etesian winds prevailed earlier in the year, beginning about twenty days after the winter solstice. These are weaker, more variable, and of briefer duration than the real Etesian winds, and I will add, from my own experience, cover the sky with dark clouds, and blow extremely cold even along the shores of Marmarica and Cyrenè. In ancient Greece they obtained the name of Ornithiæ—“the Bird Winds”—because they announced the return of the birds.[1741] Or, according to another version of the matter, because they were so cold as to strike dead various kinds of birds during their flight, and strew the earth with their bodies.[1742]
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Footnote 1739:
Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 5. 6.
Footnote 1740:
Cæsar. De Bell. Civil.
Footnote 1741:
Coray, Disc. Prelim. ad Hippoc. de Aër. et Loc. §. 76.
Footnote 1742:
Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 877.
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During the winter months these cold and piercing winds blow with so much fury over the land-locked seas and islands of Greece, that among the ancients all navigation was suspended during the brumal season. In proof of the violence of these aërial currents, which may almost be said to set steadily in one direction through a great portion of the year, it may be observed, that in several of the islands neither vines nor fig-trees can be trained upright, but are blown down and compelled to creep along the rocks.[1743] An example of the strength of the gales which sometimes also prevail on the Hellenic continent is recorded in history; during the retreat of Cleombrotos out of Bœotia, his army being overtaken by a storm as it was traversing the mountain passes leading from Creusis to Ægosthena along the shore of the sea, numerous sumpter asses were blown with their ladings over the precipices; even the shields and arms were in many cases whirled from the hands of the soldiers and precipitated into the waves below; and to prevent similar misfortune the rest of the army turned their bucklers upside down and filled them with stones, while they pushed forward, divested of defensive armour, into the Megaris, a friendly country, from which they afterwards returned and fetched off their shields.[1744]
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Footnote 1743:
Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce. t. i. p. 284. Della Rocca, Traité Complet des Abeilles. t. i. p. 203.
Footnote 1744:
Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4. 17.
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In cases of shipwreck the protection afforded to crews and merchandise depended in most cases, perhaps, on the character and progress of civilisation of the people on whose shore the accident happened. On the coast of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Salmydessos, where the whole maritime population appear to have been confirmed wreckers, numerous pillars were set up along the beach to mark the limits within which each little community might claim whatever booty was drifted in by the sea. Previous to this arrangement, the barbarians used frequently to come to blows in the eager pursuit of this inhuman calling, and in these brawls many lives were lost. Afterwards they appear to have carried on their war against distressed mariners with perfect harmony and equanimity.[1745] But among the Rhodians, an enterprising mercantile people, the amount of salvage was regulated by a law which, together with the rest of their commercial code, was afterwards adopted by the Romans.
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Footnote 1745:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 12, seq.
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If gold, or silver, or any other article, be brought up from the depth of eight cubits, the person who saves it shall receive one-third. If from fifteen cubits, the person who saves it shall, on account of the depth, receive one-half. If goods are cast up by the waves towards the shore, and found sunk at the depth of one cubit, the person who carries them out safe shall receive a tenth part.[1746] It was customary, moreover, in old times, to keep a number of divers on board ships for the purpose of descending to loosen the anchors when they chanced to take too firm a hold in the sand, as also to recover goods which had been thrown overboard in times of danger.[1747]
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Footnote 1746:
Beckmann, History of Inventions, i. 180.
Footnote 1747:
Lucian. Pharsal. iii. 697. Livius, xliv. 10. Manil. Astronom. 449.
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On various headlands and promontories of the ancient world beacon-fires were habitually kindled to guide the course of the ships into port; and for these, in after ages, light-houses, adorned with every beauty of architecture, and carried to a vast height, were substituted. Of these the most remarkable was that erected for Ptolemy Philadelphus, by Sostratos, the Cnidian, whose name, by permission of the king, was inscribed upon the structure.[1748] By one author it is described as four hundred and fifty feet high, and equal in dimensions at the base to one of the great pyramids of Memphis. In form it may possibly have resembled the Haram el Kedâb, which consists of a series of square towers from the basement upwards, diminishing in size, and appearing to spring up out of each other. With this the language of Strabo[1749] very well agrees, since he tells us, it was a building consisting of numerous stages. On the summit bright fires were kept perpetually burning, so that on that low shore, where there is no hill or mountain for many days’ journey, the Pharos was ever the first object which presented itself to mariners at sea, where its light, we are told, was visible at the distance of a hundred miles. Occasionally, however, from its great size and brilliance, it was mistaken for the moon, as this planet itself, rising behind the dome and towers of a great capital, has suggested to distant beholders the idea of a conflagration.[1750]
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Footnote 1748:
Cf. Lucian. Quom. Hist. sit. Conscrib. § 62.
Footnote 1749:
Geograph. xvii. 1. t. iii. p. 423.
Footnote 1750:
Vossius, ad Pomp. Mel. de Situ Orb. l. ii. c. 4. p. 272.
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