PROSPERITY OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN BEFORE THE PUNIC WARS.
[Sidenote: Commerce of the Mediterranean.]
I. Rome had required two hundred and forty-four years to form her
constitution under the kings, a hundred and seventy-two to establish and
consolidate the consular Republic, seventy-two to complete the conquest
of Italy, and now it will cost her nearly a century and a half to obtain
the domination of the world--that is, of Northern Africa, Spain, the
south of Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria,
and Egypt. Before undertaking the recital of these conquests, let us
halt an instant to consider the condition of the basin of the
Mediterranean at this period, of that sea round which were successively
unfolded all the great dramas of ancient history. In this examination we
shall see, not without a feeling of regret, vast countries where
formerly produce, monuments, riches, numerous armies and fleets--all,
indeed, revealed an advanced state of civilisation--now deserts or in a
state of barbarism.
The Mediterranean had seen grow and prosper in turn on its coasts Sidon,
and Tyre, and then Greece.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE BASIN OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.]
Sidon, already a flourishing city before the time of Homer, is soon
eclipsed by the supremacy of Tyre; then Greece comes to carry on, in
competition with her, the commerce of the interior sea; an age of
pacific greatness and fruitful rivalries. To the Phœnicians
chiefly, the South, the East, Africa, Asia beyond Mount Taurus, the
Erythrean Sea (_the Red Sea_ and _the Persian Gulf_), the ocean, and the
distant voyages. To the Greeks, all the northern coasts, which they
covered with their thousand settlements. Phœnicia devotes herself to
adventurous enterprises and lucrative speculations. Greece, artistic
before becoming a trader, propagates by her colonies her mind and her
ideas.
This fortunate emulation soon disappears before the creation of two new
colonies sprung from their bosom. The splendour of Carthage replaces
that of Tyre. Alexandria is substituted for Greece. Thus a Western or
Spanish Phœnicia shares the commerce of the world with an Eastern and
Egyptian Greece, the fruit of the intellectual conquests of Alexander.
[Sidenote: Northern Africa.]
II. Rich in the spoils of twenty different peoples, Carthage was the
proud capital of a vast empire. Its ports, hollowed out by the hand of
man, were capable of containing a great number of ships.[242] Her
citadel, Byrsa, was two miles in circuit. On the land side the town was
defended by a triple enclosure twenty-five stadia in length, thirty
cubits high, and supported by towers of four storeys, capable of giving
shelter to 4,000 horse, 300 elephants, and 20,000 foot soldiers;[243] it
enclosed an immense population, since, in the last years of its
resistance, after a struggle of a century, it still counted 700,000
inhabitants.[244] Its monuments were worthy of its greatness: among its
remarkable buildings was the temple of the god Aschmoun, assimilated by
the Greeks to Æsculapius;[245] that of the sun, covered with plates of
gold valued at a thousand talents;[246] and the mantle or _peplum_,
destined for the image of their great goddess, which cost a hundred and
twenty.[247] The empire of Carthage extended from the frontiers of
Cyrenaica (the country of _Barca_, in the regency of Tripoli) into
Spain; she was the metropolis of all the north of Africa, and, in Libya
alone, possessed three hundred towns.[248] Nearly all the isles of the
Mediterranean, to the west and south of Italy, had received her
factories. Carthage had imposed her sovereignty upon all the ancient
Phœnician establishments in this part of the world, and had levied
upon them an annual contingent of soldiers and tribute. In the interior
of Africa, she sent caravans to seek elephants, ivory, gold, and black
slaves, which she afterwards exported[249] to the trading places on the
Mediterranean. In Sicily, she gathered oil and wine; in the isle of
Elba, she mined for iron; from Malta, she drew valuable tissues; from
Corsica, wax and honey; from Sardinia, corn, metals, and slaves; from
the Baleares, mules and fruits; from Spain, gold, silver, and lead; from
Mauritania, the hides of animals; she sent as far as the extremity of
Britain, to the Cassiterides (_the Scilly Islands_), ships to purchase
tin.[250] Within her walls industry flourished greatly, and tissues of
great celebrity were fabricated.[251]
No market of the ancient world could be compared with that of Carthage,
to which men of all nations crowded. Greeks, Gauls, Ligurians,
Spaniards, Libyans, came in multitudes to serve under her standard;[252]
the Numidians lent her a redoubtable cavalry.[253] Her fleet was
formidable; it amounted at this epoch to five hundred vessels. Carthage
possessed a considerable arsenal;[254] we may appreciate its importance
from the fact, that, after her conquest by Scipio, she delivered to him
two hundred thousand suits of armour, and three thousand machines of
war.[255] So many troops and stores imply immense revenues. Even after
the battle of Zama, Polybius could still call her the richest town in
the world. Yet she had already paid heavy contributions to the
Romans.[256] An excellent system of agriculture contributed no less than
her commerce to her prosperity. A great number of agricultural
colonies[257] had been established, which, in the time of Agathocles,
amounted to more than two hundred. They were ruined by the war (440 of
Rome).[258] Byzacena (_the southern part of the regency of Tunis_) was
the granary of Carthage.[259]
This province, surnamed _Emporia_, as being the trading country _par
excellence_, vaunted by the geographer Scylax[260] as the most
magnificent and fertile part of Libya. It had, in the time of Strabo,
numerous towns, so many magazines of the merchandise of the interior of
Africa. Polybius[261] speaks of its horses, oxen, sheep, and goats, as
forming innumerable herds, such as he had never seen elsewhere. The
small town of Leptis alone paid to the Carthaginians the enormous
contribution of a talent a day (5,821 francs [£232 16s.]).[262]
This fertility of Africa explains the importance of the towns on the
coast of the Syrtes, an importance, it is true, revealed by later
testimonies, because they date from the decline of Carthage, but which
must apply still more forcibly to the flourishing condition which
preceded it. In 537, the vast port of the isle Cercina (Kirkeni, in the
regency of Tunis, opposite Sfax) had paid ten talents to Servilius.[263]
More to the west, Hippo Regius (_Bona_) was still a considerable
maritime town in the time of Jugurtha.[264] Tingis (_Tangiers_), in
Mauritania, which boasted of a very ancient origin, carried on a great
trade with Bætica. Three African peoples in these countries lay under
the influence and often the sovereignty of Carthage: the Massylian
Numidians, who afterwards had Cirta (_Constantine_) for their capital;
the Massæsylian Numidians, who occupied the provinces of Algiers and
Oran; and the Mauri, or Moors, spread over Morocco. These nomadic
peoples maintained rich droves of cattle, and grew great quantities of
corn.
Hanno, a Carthaginian sea-captain, sent, towards 245, to explore the
extreme parts of the African coast beyond the Straits of Gades, had
founded a great number of settlements, no traces of which remained in
the time of Pliny.[265] These colonies introduced commerce among the
Mauritanian and Numidian tribes, the peoples of Morocco, and perhaps
even those of Senegal. But it was not only in Africa that the
possessions of the Carthaginians extended; they embraced Spain, Sicily,
and Sardinia.
[Sidenote: Spain.]
III. Iberia or Spain, with its six great rivers, navigable to the
ancients, its long chains of mountains, its dense woods, and the fertile
valleys of Bætica (_Andalusia_), appears to have nourished a population
numerous, warlike, rich by its mines, its harvests, and its commerce.
The centre of the peninsula was occupied by the Iberian and Celtiberian
races; on the coasts, the Carthaginians and the Greeks had settlements;
through contact with the Phœnician merchants, the populations of the
coast districts attained a certain degree of civilisation, and from the
mixture of the natives with the foreign colonists sprang a mongrel
population, which, while it preserved the Iberic character, had adopted
the mercantile habits of the Phœnicians and Carthaginians.
Once established in Spain, the Carthaginians and Greeks turned to useful
purpose the timber which covered the mountains. Gades (_Cadiz_), a sort
of factory founded at the extremity of Bætica by the Carthaginians,
became one of their principal maritime arsenals. It was there that the
ships were fitted out which ventured on the ocean in search of the
products of Armorica, or Britain, and even of the Canaries. Although
Gades had lost some of its importance by the foundation of Carthagena
(_New Carthage_), in 526, it had still, in the time of Strabo, so
numerous a population that it was in this respect inferior only to Rome.
The tables of the census showed five hundred citizens of the equestrian
order, a number equalled by none of the Italian cities, except Patavium
(_Padua_).[266] To Gades, celebrated for its temple of Hercules, flowed
the riches of all Spain. The sheep and horses of Bætica rivalled in
renown those of the Asturias. Corduba (_Cordova_), Hispalis (_Seville_),
where, at a later period, the Romans founded colonies, were already
great places of commerce, and had ports for the vessels which ascended
the Bætis (_Guadalquivir_).[267]
Spain was rich in precious metals; gold, silver, iron, were there the
object of industrial activity.[268] At Osca (_Huesca_), they worked
mines of silver; at Sisapo (_Almaden_), silver and mercury.[269] At
Cotinæ, copper was found along with gold. Among the Oretani, at Castulo
(_Cazlona_, on the Guadalimar), the silver mines, in the time of
Polybius, gave employment to 40,000 persons, and produced daily 25,000
drachmas.[270] In thirty-two years, the Roman generals carried home from
the peninsula considerable sums.[271] The abundance of metals in Spain
explains how so great a number of vessels of gold and silver was found
among many of the chiefs or petty kings of the Iberian nations. Polybius
compares one of them, for his luxury, with the king of the fabulous
Phæaces.[272]
To the north, and in the centre of the peninsula, agriculture and the
breeding of cattle were the principal sources of wealth. It was there
that were made the says (vests of flannel or goats’ hair), which were
exported in great numbers to Italy.[273] In the Tarraconese, the
cultivation of flax was very productive; the inhabitants had been the
first to weave those fine cloths called _carbasa_, which were objects
greatly prized as far as Greece.[274] Leather, honey, and salt were
brought by cargoes to the principal ports along the coast; at Emporiæ
(_Ampurias_), a settlement of the Phocæans in Catalonia; at
Saguntum,[275] founded by Greeks from the island of Zacynthus; at
Tarraco (_Tarragona_), one of the most ancient of the Phœnician
settlements in Spain; and at Malaca (_Malaga_), whence were exported all
sorts of salt fish.[276] Lusitania, neglected by the Phœnician or
Carthaginian ships, was less favoured. Yet we see, by the passage of
Polybius[277] which enumerates the mercantile exports of this province
with their prices, that its agricultural products were very
abundant.[278]
The prosperity of Spain appears also from the vast amount of its
population. According to some authors, Tiberius Gracchus took from the
Celtiberians three hundred _oppida_. In Turdetania (_part of
Andalusia_), according to Strabo, there were counted no less than two
hundred towns.[279] Appian, the historian of the Spanish wars, points
out the multitude of petty tribes which the Romans had to reduce,[280]
and during the campaign of Cn. Scipio, more than a hundred and twenty
submitted.[281]
Thus the Iberian peninsula was at that time reckoned among the most
populous and richest regions of Europe.
[Sidenote: Southern Gaul.]
IV. The part of Gaul which is bathed by the Mediterranean offers a
spectacle no less satisfactory. Numerous migrations, arriving from the
East, had pushed back the population of the Seine and the Loire towards
the mouths of the Rhône, and already, in the middle of the fourth
century before our era, the Gauls found themselves straitened in their
frontiers. More civilised than the Iberians, but not less energetic,
they combined gentle and hospitable manners with great activity, which
was further developed by their contact with the Greek colonies spread
from the maritime Alps to the Pyrenees. The cultivation of the fields
and the breeding of cattle furnished their principal wealth, and their
industry found support in the products of the soil and in its herds.
Their manufacture consisted of says, not less in repute than those of
the Celtiberians, and exported in great quantities to Italy. Good
sailors, the Gauls transported by water, on the Seine, the Rhine, the
Saône, the Rhône, and Loire, the merchandise and timber which, even from
the coasts of the Channel, were accumulated in the Phocæan trading
places on the Mediterranean.[282] Agde (_Agatha_), Antibes
(_Antipolis_), Nice (_Nicæa_), the isles of Hyères (_Stœchades_),
Monaco (_Portus Herculis Monœcei_), were so many naval stations which
maintained relations with Spain and Italy.[283]
Marseilles possessed but a very circumscribed territory, but its
influence reached far into the interior of Gaul. It is to this town we
owe the acclimatisation of the vine and the olive. Thousands of oxen
came every year to feed on the thyme in the neighbourhood of
Marseilles.[284] The Massilian merchants traversed Gaul in all
directions to sell their wines and the produce of their
manufactures.[285] Without rising to the rank of a great maritime power,
still the small Phocæan republic possessed sufficient resources to make
itself respected by Carthage; it formed an early alliance with the
Romans. Massilian houses had, as early as the fifth century of Rome,
established at Syracuse, as they did subsequently at Alexandria,
factories which show a great commercial activity.[286]
[Sidenote: Liguria, Cisalpine Gaul, Venetia, and Illyria.]
V. Alone in the Tyrrhene Sea, the Ligures had not yet risen out of that
almost savage life which the Iberians, sprung from the same stock, had
originally led. If some towns on the Ligurian coast, and especially
Genoa (_Genua_), carried on a maritime commerce, they supported
themselves by piracy[287] rather than by regular traffic.[288]
On the contrary, Cisalpine Gaul, properly so called, supported, as early
as the time of Polybius, a numerous population. We may form some idea of
it from the losses this province sustained during a period of
twenty-seven years, from 554 to 582; Livy gives a total of 257,400 men
killed, taken, or transported.[289] The Gaulish tribes settled in the
Cisalpine, though preserving their original manners, had, through their
contact with the Etruscans, arrived at a certain degree of civilisation.
The number of towns in this country was not very considerable, but it
contained a great abundance of villages.[290] Addicted to agriculture
like the other Gauls, the Cisalpines bred in their forests droves of
swine in such numbers, that they would have been sufficient, in the time
of Strabo, to provision all Rome.[291] The coins of pure gold, which in
recent times have been found in Cisalpine Gaul, especially between the
Po and the Adda, and which were struck by the Boii and some of the
Ligurian populations, furnish evidence of the abundance of that metal,
which was collected in the form of gold sand in the waters of the
rivers.[292] Moreover, certain towns of Etruscan origin, such as Mantua
(_Mantua_) and Padua (_Patavium_), preserved vestiges of the prosperity
they had reached at the time when the peoples of Tuscany extended their
dominion beyond the Po. At once a maritime town and a place of commerce,
Padua, at a remote epoch, possessed a vast territory, and could raise an
army of 120,000 men.[293] The transport of goods was facilitated by
means of canals crossing Venetia, partly dug by the Etruscans. Such
were those especially which united Ravenna with Altinum (_Altino_),
which became at a later period the grand store-house of the Cisalpine
territory.[294]
The commercial relations entertained by Venetia with Germany, Illyria,
and Rhætia, go back far beyond the Roman epoch, and, at a remote
antiquity, it was Venetia which received the amber from the shores of
the Baltic.[295] All the traffic which was afterwards concentrated at
Aquileia, founded by the Romans after the submission of the Veneti, had
then for its centre the towns of Venetia; and the numerous colonies
established by the Romans in this part of the peninsula are proofs of
its immense resources. Moreover, the Veneti, occupied in cultivating
their lands and breeding horses, had peaceful manners which facilitated
commercial relations, and contrasted with the piratical habits of the
populations spread over the north and north-eastern coasts of the
Adriatic.
The Istrians, the Liburni, and the Illyrians were the nations most
formidable, both by their corsairs and by their armies; their light and
rapid barques covered the Adriatic, and troubled the navigation between
Italy and Greece. In the year 524, the Illyrians sent to sea a hundred
_lembi_,[296] while their land army counted hardly more than 5,000
men.[297] Illyria was poor, and offered few resources to the Romans,
notwithstanding the fertility of its soil. Agriculture was neglected,
even in the time of Strabo. Istria contained a population much more
considerable, in proportion to its extent.[298] Yet she had, no more
than Dalmatia and the rest of Illyria, attained, at the epoch of which
we are speaking, that high degree of prosperity which she acquired
afterwards by the foundation of Tergeste (_Trieste_) and Pola. The Roman
conquest delivered the Adriatic from the pirates who infested it,[299]
and then only, the ports of Dyrrhachium and Apollonia obtained a
veritable importance.
[Sidenote: Epirus.]
VI. Epirus, a country of pastures and shepherds, intersected by
picturesque mountains, was a sort of Helvetia. Ambracia (now _Arta_),
which Pyrrhus had chosen for his residence, had become a very fine town,
and possessed two theatres. The palace of the king (_Pyrrheum_) formed a
veritable museum for it furnished for the triumph of M. Fulvius
Nobilior, in 565, two hundred and eighty-five statues in bronze, two
hundred and thirty in marble,[300] and paintings by Zeuxis, mentioned in
Pliny.[301] The town paid also, on this occasion, five hundred talents
(2,900,000 francs, [£116,000]), and offered the consul a crown of gold
weighing a hundred and fifty thousand talents (nearly 4,000
kilogrammes).[302] It appears that before the war of Paulus Æmilius,
this country contained a rather numerous population, and counted seventy
towns, most of them situated in the country of the Molossi.[303]. After
the battle of Pydna, the Roman general made so considerable a booty,
that, without reckoning the treasury’s share, each foot-soldier received
200 denarii (about 200 francs [£8]), and each horse-soldier 400; in
addition to which the sale of slaves arose to the enormous number of
150,000.
[Sidenote: Greece.]
VII. At the beginning of the first Punic War, Greece proper was divided
into four principal powers: Macedonia, Ætolia, Achaia, and Sparta. All
the continental part, which extends northward of the Gulf of Corinth as
far as the mountains of Pindus, was under the dependence of Philip; the
western part belonged to the Ætolians. The Peloponnesus was shared
between the Achæans, the tyrant of Sparta, and independent towns. Greece
had been declining during about a century, and seen her warlike spirit
weaken and her population diminish; and yet Plutarch, comprising under
this name the peoples of the Hellenic race, pretends that their country
furnished King Philip with the money, food, and provisions of his
army.[304] The Greek navy had almost disappeared. The Achæan league,
which comprised Argolis, Corinth, Sicyon, and the maritime cities of
Achæa, had few ships. On land the Hellenic forces were less
insignificant. The Ætolian league possessed an army of 10,000 men, and,
in the war against Philip, pretended to have contributed more than the
Romans to the victory of Cynoscephalæ. Greece was still rich in objects
of art of all descriptions. When, in 535, the King of Macedonia captured
the town of Thermæ, in Ætolia, he found in it more than two thousand
statues.[305]
Athens, in spite of the loss of her maritime supremacy, preserved the
remains of a civilization which had already attained the highest degree
of splendour,[306] and those incomparable buildings of the age of
Pericles, the mere name of which reminds us of all that the arts have
produced in greatest perfection. Among the most remarkable were the
Acropolis, with its Parthenon and its Propylæa, masterpieces of Phidias,
the statue of Minerva in gold and ivory, and another in bronze, the
casque and spear of which were seen afar off at sea.[307] The arsenal of
the Piræus, built by the architect Philo, was, according to Plutarch, an
admirable work.[308]
Sparta, although greatly fallen, was distinguished by its monuments and
by its manufactures; the famous portico of the Persians,[309] built
after the Median wars--the columns of which, in white marble,
represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished--was the
principal ornament of the market. Iron, obtained in abundance from Mount
Taygetus, was marvellously worked at Sparta, which was celebrated for
the manufacture of arms and agricultural instruments.[310] The coasts of
Laconia abounded in shells, from which was obtained the purple, most
valued after that of Phœnicia.[311] The port of Gytheum, very
populous, and very active in 559, still possessed great arsenals.[312]
In the centre of the peninsula, Arcadia, although its population was
composed of shepherds, had the same love for the arts as the rest of
Greece. It possessed two celebrated temples: that of Minerva at Tegæa,
built by the architect Scopas,[313] in which were united the three
orders of architecture, and that of Apollo, at Phigalea,[314] situated
at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the
remains of which still excite the wonder of travellers.
Elis, protected by its neutrality, was devoted to the arts of peace.
There agriculture flourished; its fisheries were productive; it had
manufactories of tissues of _byssus_ which rivalled the muslins of Cos,
and were sold for their weight in gold.[315] The town of Elis possessed
the finest gymnasium in Greece; people came to it to prepare themselves
(sometimes a year in advance) for competition in the Olympic games.[316]
Olympia was the holy city, celebrated for its sanctuary and its
consecrated garden, where stood, among a multitude of masterpieces of
art, one of the wonders of the world, the statue of Jupiter, the work of
Phidias,[317] the majesty of which was such, that Paulus Æmilius, when
he first saw it, believed he was in the presence of the divinity
himself.
Argos, the country of several celebrated artists, possessed temples,
fountains, a gymnasium, and a theatre; and its public place had served
for a field of battle to the armies of Pyrrhus and Antigonus. It
remained, until the subjugation by the Romans, one of the finest cities
of Greece. Within its territory were the superb temple of Juno, the
ancient sanctuary of the Argives, with the statue of the goddess in gold
and silver--the work of Polycletus, and the vale of Nemæa, where one of
the four national festivals of Greece was celebrated.[318] Argolis also
possessed Epidaurus, with its hot springs; its temple of Æsculapius,
enriched with the offerings of those who came to be cured of their
diseases;[319] and its theatre, one of the largest in the country.[320]
Corinth, admirably situated upon the narrow isthmus which separates the
Ægean Sea from the gulf which has preserved its name,[321] with its
dye-houses, its celebrated manufactories of carpets and of bronze, bore
witness also to the ancient prosperity of the Hellenic race. Its
population must have been considerable, since there were reckoned in it
460,000 slaves;[322] marble palaces rose on all sides, adorned with
statues and valuable vases. Corinth had the reputation of being the
most voluptuous of towns. Among its numerous temples, that of Venus had
in its service more than a thousand courtezans.[323] In the sale of the
booty made by Mummius, a painting by Aristides, representing Bacchus,
was sold for 600,000 sestertii.[324] There was seen in the triumph of
Metellus surnamed Macedonicus, a group, the work of Lysippus,
representing Alexander the Great, twenty-five horsemen, and nine
foot-soldiers slain at the battle of the Granicus; this group, taken at
Corinth, came from Dium in Macedonia.[325]
Other towns of Greece were no less rich in works of art.[326] The Romans
carried away from the little town of Eretria, at the time of the
Macedonian war, a great number of paintings and precious statues.[327]
We know, from the traveller Pausanias, how prodigious was the quantity
of offerings brought from the most diverse countries into the sanctuary
of Delphi. This town, which, by its reputation for sanctity and its
solemn games, the Pythian, was the rival of Olympia, gathered in its
temple during ages immense treasures; and when it was plundered by the
Phocæans, they found in it gold and silver enough to coin ten thousand
talents of money (about 58 millions of francs [£2,320,000]). The ancient
opulence of the Greeks had, nevertheless, passed into their colonies;
and, from the extremity of the Black Sea to Cyrene, numerous
establishments arose remarkable for their sumptuousness.
[Sidenote: Macedonia.]
VIII. Macedonia drew to herself, since the time of Alexander, the riches
and resources of Asia. Dominant over a great part of Greece and Thrace,
occupying Thessaly, and extending her sovereignty over Epirus, this
kingdom concentrated in herself the vital strength of those cities
formerly independent, which, two centuries before, were her rivals in
power and courage. Under an economical administration, the public
revenues rising from the royal domains,[328] from the silver mines in
Mount Pangeum, and from the taxes, were sufficient for the wants of the
country.[329] In 527, Antigonus sent to Rhodes considerable succours,
which furnish the measure of the resources of Macedonia.[330]
Towards the year 563 of Rome, Philip had, by wise measures, raised again
the importance of Macedonia. He collected in his arsenals materials for
equipping three armies and provisions for ten years. Under Perseus,
Macedonia was no less flourishing. That prince gave Cotys, for a service
of six months with 1,000 cavalry, the large sum of 200 talents.[331] At
the battle of Pydna, which completed his ruin, nearly 20,000 men
remained on the field, and 11,000 were made prisoners.[332] In richness
of equipment, the Macedonian troops far surpassed other armies. The
Leucaspidan phalanx was dressed in scarlet, and carried gilt armour; the
Chalcaspidan phalanx had shields of the finest brass.[333] The
prodigious splendour of the court of Perseus and that of his favourites
reveal still more the degree of opulence at which Macedonia had arrived.
All exhibited in their dresses and in their feasts a pomp equal to that
of kings.[334] Among the booty made by Paulus Æmilius were paintings,
statues, rich tapestries, vases of gold, silver, bronze, and ivory,
which were so many masterpieces.[335] His triumph was unequalled by any
other.[336]
Valerius of Antium estimates at more than 120 millions of sestertii
(about 30 millions of francs [£1,200,000]) the gold and silver exhibited
on this occasion.[337] Macedonia, as we see, had absorbed the ancient
riches of Greece. Thrace, long barbarous, began also to rise out of the
condition of inferiority in which it had so long languished. Numerous
Greek colonies, founded on the shores of the Pontus Euxinus, introduced
there civilisation and prosperity; and among these colonies, Byzantium,
though often harassed by the neighbouring barbarians, had already an
importance and prosperity which presaged its future destinies.[338]
Foreigners, resorting to it from all parts, had introduced a degree of
licentiousness which became proverbial.[339] Its commerce was, above
all, nourished by the ships of Athens, which went there to fetch the
wheat of Tauris and the fish of the Euxine.[340] When Athens, in her
decline, became a prey to anarchy, Byzantium, where arts and letters
flourished, served as a refuge to her exiles.
[Sidenote: Asia Minor.]
IX. Asia Minor comprised a great number of provinces, of which several
became, after the dismemberment of the empire of Alexander, independent
states. Of these, the principal formed into four groups, composing so
many kingdoms, namely, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Pergamus. We
must except from them some Greek cities on the coast, which kept their
autonomy or were placed under the sovereignty of Rhodes. Their extent
and limits varied often until the time of the Roman conquest, and
several of them passed from one domination to another. All these
kingdoms participated in different degrees in the prosperity of
Macedonia.
“Asia,” says Cicero, “is so rich and fertile, that the fecundity of its
plains, the variety of its products, the extent of its pastures, the
multiplicity of the objects of commerce exported from it, give it an
incontestible superiority over all other countries of the earth.[341]”
The wealth of Asia Minor appears from the amount of impositions paid by
it to the different Roman generals. Without speaking of the spoils
carried away by Scipio, in his campaign against Antiochus, and by
Manlius Volso in 565, Sylla, and afterwards Lucullus and Pompey, each
drew from this country about 20,000 talents,[342] besides an equal sum
distributed by them to their soldiers: which gives the enormous total of
nearly seven hundred millions of francs [or twenty-eight millions
sterling], received in a period of twenty-five years.
[Sidenote: Kingdom of Pontus.]
X. The most northern of the four groups named above formed a great part
of the kingdom of Pontus. This province, the ancient Cappadocia Pontica,
formerly a Persian satrapy, reduced to subjection by Alexander and his
successor, recovered itself after the battle of Ipsus (453). Mithridates
III. enlarged his territory by adding to it Paphlagonia, and afterwards
Sinope and Galatia. Pontus soon extended from Colchis on the north-east
to Lesser Armenia on the south-east, and had Bithynia for its boundary
on the west. Thus, touching upon the Caucasus, and master of the Pontus
Euxinus, this kingdom, composed of divers peoples, presented, under
varied climates, a variety of different productions. It received wines
and oils from the Ægean Sea, and wheat from the Bosphorus; it exported
salt fish in great quantity,[343] dolphin oil,[344] and, as produce of
the interior, the wools of the Gadilonitis,[345] the fleeces of Ancyra,
the horses of Armenia, Media, and Paphlagonia,[346] the iron of the
Chalybes, a population of miners to the south of Trapezus, already
celebrated in the time of Homer, and mentioned by Xenophon.[347] There
also were found mines of silver, abandoned in the time of Strabo,[348]
but which have been re-opened in modern times. Important ports on the
Black Sea facilitated the exportation of these products. It was at
Sinope that Lucullus found a part of the treasures which he displayed at
his triumph, and which gives us a lofty idea of the kingdom of
Mithridates.[349] An object of admiration at Sinope was the statue of
Autolycus, one of the protecting heroes of the town, the work of the
statuary Sthenis.[350]
Trapezus (_Trebizonde_), which before the time of Mithridates the Great
preserved a sort of autonomy under the kings of Pontus, had an extensive
commerce; which was the case also with another Greek colony, Amisus
(_Samsoun_),[351] regarded in the time of Lucullus as one of the most
flourishing and richest towns in the country.[352] In the interior,
Amasia, which became afterwards one of the great fortresses of Asia
Minor, and the metropolis of Pontus, had already probably, at the time
of the Punic wars, a certain renown. Cabira, called afterwards
_Sebaste_, and then Neocæsarea, the central point of the resistance of
Mithridates the Great to Lucullus, owed its ancient celebrity to its
magnificent Temple of the Moon. From the country of Cabira, there was,
according to the statement of Lucullus,[353] only the distance of a few
days’ march into Armenia, a country the riches of which may be estimated
by the treasures gathered by Tigranes.[354]
We can hence understand how Mithridates the Great was able, two
centuries later, to oppose the Romans with considerable armies and
fleets. He possessed in the Black Sea 400 ships,[355] and his army
amounted to 250,000 men and 40,000 horse.[356] He received, it is true,
succours from Armenia and Scythia, from the Palus Mæotis, and even from
Thrace.
[Sidenote: Bithynia.]
XI. Bithynia, a province of Asia Minor, comprised between the Propontis,
the Sangarius, and Paphlagonia, formed a kingdom, which, at the
beginning of the sixth century of Rome, was adjacent to Pontus, and
comprised several parts of the provinces contiguous to Mysia and
Phrygia. In it were found several towns, the commerce of which rivalled
that of the maritime towns of Pontus, and especially Nicæa and
Nicomedia. This last, founded in 475 by Nicomedes I., took a rapid
extension.[357] Heraclea Pontica, a Milesian colony situated between the
Sangarius and the Parthenius, preserved its extensive commerce, and an
independence which Mithridates the Great himself could not entirely
destroy; it possessed a vast port, safe and skilfully disposed, which
sheltered a numerous fleet.[358] The power of the Bithynians was not
insignificant, since they sent into the field, in the war of Nicomedes
against Mithridates, 56,000 men.[359] If the traffic was considerable on
the coasts of Bithynia, thanks to the Greek colonies, the interior was
not less prosperous by its agriculture, and Bithynia was still, in the
time of Strabo, renowned for its herds.[360]
One of the provinces of Bithynia fell into the hands of the Gauls
(A.U.C. 478). Three peoples of Celtic origin shared it, and exercised in
it a sort of feudal dominion. It was called Galatia from the name of the
conquerors. Its places of commerce were: Ancyra, the point of arrival
of the caravans coming from Asia, and Pessinus, one of the chief seats
of the old Phrygian worship, where pilgrims repaired in great number to
adore Cybele.[361] The population of Galatia was certainly rather
considerable, since in the famous campaign of Cneius Manlius Volso,[362]
in 565, the Galatians lost 40,000 men. The two tribes united of the
Tectosagi and Trocmi raised at that period, in spite of many defeats, an
army of 50,000 foot and 10,000 horse.[363]
[Sidenote: Cappadocia.]
XII. To the east of Galatia, Cappadocia comprised between the Halys and
Armenia, distant from the sea, and crossed by numerous chains of
mountains, formed a kingdom which escaped the conquests of Alexander,
and which, a few years after his death, opposed Perdiccas with an army
of 30,000 footmen and 15,000 horsemen.[364] In the time of Strabo, wheat
and cattle formed the riches of this country.[365] In 566, King
Ariarathes paid 600 talents for the alliance of the Romans.[366] Mazaca
(afterwards _Cæsarea_), capital of Cappadocia, a town of an entirely
Asiatic origin, had been, from a very early period, renowned for its
pastures.[367]
[Sidenote: Kingdom of Pergamus.]
XIII. The western part of Asia Minor is better known. It had seen, after
the battle of Ipsus, the formation of the kingdom of Pergamus, which,
thanks to the interested liberality of the Romans towards Eumenes II.,
increased continually until the moment when it fell under their
sovereignty. To this kingdom belonged Mysia, the two Phrygias, Lycaonia,
and Lydia. This last province, crossed by the Pactolus, had for its
capital Ephesus, the metropolis of the Ionian confederation, at the same
time the mart of the commerce of Asia Minor and one of the localities
where the fine arts were cultivated with most distinction. This town had
two ports: one penetrated into the heart of the town, while the other
formed a basin in the very middle of the public market.[368] The theatre
of Ephesus, the largest ever built, was 660 feet in diameter, and was
capable of holding 60,000 spectators. The most celebrated artists,
Scopas, Praxiteles, etc., worked at Ephesus upon the great Temple of
Diana. This monument, the building of which lasted two hundred and
twenty years, was surrounded by 128 columns, each 60 feet high,
presented by so many kings. Pergamus, the capital of the kingdom, passed
for one of the finest cities in Asia, _longe clarissimum Asiæ Pergamum_,
says Pliny;[369] the port of Elæa contained maritime arsenals, and could
arm numerous vessels.[370] The acropolis of Pergamus, an inaccessible
citadel, defended by two torrents, was the residence of the Attalides;
these princes, zealous protectors of the sciences and arts, had founded
in their capital a library of 200,000 volumes.[371] Pergamus carried on
a vast traffic; its cereals were exported in great quantities to most
places in Greece.[372] Cyzicus, situated on an island of the Propontis,
with two closed ports forming a station for about two hundred
ships,[373] rivalled the richest cities of Asia. Like Adramyttium, it
carried on a great commerce in perfumery,[374] it worked the
inexhaustible marble-quarries of the island of Proconnesus,[375] and its
commercial relations were so extensive that its gold coins were current
in all the Asiatic factories.[376] The town of Abydos possessed gold
mines.[377] The wheat of Assus was reputed the best in the world, and
was reserved for the table of the kings of Persia.[378]
We may estimate the population and resources of this part of Asia from
the armies and fleets which the kings had at their command at the time
of the conquest of Greece by the Romans. In 555, Attalus II., and, ten
years later, Eumenes II., sent them numerous galleys of five ranks of
oars.[379] The land forces of the kings of Pergamus were much less
considerable.[380] Their direct authority did not extend over a great
territory, yet they had many tributary towns; hence their great wealth
and small army. The Romans drew from this country, now nearly barren and
unpeopled, immense contributions both in gold and wheat.[381] The
magnificence of the triumph of Manlius and the reflections of Livy,
compared with the testimony of Herodotus, reveal all the splendour of
the kingdom of Pergamus. It was after the war against Antiochus and the
expedition of Manlius that extravagance began to display itself at
Rome.[382] Soldiers and generals enriched themselves prodigiously in
Asia.[383]
The ancient colonies of Ionia and Æolis, such as Clazomenæ, Colophon,
and many others, which were dependent for the most part on the kingdom
of Pergamus, were fallen from their ancient grandeur. Smyrna, rebuilt by
Alexander, was still an object of admiration for the beauty of its
monuments. The exportation of wines, as celebrated on the coast of Ionia
as in the neighbouring islands, formed alone an important support of the
commerce of the ports of the Ægean Sea.
The treasures of the temple of Samothrace were so considerable, that we
are induced to mention here a circumstance relating to this little
island, though distant from Asia, and near the coast of Thrace: Sylla’s
soldiers took in the sanctuary the Cabiri, an ornament of the value of
1,000 talents (5,820,000 francs [£232,800]).[384]
[Sidenote: Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia.]
XIV. On the southern coast of Asia Minor, some towns still sustained the
rank they had attained one or two centuries before. The capital of Caria
was Halicarnassus, a very strong town, defended by two citadels,[385]
and celebrated for one of the finest works of Greek art, the
_Mausoleum_. In spite of the extraordinary fertility of the country, the
Carians were accustomed, like the people of Crete, to engage as
mercenaries in the Greek armies.[386] On their territory stood the
Ionian town of Miletus, with its four ports.[387] The Milesians alone
had civilised the shores of the Black Sea by the foundation of about
eighty colonies.[388]
In turn independent, or placed under foreign dominion, Lycia, a province
comprised between Caria and Cilicia, possessed some rich commercial
towns. One especially, renowned for its ancient oracle of Apollo, no
less celebrated than that of Delphi, was remarkable for its spacious
port;[389] this was Patara, which was large enough to contain the whole
fleet of Antiochus, burnt by Fabius in 565.[390] Xanthus, the largest
town of the province, to which place ships ascended, only lost its
importance after having been pillaged by Brutus.[391] Its riches had at
an earlier period drawn upon it the same fate from the Persians.[392]
Under the Roman dominion, Lycia beheld its population decline gradually;
and of the seventy towns which it had possessed, no more than thirty-six
remained in the eighth century of Rome.[393]
More to the east, the coasts of Cilicia were less favoured; subjugated
in turn by the Macedonians, Egyptians, and Syrians, they had become
receptacles of pirates, who were encouraged by the kings of Egypt in
their hostility to the Seleucidæ.[394] From the heights of the mountains
which cross a part of the province, robbers descended to plunder the
fertile plains situated on the eastern side (_Cilicia Campestris_).[395]
Still, the part watered by the Cydnus and the Pyramus was more
prosperous, owing to the manufacture of coarse linen and to the export
of saffron. There stood ancient Tarsus, formerly the residence of a
satrap, the commerce of which had sprung up along with that of
Tyre;[396] and Soli, on which Alexander levied an imposition of a
hundred talents as a punishment for its fidelity to the Persians,[397]
and which, by its maritime position, excited the envy of the
Rhodians.[398] These towns and other ports entered, after the battle of
Ipsus, into the great commercial movement of which the provinces of
Syria became the seat.
[Sidenote: Syria.]
XV. By the foundation of the empire of the Seleucidæ, Greek civilisation
was carried into the interior of Asia, where the immobility of Eastern
society was succeeded by the activity of Western life. Greek letters and
arts flourished from the Sea of Phœnicia to the banks of the
Euphrates. Numerous towns were built in Syria and Assyria, with all the
richness and elegance of the edifices of Greece;[399] some were almost
in ruins in the time of Pliny.[400] Seleucia, founded by Seleucus
Nicator, at the mouth of the Orontes, and which received, with five
other towns built by the same monarch, the name of the head of the
Græco-Syrian dynasty, became a greatly frequented port. Antioch, built
on the same river, rivalled the finest towns of Egypt and Greece by the
number of its edifices, the extent of its places, and the beauty of its
temples and statues.[401] Its walls, built by the architect Xenæos,
passed for a wonder, and in the Middle Ages their ruins excited the
admiration of travellers.[402] Antioch consisted of four quarters,
having each its own enclosure;[403] and the common enclosure which
surrounded them all appears to have embraced an extent of six leagues in
circumference. Not far from the town was the delightful abode of Daphne,
where the wood, consecrated to Apollo and Diana, was an object of public
veneration, and the place where sumptuous festivals were
celebrated.[404] Apamea was renowned for its pastures. Seleucus had
formed there a stud of 30,000 mares, 300 stallions, and 500
elephants.[405] The Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (now _Baalbek_) was
the most colossal work of architecture that had ever existed.[406]
The power of the empire of the Seleucidæ went on increasing until the
time when the Romans seized upon it. Extending from the Mediterranean to
the Oxus and Caucasus, this empire was composed of nearly all the
provinces of the ancient kingdom of the Persians, and included peoples
of different origins.[407] Media was fertile, and its capital, Ecbatana,
which Polybius represents as excelling in riches and the incredible
luxury of its palaces the other cities of Asia, had not yet been
despoiled by Antiochus III.;[408] Babylonia, once the seat of a powerful
empire, and Phœnicia, long the most commercial country in the world,
made part of Syria, and touched upon the frontiers of the Parthians.
Caravans, following a route which has remained the same during many
centuries, placed Syria in communication with Arabia,[409] whence came
ebony, ivory, perfumes, resins, and spices; the Syrian ports were the
intermediate marts for the merchants who proceeded as far as India,
where Seleucus I. went to conclude a treaty with Sandrocottus. The
merchandise of this country ascended the Euphrates as far as Thapsacus,
and thence it was exported to all the provinces.[410] Communications so
distant and multiplied explain the prosperity of the empire of the
Seleucidæ. Babylonia competed with Phrygia in embroidered tissues;
purple and the tissues of Tyre, the glass, goldsmiths’ work, and dyes of
Sidon, were exported far. Commerce had penetrated to the extremities of
Asia. Silk stuffs were sent from the frontiers of China to Caspiæ Portæ,
and thence conveyed by caravans at once towards the Tyrian Sea,
Mesopotamia, and Pontus.[411] Subsequently, the invasion of the
Parthians, by intercepting the routes, prevented the Greeks from
penetrating into the heart of Asia. Hence Seleucus Nicator formed the
project of opening a way of direct communication between Greece and
Bactriana, by constructing a canal from the Black Sea to the Caspian
Sea.[412] Mines of precious metals were rather rare in Syria; but there
was abundance of gold and silver, introduced by the Phœnicians, or
imported from Arabia or Central Asia. We may judge of the abundance of
money possessed by Seleucia, on the Tigris, by the amount of the
contribution which was extorted from it by Antiochus III. (a thousand
talents).[413] The sums which the Syrian monarchs engaged to pay to the
Romans were immense.[414] The soil gave produce equal in importance with
that of industry.[415] Susiana, one of the provinces of Persia which had
fallen under the dominion of the Seleucidæ, had so great a reputation
for its corn, that Egypt alone could compete with it.[416] Cœle-Syria
was, like the north of Mesopotamia, in repute for its cattle.[417]
Palestine furnished abundance of wheat, oil, and wine. The condition of
Syria was still so prosperous in the seventh century of Rome, that the
philosopher Posidonius represents its inhabitants as indulging in
continual festivals, and dividing their time between the labours of the
field, banquets, and the exercises of the gymnasium.[418] The festivals
of Antiochus IV., in the town of Daphne,[419] give a notion of the
extravagance displayed by the grandees of that country.
The military forces assembled at different epochs by the kings of Syria
enable us to estimate the population of their empire. In 537, at the
battle of Raphia, Antiochus had under his command 68,000 men;[420] in
564, at Magnesia, 62,000 infantry, and more than 12,000 horsemen.[421]
These armies, it is true, comprised auxiliaries of different nations.
The Jews of the district of Carmel alone could raise 40,000 men.[422]
The fleet was no less imposing. Phœnicia counted numerous ports and
well-stored arsenals; such were Aradus (_Ruad_), Berytus (_Beyrout_),
Tyre (_Sour_). This latter town raised itself gradually from its
decline. It was the same with Sidon (_Saïde_), which Antiochus III., in
his war with Ptolemy, did not venture to attack on account of its
soldiers, its stores, and its population.[423] Moreover, the greater
part of the Phœnician towns enjoyed, under the Seleucidæ, a certain
autonomy favourable to their industry. In Syria, Seleucia, which
Antiochus the Great recovered from the Egyptians, had become the first
port in the kingdom on the Mediterranean.[424] Laodicea carried on an
active commerce with Alexandria.[425] Masters of the coasts of Cilicia
and Pamphylia, the kings of Syria obtained from them great quantities of
timber for ship-building, which was floated down the rivers from the
mountains.[426] Thus uniting their vessels with those of the
Phœnicians, the Seleucidæ launched upon the Mediterranean
considerable armies.[427]
Distant commerce also employed numerous merchant vessels; the
Mediterranean, like the Euphrates, was furrowed by barques which brought
or carried merchandise of every description. Vessels sailing on the
Erythræan Sea were in communication, by means of canals, with the shores
of the Mediterranean. The great trade of Phœnicia with Spain and the
West had ceased, but the navigation of the Euphrates and the Tigris
replaced it for the transport of products, whether foreign or
fabricated in Syria itself, and sent into Asia Minor, Greece, or Egypt.
The empire of the Seleucidæ offered the spectacle of the ancient
civilisation and luxury of Nineveh and Babylon, transformed by the
genius of Greece.
[Sidenote: Egypt.]
XVI. Egypt, which Herodotus calls a present from the Nile, did not equal
in surface a quarter of the empire of the Seleucidæ, but it formed a
power much more compact. Its civilisation reached back more than three
thousand years. The sciences and arts already flourished there, when
Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy were still in a state of barbarism. The
fertility of the valley of the Nile had permitted a numerous population
to develop itself there to such a point, that under Amasis II.,
contemporary with Servius Tullius, twenty thousand cities were reckoned
in it.[428] The skilful administration of the first of the Lagides
increased considerably the resources of the country. Under Ptolemy II.,
the annual revenues amounted to 14,800 talents (86,150,800 francs
[£3,446,032]), and a million and a half of artabi[429] of wheat.[430]
Besides the Egyptian revenues, the taxes levied in the foreign
possessions reached the amount of about 10,000 talents a year.
Cœle-Syria, Phœnicia, and Judea, with the province of Samaria,
yielded annually to Ptolemy Euergetes 8,000 talents (46 millions and a
half [£1,860,000]).[431] A single feast cost Philadelphia 2,240 talents
(more than 13 millions [more than half a million sterling]).[432] The
sums accumulated in the treasury amounted to the sum, perhaps
exaggerated, of 740,000 talents (about 4 milliards 300 millions of
francs [172 millions sterling]).[433] In 527, Ptolemy Euergetes was
able, without diminishing his resources too much, to send to the
Rhodians 3,300 talents of silver, a thousand talents of copper, and ten
millions of measures of wheat.[434] The precious metals abounded in the
empire of the Pharaohs, as is attested by the traces of mining
operations now exhausted, and by the multitude of objects in gold
contained in their tombs. Masters for some time of the Libanus, the
kings of Egypt obtained from it timber for ship-building. These riches
had accumulated especially at Alexandria, which became, after Carthage,
towards the commencement of the seventh century of Rome, the first
commercial city in the world.[435] It was fifteen miles in
circumference, had three spacious and commodious ports, which allowed
the largest ships to anchor along the quay.[436] There arrived the
merchandises of India, Arabia, Ethiopia, and of the coast of Africa;
some brought on the backs of camels, from Myos Hormos (to the north of
Cosseïr), and then transported down the Nile; others came by canals from
the bottom of the Gulf of Suez, or brought from the port of Berenice, on
the Red Sea.[437] The occupation of this sea by the Egyptians had put a
stop to the piracies of the Arabs,[438] and led to the establishment of
numerous factories. India furnished spices, muslins, and dyes; Ethiopia,
gold, ivory, and ebony; Arabia, perfumes.[439] All these products were
exchanged against those which came from the Pontus Euxinus and the
Western Sea. The native manufacture of printed and embroidered tissues,
and that of glass, assumed under the Ptolemies a new development. The
objects exhumed from the tombs of this period, the paintings with which
they are decorated, the allusions contained in the hieroglyphic texts
and Greek papyrus, prove that the most varied descriptions of industry
were exercised in the kingdom of the Pharaohs, and had attained a high
degree of perfection. The excellence of the products and the delicacy of
the work prove the intelligence of the workmen. Under Ptolemy II., the
army was composed of 200,000 footmen, 40,000 cavalry, 300 elephants, and
200 chariots; the arsenals were capable of furnishing arms for 300,000
men.[440] The Egyptian fleet, properly so called, consisted of a
hundred and twelve vessels of the first class (from five to thirty
ranges of oars), and two hundred and twenty-four of the second class,
together with light craft; the king had, besides these, more than four
thousand ships in the ports placed in subjection to him.[441] It was
especially after Alexander that the Egyptian navy became greatly
extended.
[Sidenote: Cyrenaica.]
XVII. Separating Egypt from the possessions of Carthage, Cyrenaica (_the
regency of Tripoli_), formerly colonised by the Greeks and independent,
had fallen into the hands of the first of the Ptolemies. It possessed
commercial and rich towns, and fertile plains; its cultivation extended
even into the mountains;[442] wine, oil, dates, saffron and different
plants, such as the silphium (_laserpitium_),[443] were the object of
considerable traffic.[444] The horses of Cyrenaica, which had all the
lightness of the Arabian horses, were objects of research even in
Greece,[445] and the natives of Cyrene could make no more handsome
present to Alexander than to send him three hundred of their
coursers.[446] Nevertheless, political revolutions had already struck at
the ancient prosperity of the country,[447] which previously formed, by
its navigation, its commerce, and its arts, probably the finest of the
colonies founded by the Greeks.
[Sidenote: Cyprus.]
XVIII. The numerous islands of the Mediterranean enjoyed equal
prosperity. Cyprus, colonised by the Phœnicians, and subsequently by
the Greeks, passing afterwards under the dominion of the Egyptians, had
a population which preserved, from its native country, the love of
commerce and distant voyages. Almost all its towns were situated on the
sea-coast, and furnished with excellent ports. Ptolemy Soter maintained
in it an army of 30,000 Egyptians.[448] No country was richer in timber.
Its fertility passed for being superior to that of Egypt.[449] To its
agricultural produce were added precious stones, mines of copper worked
from an early period,[450] and so rich, that this metal took its name
from the island itself (_Cuprum_). In Cyprus were seen numerous
sanctuaries, and especially the temple of Venus at Paphos, which
contained a hundred altars.[451]
[Sidenote: Crete.]
XIX. Crete, peopled by different races, had attained even in the heroic
age a great celebrity; Homer sang its hundred cities; but during several
centuries it had been on the decline. Without commerce, without a
regular navy, without agriculture, it possessed little else than its
fruits and woods, and the sterility which characterises it now had
already commenced. Nevertheless, there is every reason to believe that
at the time of the Roman conquest, the island was still well
peopled.[452] Devoted to piracy,[453] and reduced to sell their
services, the Cretans, celebrated as archers, fought as mercenaries in
the armies of Syria, Macedonia, and Egypt.[454]
[Sidenote: Rhodes.]
XX. If Crete was in decline, Rhodes, on the contrary, was extending its
commerce, which took gradually the place of that of the maritime towns
of Ionia and Caria. Already inhabited, in the time of Homer, by a
numerous population, and containing three important towns, Lindos,
Ialysus, and Camirus,[455] the isle was, in the fifth century of Rome,
the first maritime power after Carthage. The town of Rhodes, built
during the war of the Peloponnesus (346), had, like the Punic city, two
ports, one for merchant vessels, the other for ships of war. The right
of anchorage produced a revenue of a million of drachmas a year.[456]
The Rhodians had founded colonies on different points of the
Mediterranean shore,[457] and entertained friendly relations with a
great number of towns from which they received more than once succours
and presents.[458] They possessed upon the neighbouring Asiatic
continent tributary towns, such as Caunus and Stratonicea, which paid
them 120 talents (700,000 francs [£28,000]). The navigation of the
Bosphorus, of which they strove to maintain the passage free, soon
belonged to them almost exclusively.[459] All the maritime commerce from
the Nile to the Palus Mæotis thus fell into their hands. Laden with
slaves, cattle, honey, wax, and salt meats,[460] their ships went to
fetch on the coast of the Cimmerian Bosphorus (_Sea of Azof_) the wheat
then very celebrated,[461] and to carry wines and oils to the northern
coast of Asia Minor. By means of its fleets, though its land army was
composed wholly of foreigners,[462] Rhodes several times made war with
success. She contended with Athens, especially from 397 to 399; she
resisted victoriously, in 450, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and owed her
safety to the respect of this prince for a magnificent painting of
Ialysus, the work of Protogenes.[463] During the campaigns of the Romans
in Macedonia and Asia, she furnished them with considerable fleets.[464]
Her naval force was maintained until the civil war which followed the
death of Cæsar, but was then annihilated.
The celebrity of Rhodes was no less great in arts and letters than in
commerce. After the reign of Alexander, it became the seat of a famous
school of sculpture and painting, from which issued Protogenes and the
authors of the _Laocoon_ and the _Farnese Bull_. The town contained
three thousand statues,[465] and a hundred and six colossi, among others
the famous Statue of the Sun, one of the seven wonders of the world, a
hundred and five feet high, the cost of which had been three thousand
talents (17,400,000 francs [£696,000]).[466] The school of rhetoric at
Rhodes was frequented by students who repaired thither from all parts
of Greece, and Cæsar, as well as Cicero, went there to perfect
themselves in the art of oratory.
The other islands of the Ægean Sea had nearly all lost their political
importance, and their commercial life was absorbed by the new states of
Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rhodes. It was not so with the Archipelago of
the Ionian Sea, the prosperity of which continued until the moment when
it fell into the power of the Romans. Corcyra, which received into its
port the Roman forces, owed to its fertility and favourable position an
extensive commerce. The rival of Corinth since the fourth century, she
became corrupted like Byzantium and Zacynthus (_Zante_), which
Agatharchides, towards 640, represents as grown effeminate by excess of
luxury.[467]
[Sidenote: Sardinia.]
XXI. The flourishing condition of Sardinia arose especially from the
colonies which Carthage had planted in it. The population of this island
rendered itself formidable to the Romans by its spirit of
independence.[468] From 541[469] to 580, 130,000 men were slain, taken,
or sold.[470] The number of these last was so considerable, that the
expression _Sardinians to sell_ (_Sardi venales_) became
proverbial.[471] Sardinia, which now counts not more than 544,000
inhabitants, then possessed at least a million. Its quantity of corn,
and numerous herds of cattle, made of this island the second granary of
Carthage.[472] The avidity of the Romans soon exhausted it. Yet, in 552,
the harvests were still so abundant, that there were merchants who were
obliged to abandon the wheat to the sailors for the price of the
freight.[473] The working of the mines and the trade in wool of a
superior quality[474] occupied thousands of hands.
[Sidenote: Corsica.]
XXII. Corsica was much less populous. Diodorus Siculus gives it hardly
more than 30,000 inhabitants,[475] and Strabo represents them as
savages, and living in the mountains.[476] According to Pliny, however,
it had thirty towns.[477] Resin, wax, honey,[478] exported from
factories founded by the Etruscans and Phocæans on the coasts, were
almost the only products of the island.
[Sidenote: Sicily.]
XXIII. Sicily, called by the ancients the favourite abode of Ceres, owed
its name to the Sicani or Siculi, a race which had once peopled a part
of Italy; Phœnician colonies, and afterwards Greek colonies, had
established themselves in it. In 371, the Greeks occupied the eastern
part, about two-thirds of the island; the Carthaginians, the western
part. Sicily, on account of its prodigious fertility, was, as may be
supposed, coveted by both peoples; it was soon the same in regard to the
Romans, and, after the conquest, it became the granary of Italy.[479]
The orations of Cicero against Verres show the prodigious quantities of
wheat which it sent, and to what a great sum the tenths or taxes
amounted, which procured immense profits to the farmers of the
revenues.[480]
The towns which, under Roman rule, declined, were possessed of
considerable importance at the time of which we are speaking. The first
among them, Syracuse, the capital of Hiero’s kingdom, contained 600,000
souls; it was composed of six quarters, comprised in a circumference of
180 stadia (36 kilometres); it furnished, when it was conquered, a booty
equal to that of Carthage.[481] Other cities rivalled Syracuse in extent
and power. Agrigentum, in the time of the first Punic war, contained
50,000 soldiers;[482] it was one of the principal garrisons in
Sicily.[483] Panormus (_Palermo_), Drepana (_Trapani_), and Lilybæum
(_Marsala_), possessed arsenals, docks for ship-building, and vast
ports. The roadstead of Messina was capable of holding 600 vessels.[484]
Sicily is still the richest country in ancient monuments; our
admiration is excited by the ruins of twenty-one temples and of eleven
theatres, among others that of Taormina, which contained 40,000
spectators.[485]
* * * * *
This concise description of the countries bordering on the
Mediterranean, two or three hundred years before our era, shows
sufficiently the state of prosperity of the different peoples who
inhabited them. The remembrance of such greatness inspires a very
natural wish, namely, that henceforth the jealousy of the great powers
may no longer prevent the East from shaking off the dust of twenty
centuries, and from being born again to life and civilisation!