Rome—The repugnance of the Romans to seafaring
pursuits—Single-banked galleys of the Liburni—The fleets of
Rome—Their creation and slow progress—The form and construction of
their galleys—War with the pirates of Cilicia—First treaty with
Carthage, B.C. 509—Its purport—College of merchants, established
B.C. 494—No senator allowed to own ships, B.C. 226—Cicero’s
opinion of merchants—Contempt for mariners—Reduction of Egypt,
B.C. 30, and trade with India—Customs’ duties—The excise—Bounties
on the importation of corn, A.D. 14—System of collecting the
taxes—Value of the trade with Alexandria—Its extent—Vessels of
Spain—Pharos or lighthouse at Gessoriacum—The shipping described
by Tacitus—Rhodians—Their maritime laws—System of accounts in use
at Rome—The corn trade of the city—Port of Ostia.
[Sidenote: Rome.]
In a previous chapter an outline has been given of the commerce
and navigation of the Carthaginians in succession to that of the
Phœnicians. A rapid glance will now be taken of the shipping and
progress of the maritime commerce of the great nation that destroyed
Carthage, and, by the valour of its arms and the vigour of its
political system, rather than by its genius and industry, extended its
dominions over the whole of Italy, Syria, Egypt, and Western Asia,
ultimately reducing to the condition of provinces all the habitable
portions of Europe.
[Sidenote: The repugnance of the Romans to sea-faring pursuits.]
Great as soldiers, the citizens of Rome had, however, a repugnance
to maritime affairs. “Their ambition,” remarks Gibbon,[285] in his
history of their decline and fall, “was confined to the land; nor was
that warlike people ever actuated by the enterprising spirit which had
prompted the navigators of Tyre, of Carthage, and even of Marseilles,
to enlarge the bounds of the world, and to explore the most remote
coasts of the ocean. To the Romans the ocean remained an object of
terror rather than of curiosity.”
[Sidenote: Single-banked galleys of the Liburni.]
Unlike the Phœnicians and Carthaginians, the Romans had no inclination
to expeditions of mere discovery, and never cared to become acquainted
with any country whose remote situation appeared to defy their arms.
Vain of their own power and of the extent of their dominions, they
did not hesitate, in almost every instance, to bestow the name of
barbarians on the civilized inhabitants of India as well as on those of
other parts of the world, whose manners or customs were indistinctly
known to them. Despising commercial pursuits, they looked to Greece
and other nations to regulate their over-sea trade and to supply their
wants; and when their fleets obtained the dominion of the sea, their
object was less to protect their rapidly extending maritime commerce
than to consolidate and preserve their power and dominion upon the
land. In the reign of Augustus the plan of fixed naval stations was,
for the first time, adopted; two being appointed, one at Ravenna to
command the eastern, the other at Misenum to command the western
division of the Mediterranean. By this time the Romans had learned from
experience that galleys of more than three banks of oars were unsuited
for real service, and consequently their more important fleets, from
the reign of Augustus, consisted almost exclusively of the light and
swift vessels known as Liburnians, from the people who were the first
to build them.
[Sidenote: Single-banked galleys of the Liburni.]
Occupying a district a little north of the present Dalmatia, and
devoting their attention almost exclusively to sea-faring pursuits, the
Liburnians[286] had obtained a great reputation for their knowledge of
the art of navigation. Provided with excellent harbours, and holding in
their grasp many of the small islands of the Adriatic, which afforded
them shelter from storms and a convenient rendezvous for their swift
craft, they unfortunately made but little distinction between the
duties of the honest trader and the predatory habits of the buccaneer:
but to them Octavianus was mainly indebted for his victory over Antony
at Actium, and Rome itself for the introduction of a better and swifter
type of war-vessel.[287]
[Sidenote: The fleets of Rome.]
[Sidenote: Their creation and slow progress.]
[Sidenote: The form and construction of their galleys.]
Although Ravenna and Misenum were the principal stations of their
navy, the Romans had fleets at various other places. Forty ships and
three thousand soldiers then guarded the waters of the Euxine; a very
considerable force was stationed at Frejus (Forum-Julii); numbers
of Roman vessels cruised in the English Channel to preserve the
communication between Gaul and Britain; while, throughout the whole
period of her supremacy, a strong force was maintained on the Danube
and Rhine to protect the empire from the inroads of the Northern
barbarians. But these fleets were the slow growth of centuries; and the
navies of Rome were for a long time of comparatively little note, and
obtained celebrity only when the first Punic war roused her citizens
to extraordinary exertions to deprive Carthage of its maritime
supremacy.[288] Roman fleets were then constructed and spread over
the Mediterranean with such rapidity that the Carthaginians would not
credit the reports of their number and equipment. In their construction
they displayed the energy they had ever shown when they had once
determined on their plan. Skilled artisans, from friendly or subjected
states, were ready to execute their orders, and the banks of the Tiber
resounded with the noise of the axe, the adze, the hammer, and the
mallet. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the first fleet Rome
sent forth to oppose the powerful squadrons of the Carthaginians was so
much inferior to the galleys of Augustus as has been supposed by some
writers.[289] But the real character of the Roman vessels cannot now
be ascertained; as no Roman historian has thought it worth his while,
probably from ignorance on such matters, to give details from which
they could, even in imagination, be constructed.
It is, however, reasonable to suppose that they were much the same as
the ships of the Greeks and Carthaginians, or of the merchant vessel,
already described, in which St. Paul made his celebrated voyage, and
that their form and dimensions were regulated by the services they
were expected to perform. In a note we subjoin a list of the number of
fleets the Romans are known to have had in the brief space of twenty
years, as they will give a better idea than anything else of the vigour
of their administration, and of the energy wherewith, in the best days
of the republic, they surmounted disasters which would have crushed to
the ground a less self-reliant people.[290]
But so far as commerce is concerned, it was only when they had brought
the third Punic war to an end, and had destroyed the great trading
cities of Carthage and Corinth,[291] that the Romans really began
to devote their abilities to commercial pursuits, and recognize in
the site of one of them (Corinth), a great centre of trade for Asia,
Western Greece, and Italy. Hence it was that, when the Corinthian
people joined the Achæan League, for the preservation of the
independence of Greece, the Romans found an excuse for the capture,
though not for the plunder and destruction of Corinth.
[Sidenote: War with the pirates of Cilicia.]
By the burning of these two great towns, instigated as these acts
doubtless were, in no small degree, by a lust for plunder, the Romans
not merely lost, for a time, the advantages they might have derived
from a continuation of the trade hitherto successfully conducted by
the Carthaginian and Corinthian merchants and shipowners, but drove
those of the latter class, who had saved their property, and who had
no other means of subsistence, to join Mithradates, and to convert
their ships, as circumstances allowed or encouraged, into ships of
war, privateers, or pirates. Persons of rank and capital then embarked
to an extent previously unknown in marauding expeditions, with the
object either of personal gain, or of the destruction of the maritime
commerce of Rome. The organization of this confederacy was of the most
formidable character. They erected forts, watch-towers, arsenals, and
magazines; and from Cilicia, their citadel in chief, their squadrons
swept the seas. Hence their historical name of the Cilician pirates.
Every merchant ship that ventured forth became either their prize or
their prey. Commerce was seriously interrupted; and the citizens of
Rome lost their usual supplies of corn. The piratical ships increased
in numbers and in daring; they infested the coasts of Italy, plundered
the temples, and even ascended the Tiber in search of spoil. At
length Pompey put an end to their power, by a brilliant victory at
Coracesium, and in a campaign of only forty days’ duration.[292]
[Sidenote: B.C. 67.]
[Sidenote: First treaty with Carthage, B.C. 509.]
Having cleared the seas of the ships of this confederacy, the merchants
of Rome were free to carry on with more prospect of success the leading
branches of a commerce which had for centuries yielded large profits
to the merchants of Corinth and of Carthage. Hitherto commerce had
been held an ignoble occupation for Roman citizens, nor were there
apparently any facilities for its encouragement, or any advantages
sought in their commercial intercourse with strangers. Indeed, in
their first treaty with the Carthaginians, the earliest record of any
commercial treaty, the Romans were satisfied with conditions which
restricted any extension of such maritime trade as they then possessed.
“Let there be friendship,” says the treaty, “between us and the Romans,
together with their allies, on the following terms and conditions. Let
not the Romans nor their allies navigate beyond the Fair Promontory. If
they be driven by storm or chased by enemies beyond it—_i.e._, westward
of it—let them not buy or receive anything but what is necessary for
repairing their vessels, and for sacrifice; and let them take their
departure within five days of the time of their landing. Whatever
merchant or ship-owner may arrive on the business of merchandise let
him pay no duty, except the fee of the broker and the clerk. Let the
public faith be security for the seller, for whatever is sold in the
presence of these officers—that is to say, whatever is sold in Africa
or Sardinia. If any Romans arrive at that part of Sicily which is
subject to Carthage, let them have impartial justice. Let not the
Carthaginians do any injury to the people of Ardea, Antium, Laurentium,
Cercii, Tarracina, nor to any of the Latins who shall be subject to
Rome. Let them not attack the free towns of the Latins. If they shall
take any of them, let them deliver it up to the Romans free of any
damage. Let them build no fort in the land of the Latins. If they make
a hostile landing in the country, let them not remain all night in
it.”[293]
[Sidenote: Its purport.]
This convention gives a higher idea of the relative power of Rome
at that early period, than is to be gathered from the annalists.
It is clear that even then she must have had a naval force of some
importance, while the Latins are distinctly called the “subjects” of
Rome. It further shows very clearly how trade was then conducted.
The prohibition of sailing beyond the Fair Promontory was no doubt
inserted, lest, by directing their attention to maritime commerce, the
Romans should deprive the Carthaginians of a portion of their valuable
trade with Spain. Probably with the same view an interdiction was also
placed against the Romans trading with the fertile coasts of Africa, in
the vicinity of the Lesser Syrtis, showing that an occasional merchant
vessel must, even at that early period, have ventured as far. But the
Carthaginians were obviously at that time strong enough to dictate,
to a considerable extent, their own terms, and the Romans too weak to
resent this dictation.
[Sidenote: College of merchants established, B.C. 494.]
[Sidenote: No senator allowed to own ships, B.C. 226.]
It seems likely that this treaty induced the Romans to pay more
attention to commercial pursuits than they had previously done, for
Livy[294] states that within a few years of its execution, a college
of merchants, the precise nature of which is not known, was established
at Rome; centuries, however, elapsed before the State afforded any
real encouragement to commercial intercourse with other countries.
Indeed, as far as can now be ascertained, the supply of corn for the
capital formed the chief and for ages almost the only article of
commerce worthy of senatorial notice, as any scarcity in the supply
of that necessary article invariably produced tumults among the
people.[295] But it was only when their increasing wants obliged them
to direct attention to foreign trade, that the law so far encouraged
ship-building, as to exempt from municipal taxation those vessels
employed in the importation of corn. Every other trade with foreign
countries was restricted to a certain class of the citizens, who, with
constitutional jealousy, restrained the senators from embarking in what
was likely to prove highly remunerative. Quintus Claudius, a tribune
of the people, proposed a law, and carried it against the Senate,
Caius Flaminius alone assisting him, that no senator or the father
of a senator should be proprietor of a sea-going ship of a greater
capacity than three hundred amphoræ.[296] A vessel of this very limited
size might be large enough to carry the produce of their own lands to
market; but, in the opinion of the citizens no Roman senator ought
to take part in general mercantile operations which might lead him,
perhaps, to neglect his duties to the State.
Nor were any relaxations made in these laws during the most
flourishing periods of the empire. On the contrary, as was the case
during many previous centuries, noblemen, persons filling exalted
offices, and great capitalists, were forbidden the exercise of any
trade whatever, lest they should by such means become suddenly rich,
and thus draw down upon them the envy of the people.
[Sidenote: Cicero’s opinion of merchants.]
The emperors Honorius and Theodosius, in consolidating these laws,
state that “as trade might be carried on with greater ease among men
of base extraction, the respect due to persons of quality renders it
necessary to deprive them of the full liberty of trading.” And Cicero
observes, that “Trade is mean if it has only a small profit for its
object: but it is otherwise if it has large dealings, bringing many
sorts of merchandise from foreign parts, and distributing them to
the public without deceit; and if, after a reasonable profit, such
merchants are contented with the riches they have acquired, and
purchasing land with them retire into the country and apply themselves
to agriculture, I cannot,” says the great orator, in quite a vein of
aristocratical condescension, “perceive wherein is the dishonour of
that function.”[297]
[Sidenote: Contempt for mariners.]
From the whole tenor of this legislation it is easy to understand why
persons engaged in seafaring pursuits were so long despised; and that
the strongest measures were necessary to secure for them even ordinary
justice. Naturally, however, when, on the destruction of Corinth and
Carthage, a more extended trade arose, the prejudice against mariners
somewhat abated, though among the nobility and great landowners of
Rome, a lasting aversion prevailed against seafaring men. In the time
of Cicero, the advantages of foreign commerce were only beginning to be
felt at Rome, for previously her traders had been simply retailers of
corn and provisions. But when the empire of the seas fell indisputably
into the hands of the Romans, there arose merchants and large owners
of sea-going ships, who in their operations with distant countries
realised colossal fortunes, and were thus deemed by Cicero and his
class worthy of being distinguished from the mere retailers; and thus,
too, in Rome, as has befallen elsewhere, wealth at length supplied
the place of birth and genius, Roman merchants entering at last into
friendly relations with even its proudest landowners and citizens, and
Rome itself becoming the depôt for numberless articles produced abroad.
“The most remote countries of the ancient world,” remarks Gibbon,
“were ransacked, to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests
of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought overland
from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube, and the barbarians
were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for so
useless a commodity. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian
carpets, and other manufactures of the East; but the most important and
unpopular branch of trade was carried on with Arabia and India.”[298]
[Sidenote: Reduction of Egypt, B.C. 30, and trade with India.]
No event, however, proved more advantageous to her merchants than the
reduction of Egypt to a Roman province, which was finally effected
by Octavianus after the battle of Actium. The Romans thus not merely
recovered the regular supply of corn they always so much needed, but
obtained a monopoly of nearly all the trade between India and Europe.
Though affording a vast source of wealth to those engaged in it, the
trade with India was unpopular with the bulk of the Roman people, who
saw a few individuals enriched by its incredible profits, while the
country was drained of specie to pay for every conceivable article
of luxury. The raw materials which alone could afford remunerative
employment to the Roman manufacturers were too costly in their transit
to constitute, as they do now, the chief articles of import; and
the natives of India and of Arabia were so well satisfied with the
productions and manufactures of their own territories, that silver was
almost the only article they would receive in exchange from the Romans.
Pliny computed the annual loss arising from these exchanges at eight
hundred thousand pounds sterling;[299] and Gibbon has noticed that a
pound of silk was at one period esteemed of the same value as a pound
of gold.[300]
[Sidenote: Customs’ duties.]
But though it is a mistake to suppose that in the ordinary course
of commerce, the export of the precious metals entails a loss when
exchanged for produce and manufactures, Pliny had some reason to
dread the results, while the industrious citizens had ample cause
for complaint when they saw the whole wealth of the empire exchanged
for pearls, precious stones, or costly aromatics required only for
the funeral pageants of a few wealthy citizens. Nor is it hard to
understand the accumulation of great riches about this period at Rome,
when we reflect on the number of valuable provinces over which its
rulers had the power of almost unlimited taxation. Gibbon estimates
the income of these provinces during the reign of Augustus at from
fifteen to twenty millions of our money.[301] Customs, too, were
introduced during this period, and were followed by a regulated scheme
of excise, whereby both the real and the personal property of the Roman
citizens were made subject to a system of taxation from which they had
been exempt for more than a century and a half.
[Sidenote: A.D. 222.]
But in great empires, such as Rome, the natural balance of money soon
establishes itself. The wealth at first attracted to the capital, as
the chief place of abode for the aristocracy, by degrees finds its
way to the industrial people in the provinces, to be employed in the
development of arts and manufactures, and is thus spread throughout
the whole kingdom, to find its way back to the capital, through the
medium of those who, having by commerce or otherwise accumulated a
superabundance, resort thither to spend it. In the reign of Augustus
and of his successors, the duties also imposed on every kind of
merchandise found their way through numerous channels to Rome, the
great centre of opulence and luxury, so that, in whatever manner the
law was expressed, the Roman purchaser, rather than the provincial
merchant, paid the tax. A higher duty was imposed on articles of luxury
than on those of necessity, varying from an eighth to the fortieth
part of the value of the commodity; and the productions raised or
manufactured by the labour of the people were wisely treated with
more indulgence than was shown to the luxurious products of India
and Arabia.[302] “There is still extant,” remarks Gibbon,[303] “a
long but imperfect catalogue of Eastern commodities which, about the
time of Alexander Severus, were subject to the payment of duties:
cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of aromatics, a
great variety of precious stones, among which the diamond was the most
remarkable for its price, and the emerald for its beauty; Parthian and
Babylonian leather, ebony, ivory, and eunuchs; and we may observe,”
adds this great historian, “that the value of these effeminate slaves
gradually rose with the decline of the empire.”
[Sidenote: The excise.]
Although the excise seldom exceeded one per cent. _ad valorem_, it
embraced whatever was sold by private contract, or in the markets by
public auction, from the largest purchase of lands and houses, to those
minute objects which have a value only from their infinite number and
daily consumption. Against taxes of this description there were, as
there have ever been in all countries, loud complaints on the part of
the people; but when the emperor endeavoured to substitute for these
obnoxious and vexatious imposts a new tax of five per cent. on all
legacies and inheritances, the nobles of Rome, who were more tenacious
of their property than of their freedom, were, in spite of their
indignant murmurs, compelled to acquiesce in the imposition of a land
tax.[304]
[Sidenote: Bounties on the importation of corn, A.D. 14.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 41.]
The annual tributes, customs, and direct taxation of the provinces,
tended still further to produce the balance of values. The farmers were
paid with their own money. The Romans laid not only heavy duties upon
the natural products of every country subject to their sway, but also
an export duty on produce sent away, as well as an import duty on any
article brought in for the consumption of the provinces. A transit duty
was even levied on goods and produce of British origin during their
passage through the Roman province of Gaul. At the other extremity
of the empire, on the coasts of the Arabian Gulf, the same system of
fixed taxation was enforced; but the high prices we have named as
prevailing at Rome for foreign goods of all kinds, especially those
of India, Arabia, and Babylonia, rendered this taxation comparatively
light. The _Portorium_[305] or tax on produce or manufactures brought
by sea, resembled greatly the custom duties levied at the ports of
Great Britain during the present century; they were exacted by officers
of the public revenue, at harbours, rivers, and sometimes also at
the passages of bridges. On the other hand, besides the relief from
municipal taxation, an adequate and regular supply of corn was deemed
so essential that shipowners were offered liberal bounties to bring it
from abroad. In the reign of Tiberius, it is stated by Tacitus,[306]
that, as the people murmured at the oppressive price of grain, the
emperor settled its price to the buyer, and undertook to pay two
sesterces a measure to the corn-dealers and importers. More than this,
the Emperor Claudius, unlike the rulers of some of the nations of our
own time, whose systems are too often prohibitory of the importation
of the staple article of food for the people, urged the ship-owners
to make voyages during the winter, when they usually laid up their
vessels, and besides confirming to them the allowances sanctioned by
Tiberius, with relief from municipal taxation, took on himself all
losses, at the same time securing the importers a certain rate of
profit.
[Sidenote: System of collecting the taxes.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 211.]
[Sidenote: Value of the trade with Alexandria.]
Of the several impositions introduced by Augustus the five per cent.
on legacies and inheritances was the most fruitful as well as the most
comprehensive. Farmed like nearly all other taxes (for in every age
the best and wisest of the Roman governors adhered to this pernicious
method of collecting the principal customs), the burden was increased
by the insolence and cupidity of the collectors; hence, when two
centuries afterwards Caracalla doubled the already heavy impost, this
act of oppression nearly cost him his throne and his life.[307] Yet,
in spite of the extravagant luxury of the wealthier classes, the
enormous value of the imperial commerce, together with the extent and
wealth of the provinces, enabled the government to maintain for a long
time an expenditure which, under other circumstances, could not have
been endured; and much, indeed, of this wealth was really due to the
possession of Egypt, apart altogether from the large commercial profits
derived from Alexandria. Besides corn, Egypt supplied the imperial
city with flax and linen of various qualities, cotton goods, costly
ointments, marble, alabaster, fine alum, salt, gums, and the papyrus,
from which paper was manufactured at Rome. Three hundred thousand of
the million inhabitants of Alexandria consisted of Roman citizens, but
its merchants and ship-owners were chiefly emigrants from Greece or of
Grecian origin.
[Sidenote: Its extent.]
Although the value of the trade with Egypt, which comprised the chief
portion of that with India and Arabia, was in itself greater than any
other, it fell far short of supplying the numerous wants of Rome.
Caravans traversed, as they had done centuries before that city became
mistress of the world, the whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and
forty-three days,[308] from the Chinese ocean to the sea coast of
Syria, to supply her with the silk her rich citizens were always eager
to obtain. Nor could Egypt alone supply her demands even for corn and
cattle. That fertile country, which stretches from the southern foot of
the Alps to the shores of the Mediterranean, grew large quantities of
corn for Rome, and reared numerous cattle for her market, while from
Northern Italy she drew her supplies of salt provisions for the use
of her troops and mariners. The Sabine country also furnished wheat,
rice, and barley; and thence large quantities of wine were imported,
as well as from Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Timber, suitable for
ship-building purposes, was extensively imported from Etruria. Genoa
exported largely, for the use of the Romans, wood for furniture, coarse
wool for the clothing of their slaves, hides, and honey.
There was likewise a very considerable trade between Malta and the
Tiber in white cloths of wool and linen. Greece, and the Greek
islands, Samos, Cos, and Thrace, furnished green marble, dyes,
cambrics, and earthenwares; and from the Euxine were imported wax,
hemp, and pitch, and wool of the finest quality; while the ancient
trade with Persia, through Trebizond, remained unbroken during the
Roman supremacy, greatly increasing when Constantinople became
the eastern capital of the empire. Phrygia produced alabaster;
Miletus woollen goods, and Tyrian purple; and Sidon and Tyre, glass
manufactures and rich work in embroidery. From Africa proper the
Romans imported very considerable quantities of corn, drugs, and
horses, together with the wild elephants and lions required for their
gladiatorial exhibitions.[309]
[Sidenote: Trade with Spain.]
Next to Egypt, Spain was the largest seat of their foreign trade. Its
products of lead, iron, copper, silver, and gold, were sources of vast
wealth; and the corn, wool, wine, oil, honey, wax, pitch, dyes, and
salted provisions of a superior quality afforded a large and lucrative
commerce to the merchants, ship-owners, and manufacturers of Rome.
Indeed, so extensive were the commercial transactions carried on in
the Spanish Peninsula, that nearly as many ships were employed in its
trade as in that with the whole of Africa. Nor need we doubt that the
vessels so occupied were as large as those engaged in the Egyptian
trade already noticed. New Carthage (Cartagena), Saguntum, Tarragona,
and Bilbilis (Bilboa), even then famous for its steel, had a large
commercial intercourse with Rome, in provisions, cordage, and linens
of remarkable whiteness and texture. The province of Gaul formed a
rich appendix to the Roman empire, though the only ports directly
connected with the Tiber were Massalia (Marseilles), Arelate (Arles),
and Narbo[310] (Narbonne), at that period the most frequented and most
populous city in Gaul. Narbonne has since suffered the same fate as
Ostia, the silting up of its port having entirely destroyed its value.
[Sidenote: Pharos, or lighthouse at Gessoriacum.]
The chief exports of Gaul appear to have been gold, silver, and iron
from its own mines; linens from every part of the country; corn and
cheese of superior quality; with excellent salt pork, and tartan
cloths. Burdigala (Bordeaux,) on the Garonne, was its chief port on
the west, and on the north the Portus Itius (by some supposed to be
Wissant, near Cape Grisnez, but more probably Boulogne). At this
port, called afterwards Gessoriacum,[311] and whence Cæsar sailed for
Britain, was the lighthouse constructed by Caligula, some remains of
which are said to have existed in the early part of the seventeenth
century. This tower, or Pharos, the first lighthouse on record for any
part of the coasts of the North Sea or English Channel, stood upon the
promontory or cliff which commanded the port. Of an octagonal form (if
Bucherius is right in supposing the building he has drawn to be the
remains of Caligula’s structure), it was twenty-five feet in breadth,
and the circumference of the whole at the base two hundred feet. It had
twelve storeys or spaces for galleries, rising above each other. Each
storey diminished in diameter as you ascended, and on the top of the
tower a fire was kindled every evening at sunset, and served as the
beacon light for the guidance of mariners.
[Sidenote: The shipping described by Tacitus.]
[Sidenote: Rhodians.]
Tacitus[312] has preserved a description of the expedition of
Germanicus, but his “Annals” throw little light upon the state of that
portion of the Roman navy which assisted in the conquest of Germany,
and frequented the northern seas about the period when the first
lighthouse was erected in the English Channel. Indeed his description
very imperfectly represents either the vessels or seamen of those
maritime nations, who, becoming subject to Rome, largely aided her
alike in her naval and in her commercial victories. Of these none have
left a more lasting record of their existence as a maritime people
than the Rhodians. Alike celebrated for their skill as navigators, and
their honesty and shrewdness as merchants, they excelled all others
as jurists. Their laws relating to navigation were introduced into
the Roman code, and formed the groundwork of maritime jurisprudence
throughout the civilized world. Colonized, no doubt, by some of the
more civilized nations of Western Asia, and probably by the Phœnicians,
the Rhodians from their position, in a small island and on the great
highway of commerce, as well as from their skill in astronomy and in
navigation, soon took a prominent part among nations more populous
and powerful than themselves. Accessible to all the surrounding naval
powers, and deriving their chief commercial wealth from their trade
with Egypt, the Rhodians from the first made it their business to keep
the police of the surrounding seas; and having punished the pirates who
then infested the Mediterranean with exemplary severity, pursued their
trade as merchant navigators with equal security and success.
During the great struggle between Ptolemy and Antigonus, the Rhodians
naturally sided with the former; and hence were compelled to undergo
one of the most celebrated sieges of antiquity, by Demetrius
Poliorcetes the son of Antigonus: their resistance, however, was so
remarkable that, on raising the siege, B.C. 304, Demetrius, out of
respect for their prowess, is said to have presented them with the
engines he had employed against them during the siege. The value of
these engines was so great as to enable the islanders to erect the
colossal statue of Apollo[313] (the work of Chares of Lindus, who was
engaged on it for twelve years), which is known in history as one of
the Seven Wonders of the world. Placed, according to the usual (though
probably fabulous) story, with extended legs on the two moles forming
the entrance of the smaller harbour, and in height seventy cubits,
all vessels entering and leaving passed under it. But this memorable
statue was overthrown, only fifty-six years after its erection, by an
earthquake (224 B.C.), which destroyed the naval arsenals and a great
portion of the once famous city; and, though liberal promises were made
towards its restoration, there is no satisfactory evidence that it ever
was replaced.[314]
[Sidenote: Their maritime laws.]
But the Rhodians, in their laws, have transmitted to posterity a
monument of their maritime wisdom, more enduring than the brass of
which the Colossus was composed. These laws were for ages the sovereign
judges of controversies relating to navigation. Even the Romans in such
questions almost invariably appealed to their judgment. Indeed the
Rhodian laws were held in such respect, that, on an appeal being made
to Marcus Aurelius by one Eudæmon of Nicomedia, whose goods had been
plundered on the wreck of his ship, that emperor replied: “I am the
sovereign of the world; but the Rhodian law is sovereign wheresoever it
does not run contrary to our statute law.”[315]
It would further appear, that the Rhodians were the first to
establish rules, subsequently accepted universally, with regard to
co-partnership, and the remuneration of the commanders, officers, and
seamen, by shares in the profits of the ship, much in the same manner
as is still done among whaling vessels. Again, they framed laws to be
observed by freighters and by passengers while on board ship; they
affixed penalties on the commander or seamen for injuries done to
goods on board of their vessels, from want of sufficient tarpaulins or
proper attention to the pumps, and for carelessness or absence from
their duties. They also imposed penalties for barratry, for robbery
of other ships, or for careless collisions, awarding a special and
severe punishment to any one who ran away with a ship which had been
placed under his charge. Punishments were likewise enforced for
plundering wrecks, and a compensation allotted to the heirs of seamen
who lost their lives in the service of the ship. The Rhodians were
also the first to make regulations affecting charterparties and bills
of lading, as well as contracts of partnership or joint adventures.
They laid down rules for bottomry, for average and salvage, specifying
a scale of rates for recovering goods from the bottom, in one and a
half, twelve, and twenty-two feet and a half water; and also for the
payment of demurrage.[316] The whole of these rules were copied by the
Roman legislators and incorporated with the Roman laws; and having been
thus handed down to the States of Europe, they constituted the main
features of the laws known as the “Rôles d’Oleron,” and the “Hanse Town
Ordinances of 1614 and 1681,” besides forming the basis of that English
system of maritime law, which was brought to almost human perfection by
the wisdom of Lord Mansfield.
[Sidenote: System of accounts in use at Rome.]
While the Romans were indebted to the Rhodians for their maritime
laws, it seems likely that they gained their knowledge of accounts and
book-keeping from the Greeks of Crete, who had themselves acquired the
elements of this knowledge from the Phœnicians. It is, however, more
than questionable whether the Romans improved upon the art. The private
arrangements of the Roman merchants and ship-owners respecting the
systematic practice of book-keeping were exemplary. Accounts were not
actually enforced, as in some modern nations, by positive enactment,
but as it was deemed base to charge what was not justly due, so it
was held to be nefarious to omit entering what was due to others.
The Roman merchants were evidently well acquainted with book-keeping
by single entry, as they kept their accounts, _Rationes_,[317] in a
book or ledger called _codex_, with headings in columns _accepti_
or _expensi_ (the received and the paid away); they had also a book
containing each debtor’s or creditor’s name, and they posted in the
ledger, at least once a month, the various items of debit and credit,
which it was incumbent on every trader to state fairly and punctually.
They had likewise a sort of waste-book (_adversaria_); and it was
deemed a suspicious circumstance if entries in this rough book were
neglected, and not duly entered on the _codex_[318] in the regular
course of business. But though the system of single entry adopted by
the Roman merchants and ship-owners much resembles that of modern
times, their books were entirely different from those now in use among
the traders of Europe and of the United States of America. They were
rather rolls[319] of papyrus, each roll or page being divided into
columns. The _codex_ or ledger contained the separate accounts, in
accordance with the still prevailing practice, headed with the proper
name and titles of the respective parties, every transaction being duly
transferred or posted into it for permanent observation and record. The
ledger was then, as it is now, legal evidence, producible in courts
of justice in cases of dispute. It contained in its debit and credit
divisions the full account of each transaction. When the _adversaria_,
containing the temporary memorandum of the transactions, on which
necessary alterations were made before the particulars were transferred
to the ledger at the end of each month, if not more frequently, was
full, it was thrown aside or destroyed, the ledger being the only
record preserved of the transactions which had been completed.
Although the Romans were slow in becoming a great naval power, it is
clear that very soon after the battle of Actium they became as powerful
at sea as on land; all the leading seafaring states having by this time
become subject to the engrossing power of the empire, and there being
no longer any naval power to contest with them the supremacy of the
Mediterranean Sea: hence, for many years, there was no employment for
their fleets, except to protect their commerce and to keep open the
communication with the distant colonies of the empire. But long after
Rome had swept the sea of her greater opponents, marauders of different
races continued to prey upon commerce, so that her merchant traders,
engaged on distant voyages, invariably took on board a number of Roman
archers to guard their ships from pirates. These men were engaged
either to protect the ship when an emergency arose,[320] or to man the
oars, and, like the marines of our own time, acted as soldiers, or
performed those portions of the sailor’s duties to which they had been
trained.
[Sidenote: The corn trade of the city.]
Although, unfortunately, no clearly defined records of the maritime
commerce of Rome at any period of her history have been preserved, its
extent may be conjectured by the number and wealth of her citizens.
One million and a quarter of people,[321] including nearly all the
wealthy inhabitants of the empire—for these flocked to the capital
in great numbers—would at any time require a large fleet of merchant
ships to supply their varied wants. Even during the time of the Roman
commonwealth, the vessels engaged in the corn trade alone of the city
were so numerous, that medals were struck in commemoration of the
traffic, bearing upon them the representation of the prow of a ship,
and the inscription, “By decree of the Senate, for the purchase of
corn.” That trade, as well as all others, increasing with the spread
of the metropolis, must, in the reign of the Cæsars, have required an
amount of shipping to supply its wants far in excess of that of any
other city of either ancient or modern times. If one steamship now
performs the work of at least three sailing vessels, each of equal
capacity to the steamer, then, considering the dilatory movements of
ancient vessels, it will not be an exaggerated estimate to allow six
thousand tons of shipping as necessary to conduct the same amount
of transport as one steamship of a thousand tons would now perform.
Allowing, therefore, that Rome was not one half the size of London,
and presuming that it required one half the amount of supplies from
abroad, the shipping employed in its over-sea trade would be more
than twice as great as that now necessary to supply the wants of the
inhabitants of the metropolis of Great Britain.
[Sidenote: A.D. 41.]
[Sidenote: Port of Ostia.]
Previous to the reign of Claudius[322] the chief over-sea intercourse
with the city was carried on by way of Puteoli, now Pozzuoli, near
the Bay of Naples, about seventy miles from Rome. Here the larger
description of vessels, employed in the trade of Alexandria and of
Spain, discharged their cargoes; but the inconvenience and expense of
land carriage became so enormous, especially upon low priced and bulky
articles, such as corn, as to fully justify the cost of erecting the
new port of Ostia, and the embanking and deepening of the Tiber. Half a
century afterwards, the Emperor Trajan, remarkable not merely for the
splendid edifices erected during his reign, in almost every part of the
empire, but for the interest he took in maritime affairs, constructed,
to meet the increasing wants of the provinces, the present Civita
Vecchia, as well as the town and port of Ancona on the Adriatic, where
may still be read an inscription on the monument of marble he raised
at the extremity of the Mole, dedicating the harbour to the use of the
mariners who frequented those seas.
But the port of Ostia was the most useful monument of Roman greatness
in connection with shipping established by the empire, and has been
described as one of the boldest and most stupendous works of Roman
magnificence.[323] The accidents to which the precarious subsistence
of the city was continually exposed in a winter navigation (a matter
more worthy of serious consideration than the costs of transit) and
in an open roadstead, had suggested to the genius of the first Cæsar
this useful design, which was executed under the reign of Claudius,
and finally completed under Nero. Within the artificial moles which
formed its narrow entrance, and advanced far into the sea, “the largest
vessels then engaged in the trade of Rome securely rode at anchor;” and
in its deep and capacious basins, which were situated on the north bank
of the Tiber, every facility was afforded for the discharge of their
cargoes. This great work was represented on numerous coins and medals
of the period, of which the following, struck by the Emperor Nero,
furnishes a fair example.
[Illustration]
But Ostia must have borne more resemblance to a wet dock of the present
day than to a harbour or “port.” At the entrance was a tall tower,
which served as a beacon by day, and a lighthouse by night for the
guidance of vessels coming into the harbour.[324]
FOOTNOTES:
[285] Gibbon, c. 1. Horat. Od. i. 3. Tacit. Germ. c. 34.
[286] Livy, x. 2; xliii. 48. Cæs. Bell. Gall. iii. 5. Horat. Epod. i. 1.
[287] Plut. Vit. Anton. c. 66.
[288] The first Roman ships were probably little better than the
boats used on the Tiber, called from their thick coarse planks _Naves
Caudicariæ_—whence Appius Claudius, A.U.C. 489, B.C. 264, who first
induced his people to fit out a fleet, obtained the name of Caudex
(Senec. de Brev. Vit. 13. Varro de Vit. Rom. 11). According to Polybius
a stranded Carthaginian ship was their first good model (i. 20, 21),
though this is hard to reconcile with Livy, ix. 30, 38. Possibly their
first ship of war was copied from one of Antium (Livy, viii. 14). The
treaties with Carthage long before the Punic wars prove that the Romans
had a fleet even then—though, probably, of a very inferior kind.
[289] Instances occur in which fleets were fitted out with great
rapidity—green wood being necessarily used. Thus Scipio fitted out a
large fleet within forty-five days after the timber had been felled
(Liv. xxxiii. 45), and Julius Cæsar in thirty days, at Arles, against
the people of Marseilles (Cæs. B. Civ. i. 34).
[290]
1. At the commencement of the first Punic war a fleet was hastily
built and, under the command of C. Duilius, destroyed that of the
Carthaginians, B.C. 260.
2. A second fleet was prepared, and a great victory was won over the
Carthaginians near Agrigentum, B.C. 256.
3. A third fleet was fitted out in B.C. 250, and nearly destroyed off
Drepana, in the next year.
4. About the same time a fourth fleet, conveying stores to the army
besieging Lilybæum, was entirely destroyed, together with the store
ships, by a hurricane off Camarina.
5. A fifth fleet was built, B.C. 241, to relieve Lilybæum, which had
now been besieged for eight years.
This fleet, under C. Lutatius Catulus, defeated the Carthaginians, and
put an end to the first Punic war in B.C. 241.
During the second and third Punic wars no fleets were employed, except
as transports.
[291] Carthage fell in B.C. 146, Corinth in B.C. 141.
[292] Details of Pompey’s triumph for this cause are given in Pliny
(vii. 98.)
[293] Polybius, iii. 22.
[294] Livy, ii. 27.
[295] “As long as the corn-fleets arrived duly from Sicily and Africa,
the populace cared little whether the victory was gained by Octavian or
his generals.”—Liddell’s “Hist. of Rome,” p. 628.
[296] Livy, xxi. 63.
[297] Cicer. De Offic. i. c. 151.
[298] Gibbon, c. 2.
[299] Pliny, H. N. xii. 84.
[300] Gibbon, c. 2.
[301] Gibbon, vol. i. c. 6.
[302] Pliny, vi. 101; xii. 84.
[303] Gibbon, c. 6.
[304] Dion. lv. and lvi.
[305] _Portoria_ existed from early times; were abolished by Metellus
Nepos, A.U.C. 694, and were restored by Augustus. The senate under Nero
declared that such taxes were absolutely necessary.—Tacit. Ann. xiii.
50. Cicero, in Pison. c. 36.
[306] Tacitus, b. ii. c. 87.
[307] Gibbon, c. vi., has relied on a passage in Dion., lxxvii., which
the best commentators doubt. The edict seems to have been made by M.
Antoninus, and was perhaps fathered on Caracalla from his general
unpopularity.
[308] Gibbon, c. xl. Procop. Persic, i. 20. Cf. Isidore of Charax in
Stathm. Parth., who gives the stations in the Persian empire, and Amm.
Marcell. lib. xxiii., who enumerates the provinces.
[309] The Roman laws went further than the game laws of England, as an
African was not permitted to kill a lion, even in his own defence.
[310] Pliny, iii. 31.
[311] Sueton. Calig. c. xlv. Mela. iii. 2. Sueton. Claud. c. xvii.
Eginhardt says that Charlemagne repaired this tower (Vit. Car. Magn.)
[312] Tacit. Annal. ii. 6. They were mostly broad flat-bottomed boats,
with rudders at each end.
[313] The head of Apollo, on the fine tetradrachms of Rhodes, is
believed to be a copy of the head of the Colossus.
[314] Strab. xiv. p. 654. In the time of Strabo and Pliny it was lying
as it had fallen. Plin. xxxiv. 41.
[315] Justin. Digest. xiv. 2, and the comment thereon by Sir Patrick de
Colquhoun (“Summary of the Roman Civil Law,” vol. iii. pp. 137-142.)
[316] One Rhodian Law quoted in the Digests decreed that _silk_, if
saved, when shipwrecked, from wetting, should pay a salvage of ten per
cent. as _being equal in value to gold_. Cf. Vopisc. in Aurel. c. xlv.
[317] Orelli. Inscript., Nos. 1494, 2973, &c. Cf. Horat. Ars. Poet. v.
329.
[318] Cicer. pro Rosc. 2, 3, and 9, where the whole argument turns
on the point that Roscius’s creditor, Fannius, claimed simply on the
assertion of a note in his “adversaria.” This, Cicero argues, is no
valid claim at all.
[319] “Volumina,” whence our “volumes.”
[320] In our own time, merchant ships have carried fire-arms for their
protection, and up to within the last few years there was an armoury on
board of all merchant vessels.
[321] Gibbon, c. xxxi. under A.D. 408, estimates the probable
population of Rome at 1,200,000 souls; and his reasoning seems
satisfactory. Its present population probably does not exceed
one-sixth of this amount. David Hume has an interesting essay, “Of the
Populousness of Ancient Nations,” in which he examines this and other
similar questions.
[322] Claudius began, and Nero and Trajan completed, this great work.
[323] Gibbon, c. xxxi. See also Admiral W. H. Smyth’s “Mediterranean.”
[324] Pliny, xxxvi. 83.