COMMERCE OF ATTICA.
To speak now of the commerce of Attica, the most extensive and important
in the ancient world. It is an error shared by persons in other respects
above the vulgar, that a commercial people is necessarily sordid; and
hence Napoleon considered it opprobrious to the English, that they are a
nation, as he expressed it, of shopkeepers. There are some lessons in
the science of human nature that Napoleon had not learned, among which
this is one,—that the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of mankind
have risen and flourished in trading communities, and been themselves in
many instances engaged in commerce. No country in the modern world has
produced men of more chivalrous honour or heroic disinterestedness than
England; and in antiquity the Athenians, as a community and as
individuals, far outshone in wisdom, high-mindedness, and patriotism,
every other people with whom we could compare them. In one word, they
were the English of antiquity;—bold, adventurous, indefatigable people,
equally renowned in trade, philosophy, and war. That they were less
fortunate may be accounted for from their geographical position, lacking
the inestimable advantage which we enjoy in being seated on an island,—a
misfortune well understood by Pericles, who alludes to it in his first
oration for the war.[1570]
-----
Footnote 1570:
Thucyd. i. 143. Bœckh, therefore, is certainly in error when he says,
that Attica enjoyed _all_ the advantages of insular position. Book i.
§ 9.
-----
No country, however fertile, produces all that its inhabitants, when
advancing in civilisation, require, which tends more than any other
circumstance to promote the amelioration of society; and Attica, from
its comparative barrenness and very limited extent, peculiarly
experienced the necessity of foreign commerce. To this accordingly the
Athenians from a very early period applied themselves, and with so much
success, that whatever commodities the ancient world produced were
generally to be found in the greatest abundance in their city.[1571]
They enjoyed as has been already observed, most of the advantages of
insular position, that is,[1572] excellent harbours conveniently
situated, in which they received supplies during all winds,[1573] and,
in addition to these, some of the compensating advantages of being
situated on the continent, in facilities for inland traffic. Chief of
all, however, were the blessings flowing from the wisdom, and
moderation, and liberality, of its government, which rendered Athens the
resort of all the enterprising and enlightened men of every other
country. Its dealings with foreigners were facilitated by the purity of
the coin, as the traders who did not choose to purchase merchandise
might take bullion, which, as Xenophon expresses it, was a very handsome
article, and of so little alloy as everywhere to pass for more than its
nominal value, like the old Spanish dollars, and English gold currency
in the East.[1574] Prohibitions to export money, as Bœckh observes, were
unknown in ancient times, and are only compatible with bills of
exchange.[1575]
-----
Footnote 1571:
Cf. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 6.
Footnote 1572:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
Footnote 1573:
Xenoph. de Vectig. i. 7.
Footnote 1574:
Id. iii. 2.
Footnote 1575:
Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.
-----
Though war to a certain extent interfered with Athenian commerce, yet,
being masters of the sea, they could generally command a plentiful
supply of foreign commodities, so that many articles regarded as rare in
other countries might be found abundantly in the warehouses of the
Peiræeus. “Hither, on account of the richness of our city,” says
Pericles, “are borne the products of all lands, so that we are not more
familiar with the use of wheat grown in Attica than with the productions
of other countries.”[1576] So Isocrates: “the Peiræeus, has been
established as an emporium in the heart of Greece, and so far excels all
its rivals, that articles with difficulty met with singly in other ports
may be readily found here altogether.”[1577] And true it is, that every
region of the east and island of the Mediterranean poured their
productions into Attica, whence they were distributed throughout Greece.
Thither were brought the magnificent carpets and fine wool of Persia,
Phrygia, and Miletos; the gloves and purple of Tyre and Sidon; the fine
linen of Egypt;[1578] the gold and ivory of Africa; the pearls of India
and the Red Sea;[1579] white and black slaves, and corn, and timber, and
spices, and costly wines, and perfumes from Spain, Sicily, Italy,
Cypros, Lydia, the Black Sea, and the farthest regions of the
east.[1580]
-----
Footnote 1576:
Thucyd. ii. 38.
Footnote 1577:
Isocrat. Panath. § 11.
Footnote 1578:
Demosth. cont. Aphob. § 6.
Footnote 1579:
Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2. See chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of
this book.
Footnote 1580:
Bœckh, i. 66.
-----
This extended commerce, and the encouragement which strangers of all
countries found to settle at Athens, rendered it the home of all
languages and religions,[1581] and led to the adoption of many barbarous
words. But she thus created a boundless market for her own exports,
whether consisting of manufactures or the surplus produce of the soil;
and as we now retail to the Continental nations many productions of
Eastern Asia, so the Athenians disposed, in the uncommercial countries
around, of the commodities they had elsewhere collected. For example,
they found a vent among the nations on the Black Sea for the wines of
the islands and shores of the Ægean, Peparethos, Cos, Thasos, Mendè,
Skionè, Lemnos, and Crete.[1582] From a passage in Xenophon, it would
appear either that Greek sailors amused themselves by reading on their
voyages, or that books were exported to Pontos, for there seems to be no
foundation for the suspicions that they were blank books.[1583] “Here,”
says Xenophon, speaking of the coast of Thrace, “are found numerous
beds, cabinets, books, and such other things as shipmasters are
accustomed to transport in chests.”[1584] Theopompos represents the
Persians as carrying books (χάρται βιβλίων) along with them in their
invasion of Egypt, and the Greeks could have been scarcely less
literary.[1585] Certain, at all events, it is, that there was a
book-market at Athens, probably resembling the bazars of the East, where
the dealers in manuscripts kept their shops;[1586] and thence, in all
likelihood, the Greek cities on the Black Sea were supplied; and this is
by no means inconsistent with the proverb respecting Hermodoros, Plato’s
Sicilian publisher, who was said, contemptuously, to traffic in words;
for, as he himself was one of Plato’s hearers, it may have been thought
beneath him to turn trader.[1587] Somewhat later we read of Zeno, a
stranger in the city, going into a bookseller’s shop to sit down, where
he finds the owner reading Xenophon, and is recommended by him to follow
Crates.[1588]
-----
Footnote 1581:
Strab. ix. 1. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 7.
Footnote 1582:
Bœckh, i. 66. Demosth. in Laert. § 8.
Footnote 1583:
Bœckh, i. 67.
Footnote 1584:
Anab. vii. 5. 14. Larcher would read βυβλία, and translate “beaucoup
de cordages;” but where he learned that sailors used to carry cables,
or cordage either, in their sea-chests, does not appear.
Footnote 1585:
Ap. Longin. De Sublim. § 43.
Footnote 1586:
Pollux, ix. 47, with the commentary, t. vi. p. 934, seq.
Footnote 1587:
Cicero ad Att. xiii. 29. Suid. in v. λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται.
t. ii. p. 54. b.
Footnote 1588:
Diog. Laert. vii. p. 164. c.
-----
So extensive a trade as Athens carried on could not be conducted without
protecting regulations, and the co-operation of a commercial police.
Accordingly the government exhibited much wisdom and liberality in
whatever related to commerce, by all means seeking to encourage
enterprise and industry. Numerous officers were appointed to watch over
the commercial dealings of the citizens; such as the superintendents of
the harbour, ten persons appointed annually by lot; the overseers of the
market, likewise ten, of whom five superintended the markets in the
city, the other five, those in the Peiræeus; fifteen inspectors of
weights and measures, ten of whom attended in the city, the other five
those in the port; and subordinate, probably, to these were the public
meters, who seem to have been Scythians, and therefore slaves of the
state: their duty was to measure whatever grain was sold in the
market,[1589] for which was paid a small sum, applied, it may be
supposed, to the augmentation of the revenue. Great care, in fact, was
bestowed on the subject of weights and measures, and to the market
regulations generally; and yet we find from the comic poets[1590] that
much fraud was occasionally committed.[1591]
-----
Footnote 1589:
Harpocrat. in v. προμετρητὴς; and see the note of Gronovius, p. 111,
seq. Bekker omits more than half the article, p. 158.
Footnote 1590:
Aristoph. Eq. 1005.
Footnote 1591:
But see Bœckh, Corp. Inscript. i. 164.
-----
It is, by some writers, supposed that credit was at a low ebb in Greece;
but this notion seems to have been formed hastily, without allowing for
circumstances, as the condition of the times sufficiently accounts for
the facts which suggested it; for all large and established houses are
known to have possessed almost unlimited credit, since they were able,
on the mere security of their name, to raise whatever money they needed;
so that none, probably, but persons little known, or not known
advantageously, were required to give security.[1592] The inhabitants of
certain cities, as, for example, of Phaselis, enjoyed, as we say, a bad
reputation,[1593] and were, no doubt, among those whom people refused to
trust.
-----
Footnote 1592:
Vid. Bern. adv. Polycl. § 15. Compare Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la
Grèce, ii. 78, seq. 85.
Footnote 1593:
See the opening of the speech against Lacritos (§ 1), where the orator
heaps his compliments unsparingly upon those “honest dealers,” whom he
describes as “the most unjust and villanous of mankind:” πονηρότατοι
ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀδικώτατοι.
-----
If severity, however, in the laws of debtor and creditor have any
tendency to support credit, the confiding portion of the community had
little reason to complain at Athens, since the spirit of this branch of
Athenian jurisprudence was unusually stern. The man who obtained the
loan of money and fraudulently withheld his security, was deemed to have
committed a capital offence, nor could his high rank or honourable
connexions skreen him from punishment.[1594] For it was considered,
observes the orator, that an offender of this description not only
defrauded the individuals with whom he dealt, but also made an attempt
against the sources of public prosperity, commercial operations
depending not on the borrower but on the lender, without whose
coöperation no ship, or captain, or passenger, can move. On which
account the most effective protection was afforded them by law.
-----
Footnote 1594:
Dem. in Phorm. § 17. Mr. Bœckh, if the English translation exactly
represents his meaning, understands this passage differently, and his
interpretation is more favourable to the Athenian law: “Even a
citizen, who, in his capacity of a merchant, _withdrew_ from a
creditor a pledge for a sum vested in bottomry, could be punished with
loss of life.” (Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 69.) It may be doubted,
however, whether οὐ παρασχόντα τὰς ὑποθήκας can mean anything more
than “withholding the securities;” and I, therefore, suppose Bœckh’s
translators to have employed the verb “withdraw” for “withhold.”
-----
Merchants and sea-captains were also defended by very severe enactments
against false accusers, who, upon conviction, were heavily fined, and,
in default of payment, deprived of the rights of citizenship.[1595]
Causes of this kind were tried in the Commercial Court of the Nautodikæ,
which was also empowered to examine the claims of citizens accused of
foreign extraction.[1596] The causes were introduced by the Thesmothetæ,
and in lawsuits between citizens of different nations, by virtue of a
particular agreement, there existed an appeal from one state to the
other.[1597] Nothing more clearly shows the consideration in which
nautical and mercantile affairs were held at Athens, than the laws which
regulated the proceedings of this court: in the first place, not to
interrupt the course of business and occasion loss to individuals, the
Nautodikæ sat during the winter months, from September till March, when
navigation was usually suspended. At first, indeed, they did not
commence their sittings till January;[1598] but this was found
inconvenient, the decision of the court being frequently delayed till
late in the spring or summer, to the great loss and detriment of the
litigants. Consequences still more disastrous, perhaps, ensued when the
cause stood over till the ensuing winter, when, as new judges would be
appointed, the whole business had to be commenced _de novo_. To remedy
this evil a plan of reform was conceived by Xenophon,[1599] but with
nothing like a statesman’s views, its chief merit consisting in
proposing a prize to be awarded to the most able and expeditious judge.
His scheme, however, may have had the merit of fixing the attention of
wiser men upon the subject, which at length produced the monthly suits
to which belonged all causes concerning trade-clubs, dowries, and
mines.[1600] Upon the introduction of this improvement in the practice
of the commercial court the advantage proposed by Xenophon was fully
obtained, since causes could not, as some have imagined, stand over from
month to month, but must absolutely be decided within the term.[1601]
The more completely to protect and advance the interests of commerce,
each state had its consul[1602] (προξένος) who represented the interests
of his country, and, like our own consuls in the Levant, was bound to
receive and entertain such citizens as arrived at the port where he
resided. Besides, when a merchant or trader died abroad, it was part of
the consul’s duty to take charge of his property, and transmit
immediately to his friends an account of what had taken place, with the
necessary particulars.[1603] Occasionally, however, very improper
persons obtained this respectable and, no doubt, lucrative situation, as
the man Lycidas, formerly one of Chabrias’s slaves, who contrived, by
intrigue, to be appointed consul of Messina; and Dionysios, a man of
like origin and character, and by birth a Megarean, who enjoyed the
honour of representing Athens at Megara.[1604]
-----
Footnote 1595:
Liban. arg. ad Orat. in Theocrin. t. viii. p. 334.
Footnote 1596:
Poll. viii. 126. Petit, v. 5. p. 522.
Footnote 1597:
Bœckh, i. 69. Cf. Kühn ad Poll. viii. 63. t. iv. p. 675.
Footnote 1598:
Lysias, περὶ δημος. χρημ. § 4. Harpocrat. v. ναυτοδίκη, p. 131. Suid.
t. ii. p. 208, seq. Cf. Sigon. de Repub. Athen. iv. 3. 441.
Footnote 1599:
De Vectigal. iii. 3.
Footnote 1600:
Poll. viii. 63. 101, with the Notes. Bœckh. i. 70.
Footnote 1601:
Demosth. in Apatur. § 7, in Pantænet. § 1.
Footnote 1602:
Demosth. in Callip. § 3, adv. Leptin. § 14. Suid. in v. p. 609. a. b.
Poll. iii. 59. viii. 91. Προξένους ἐκάλουν, τοὺς τεταγμένους εἰς τὸ
ὑποδέχεσθαι τοὺς ξένους τοὺς ἐξ ἄλλων πόλεων ἥκοντας. Schol. Aristoph.
Av. 1022. Kust.
Footnote 1603:
Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 71.
Footnote 1604:
Demosth. adv. Lept. § 28. Cf. Dem. in Callip. § 3.
-----
It has been made a question, whether or not perfect freedom of trade
existed among the ancients, and upon the whole it appears, that among
the Athenians, at least, no unwise or vexatious interference habitually
took place.[1605]
-----
Footnote 1605:
Publ. Econ. of Athens, i. 71, seq. Xen. de Vectigal. passim. Cf.
Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
-----
Bœckh remarks that, in the plan of Xenophon for restoring the revenue,
no allusion is made to the removal of onerous restrictions on trade;
from which it may be inferred that none such existed. Heeren[1606] is
clearly of this opinion: “nothing was known of the balance of trade, and
consequently all the violent measures resulting from it were never
devised by the Greeks. They had duties as well as the moderns; but these
duties were exacted only for the sake of increasing the public revenue,
not to direct the efforts of domestic industry by the prohibition of
certain wares. There was no prohibition of the exportation of the raw
produce; no encouragement of manufactures at the expense of the
agriculturist. In this respect, therefore, there existed a freedom of
industry, commerce, and trade. And such was the general custom. As every
thing was decided by circumstances, and not by theories, there may have
been single exceptions, and perhaps single examples, where the state for
a season usurped a monopoly. But how far was this from the mercantile
and restrictive system of the moderns!”
-----
Footnote 1606:
Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.
-----
This it appears to me is the philosophical view of the matter, which is
not modified materially by the remarks of Bœckh. No doubt the interests
of the state were regarded as paramount, comprehending, as in just
states they do, the interests of all individuals; but for this very
reason they would, to the best of their knowledge, beware of interfering
capriciously or unnecessarily with private interests, since a prosperous
community cannot be constituted of unprosperous members. Mr. Bœckh
seems, with all his learning and acuteness, to misapprehend the
political theory of the ancients, and to imagine that, because the right
of governments to regulate the actions of individuals was recognized,
they might safely do so on all occasions without rhyme or reason. But in
this he is certainly in error. The object of government was understood
then as well as it is now; so that I am apt to think that the erudite
professor advances, in the following passage, a doctrine which would
have met with but a cold reception among the Athenians, though adopted
literally by the historians of the Doric race: “Not in Crete and
Lacedæmon alone, two states completely closed up, and from their
position unsusceptible of free trade, but generally throughout the whole
of Greece, and even under the free and republican government of Athens,
the poorest as well as the richest citizen was convinced that the state
had the right of claiming the whole property of every individual; any
restriction in the transfer of this property, regulated according to
circumstances, was looked upon as just, nor could it properly be
considered an infringement of justice before the security of person and
property was held to be the sole object of government; a light under
which it never was viewed by any of the ancients.”[1607]
-----
Footnote 1607:
Public Economy of Athens, i. 72.
-----
It would be difficult to select from any writer, ancient or modern, a
passage more abounding than this with erroneous conclusions. Neither
Lacedæmon nor Crete was excluded by its position from the advantages of
free trade; and at Athens there was no citizen, however poor or
ignorant, who acknowledged in the state any such right as Mr. Bœckh
speaks of, except for the purpose of providing for the general safety,
in which case it would be as cheerfully acknowledged in every modern
community. While penning the concluding sentence, Mr. Bœckh must have
been thinking of the despotic governments of Germany. An Englishman
considers the preservation of his political rights as much an object of
government as the protection of his person or his property, and would as
strenuously contend for it, in which feeling he resembles the Athenian.
But I will not permit even this theme to tempt me from the matter in
hand.
There can be no difficulty in admitting that, as the very existence of
commerce, properly so called, depends on the existence of political
communities, the state has a right to interfere, under certain
circumstances, with the movements of commerce. For example, merchants
may justly be prevented by the laws from furnishing their country’s
enemy with arms, with ammunition, with provisions, in short, with any
article whatsoever, which, by strengthening the hands of the foe, may
tend to the detriment of their own community. Again, in famines and
scarcities, the law of self-preservation authorizes states to restrain
the exportation of articles absolutely required for home consumption;
because distress produces discontent and tumult and insurrection, and
may thus endanger the very existence of the government itself.
Prohibitions to export, originating in such motives, are perfectly
defensible. But so much can scarcely be said for monopolies, which were
not unknown to the Greeks, though it is not denied that they were of
short duration.[1608] “It can, however, be safely asserted,” says Mr.
Bœckh, “that no republic ever demanded of its citizens that they should
furnish commodities to the state in specific quantities, and at prices
arbitrarily fixed at a low rate, with a view to secure to itself a
monopoly: such a demand could only have been enforced in countries under
the government of a tyrant.”[1609] The folly, as well as the wickedness,
of such despotic interference, I witnessed in the depopulation and
misery of Egypt, which at length proceeded so far as to alarm the Pasha
himself, and produce some amelioration of his vicious system.
-----
Footnote 1608:
Aristot. Polit. i. 7.
Footnote 1609:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 73.
-----
It is, no doubt, possible, that many monopolies of which we know nothing
may have existed in antiquity;[1610] but it will be quite evident that,
upon such possibility, it would be useless to reason. The monopolies
which we know to have existed were few, and of short duration.
Aristotle, while observing what advantages both individuals and states
sometimes derived from them, attributes a better policy to Athens. He
gives two or three examples of private monopolies, the well-known story
of Thales and the oil-presses, and that of a man who bought up all the
iron[1611] at Syracuse, and adds, that, in great pecuniary straits,
governments were sometimes found to imitate them.[1612] Thus, at a late
period of their history, the Athenians are supposed to have monopolised
the lead obtained from the silver mines of Laureion, which they did, we
are told, at the instigation of Pythoclos; that is, they bought it up at
the usual price of two drachmas the commercial talent, and sold it at
six drachmas.[1613] At Rome the price was higher. As there can be little
doubt that the lead was for exportation, no injury was inflicted on
individuals. With respect to the monopoly granted by the Byzantines to a
banker, it may be observed, that it was only one of the many shifts to
which the nakedness of their treasury compelled them to have recourse.
The list is given in the second book of the Economics, and is not
without interest. I would not affirm that their contrivances were
innocent.[1614] Again, the Selymbrians, in a period of public
difficulty, constituted themselves monopolists in a manner which Mr.
Bœckh might fearlessly have pronounced “less defensible.” By law they
were not permitted to export in times of scarcity; but being in want of
money, they decreed that the state should purchase all the old stock at
a fixed price, leaving individuals sufficient for their yearly
consumption, after which they sold the surplus at a higher price, with
permission to export.[1615]
-----
Footnote 1610:
Id. Ibid.
Footnote 1611:
Dr. Gillies translates “corn,” and calls the man a banker! “Ethics and
Politics,” ii. 52.
Footnote 1612:
Aristot. Pol. i. 11, seq. 18, seq. Bekk.
Footnote 1613:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 37. Bœckh it is who conjectures the commercial to
be meant, no weight being mentioned in the original. Pub. Econ. of
Ath. i. 44. 73. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 48. Dr. Wordsworth
restores, with great felicity, the true reading in the passage of
Aristotle: τῶν ἀργυρίων for τῶν τυρίων. Athens and Attica, p. 208.
Bœckh’s conjecture, though ingenious, is less probable. Publ. Econ.
ii. 429.
Footnote 1614:
Aristot. Œcon. ii. 4.
Footnote 1615:
Id. ii. 18. From Mr. Bœckh’s account it might seem as though the
exportation of corn was always prohibited at Selymbria (Pub. Econ. i
73); whereas this was the case during famines only.
-----
It is difficult to say what men will agree to consider “perfect freedom
of trade;” but it appears to me, that commerce was as unshackled at
Athens as it could have been consistently with the welfare of the
community. Mr. Bœckh says, “There are abundant proofs that exportation
and importation were regulated according to the exigencies and interests
of the community, which is by no means consistent with the perfect
freedom of trade.”[1616] There appears to lurk a fallacy in this. Such
freedom as this writer would call perfect is inconsistent with the very
existence of civil society, whose fundamental laws require that no man’s
freedom shall trench upon the freedom, and still less upon the life, of
another. But if in commerce the exigencies and interests of the
community could have been set at nought, there would have been an end of
such community, since frequently its well-being, if not its being,
depended on its commercial relations with foreign states.
-----
Footnote 1616:
Pub. Econ. i. 73, seq.
-----
So far, therefore, it must, doubtless, be admitted, that commerce was
not free. To this extent, and no further, does Aristotle counsel or
contemplate interferences with trade: “With regard to importation and
exportation,” he says, “it is necessary to know how large a supply of
provisions the state requires, and what proportion of them can be
produced in the country and what imported, and what imports and exports
are necessary for the state, in order that commercial treaties and
agreements may be concluded with those of whom the state must make use
for this purpose.”[1617]
-----
Footnote 1617:
Rhet. i. 4.
-----
With regard to the prohibition to export attributed to Solon, it is
necessary either to abandon the subject altogether, or to understand it
in the contrary sense to that usually given. Plutarch, as his text now
stands, tells a very strange story, observing, that the exportation of
every thing but oil was prohibited by Solon, and therefore he adds, it
is not wholly improbable that figs also were prohibited.[1618] I
understand the matter differently. Solon, probably observing that
Attica, at that time, produced barely sufficient oil for its own
consumption, prohibited its exportation, though as agriculture improved,
the law fell into desuetude, and oil became a principal export. From
this example, Plutarch thinks it not improbable, that figs also may at
some time or another have been prohibited. The matter is thus clear and
natural. Besides, the Scholiast on Pindar, alluding no doubt to some
particular period, observes, that the exportation of oil was not
permitted.[1619] It is therefore surprising that Bœckh should have
laid any stress at all on so contradictory a passage, without
endeavouring to restore it, particularly as Solon was himself a merchant
and a transgressor of his supposed law. That the exportation of corn
should not have been allowed is both intelligible and reasonable, as
Attica never produced sufficient for its own consumption; and they were
not disposed to adopt the system of the modern Tuscans, who would sell
their own corn to the English, and subsist on an inferior sort from the
Black Sea, if indeed it be inferior.[1620]
-----
Footnote 1618:
Plut. Solon. § 24.
Footnote 1619:
Pind. Nem. x. 64. Shulz. Cf. Dissen. t. ii. 505. Petit, p. 417.
Footnote 1620:
Bowring, Statistics of Tuscany, p. 15. Ulpian, to whom Bœckh, i.
74, refers, merely repeats the well-known prohibition to ship-captains
to take a cargo of corn to any foreign port. Orat. x. p. 271. a.
-----
Certain commodities were, however, undoubtedly not allowed to be
exported, as for example, timber, tar, wax, rigging, and “leathern
bottles, articles which,” as Bœckh observes, “were particularly
important for the building and equipment of the fleet.”[1621] But the
word which this distinguished scholar conceives to mean “leathern
bottles,” had a very different signification, and meant that leathern
defence through which the oars passed, and which was designed to keep
the sea from rushing in at the row-port. This we gather as well from the
scholiast on Aristophanes,[1622] as from several passages of Pollux
overlooked by Bœckh. This writer observes, that the leathern defence
of the row-port was called ἄσκωμα,[1623] and elsewhere he says that a
woman’s breast, when full of milk, was also so called;[1624] from which
we may conjecture what form the askoma assumed, when the oar forced it
outwards during the act of rowing. Nor do I suppose that such
prohibition existed only during time of war, for it would have been
equally imprudent to furnish such articles to men preparing for war, as
men always are in peace, as to such as were actually engaged in it. From
a passage in Theophrastus, it has been inferred that permission to
export timber for ship-building was sometimes granted free of duty to
individuals; but as it is the Boaster who makes the assertion, adding
that, to avoid envy, he never made use of it,[1625] it may be regarded
as no less a joke than the reason for prohibiting lamp-wicks from
Bœotia, viz., that they might set the fleet on fire![1626]
-----
Footnote 1621:
Economy of Athens, p. 75.
Footnote 1622:
Ran. 364: ἄσκωμα δὲ δερμάτιον τι ᾧ ἐν ταῖς τριήρεσι χρῶνται, καθ᾽ ὁ ἡ
κώπη βάλλεται.
Footnote 1623:
Pollux. i. 88: τὸ δὲ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ σκαλμῷ δέρμα ἄσκωμα.
Footnote 1624:
Pollux. ii. 164: τὸ δε ὑποπιμπλάμενον τοῦ γάλακτος, κὸλπος καὶ ἄσκωμα.
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 97. Hescych. Etym. Mag. et Suid. in v.
But more especially Scheffer, De Militiâ Navali, p. 13, Cf. Brunck ad
Ran. 364. This confirms the extremely ingenious conjecture of Mitford,
though he was mistaken in supposing the thing to have been called
ὑπηρέσιον, which meant simply “a cushion.” Hist. of Greece, iii. 154.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 344, is very unsatisfactory.
Footnote 1625:
Theoph. Char. p. 63. Casaub. 344.
Footnote 1626:
Aristoph. Acharn. 916.
-----
The prohibition to export arms during war to the country of the enemy,
and that under pain of death,[1627] was an obvious measure of
self-defence. In time of peace, however, the trade in arms was as free
as any other trade; and the Athenians imported from their neighbours,
the Bœotians, helmets,[1628] in the manufacture of which this people
excelled. No doubt, as states derive the sinews of war, in part at
least, from commerce, the Athenians had the sagacity to attack their
enemies in the vulnerable point of their pride, for the purpose of
bringing them the sooner to reason. They thus, too, taught the inferior
states, such as Megara and Bœotia, that Athens was independent of
them in all respects, while it was for them to consider whether they
were equally independent of her.[1629] Thus the Ocean Queen of antiquity
was said to exercise (as Great Britain formerly) a despotic sway over
trade; as when, for example, she exacted a tenth from all ships sailing
to or from the Black Sea;[1630] though in this, as in all human affairs,
the despotism[1631] arose naturally from the possession of superior
power, and could scarcely have been guarded against. To weaken the enemy
by every possible means was the object of a wise policy; so that in
contemplating every coast belonging to a power not in alliance with
Athens as in a state of blockade,[1632]—in seizing, capturing, or
detaining, all vessels of every description by which her interests could
be infringed, Athens only acted in self-defence. That she was hated for
her superiority we need not be surprised, who know with what
heart-burnings and secret aversion our own maritime supremacy has ever
been beheld by the nations of the Continent, who repeat against us all
the accusations anciently muttered by the surrounding states against
Athens.
-----
Footnote 1627:
Dem. de Fals. Legat. § 90.
Footnote 1628:
Poll. i. 149.
Footnote 1629:
Conf. Acharn. 660, sqq. and Bœckh, i. 76.
Footnote 1630:
Xen. Hellen. iv. 8. 27. Dodwell, Chron. Xenophon. § 21.
Footnote 1631:
Xen. Rep. Athen. ii. 3. 11. 12.
Footnote 1632:
Xen. ut sup. Thucyd. v. 83.
-----
Utopian speculators, reading history in their easy chairs, find it
facile to condemn the measures of ancient statesmen. But allowing them
to have been reprehensible, it remains to be seen whether, in the same
circumstances, we could have carried any better into execution; for the
ability to imagine better is nothing, unless we suppose that events
always allow men to act up to their knowledge. However this may be, the
Athenian government found itself compelled by its position sometimes to
interfere with the course of trade; but it may well be doubted whether
any other freedom of trade than there existed be either possible or
desirable. For, both commerce, and every other mode in which the
energies of a nation can develope themselves, should no otherwise exist
than as they are beneficial to the nation at large; and of this the
managers of public business ought always to be better judges than
merchants or speculators, who only consider their own interests, which
may not always be identical with those of the state. I am far, however,
from designing to maintain that the commercial regulations of Athens
were in no case oppressive. Perhaps in the matter of the corn-trade they
were so; and yet much may be said for a populous city surrounded by a
barren country, and therefore solicitous about its own subsistence. Let
us examine those regulations. According to the letter of the law, which
was often transgressed, no inhabitant of Athens could land a cargo of
corn anywhere but on the Peiræeus; but, arrived there, and the
necessities of the state provided for, the remainder could be disposed
of elsewhere. This was the full amount of the grievance, if it ought to
be so called.
With respect to the law which is supposed to have restrained capitalists
from lending money on any vessel not returning to Athens with corn or
other commodities, it would be highly unreasonable, with Mr. Bœckh, to
denominate it “excessively oppressive,” until we understand it.[1633]
For my own part, until something better be proposed, I must adopt the
interpretation of Salmasius, that it was not permitted to lend money for
the purpose of buying corn in other countries except upon the condition,
that that corn should be imported into Athens.[1634] There no doubt are
difficulties attending this view of the matter; but this is equally the
case in whichever way we understand it. It may have been that, in order
to render Athens as far as possible the emporium of the world, the law
required that money should not be lent to merchants or supercargoes,
unless it was their intention to return thither with a lading, whether
of corn or some other commodity. But even this seems very doubtful.
-----
Footnote 1633:
Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 77. i. 65.
Footnote 1634:
De Modo Usur. ap. Vet. p. 193, sqq. Bœckh, i. 78.
-----
But, by whatever laws this branch of trade was regulated, no doubt can
exist as to its extent and importance. For, as the population of Attica
had, at a very early period, outgrown the means of subsistence supplied
by the country itself, the republic found itself constrained to depend
for the primary article of food upon the productions of foreign states,
to the amount of nearly one-third of its whole consumption; that is to
say, while there were grown at home two hundred and ninety-two thousand
three hundred and ninety-two quarters, as may be proved by
calculation,[1635] there were imported a hundred and eighteen thousand
quarters in the age of Demosthenes. Earlier its importation of corn was
still more considerable, when the greater part of the supply was
obtained from Eubœa, by the way of Oropos and the pass of
Deceleia.[1636]
-----
Footnote 1635:
Adv. Lept. § 9. Consult on this subject the note of Clinton. Fast.
Hellen. t. ii. p. 392, seq.
Footnote 1636:
Thucyd. vii. 28.
-----
Of the hundred and eighteen thousand quarters abovementioned, about
sixty thousand were obtained from the countries on the Black Sea,
chiefly from Theodosia, now Kaffa,[1637] in the Crimea, the remainder
from Thrace, the islands of the Ægæan, Egypt, and Sicily.[1638]
-----
Footnote 1637:
Cf. Strab. vii. 4. t. ii. p. 95. Dem. adv. Lept. § 9. Herod. vii. 147.
The climate of this country was regarded as extremely severe by the
ancients, so that at Panticapæum, a city lying between the modern
Kertsh and Yenikale, neither the myrtle nor the laurel would grow on
account of the cold, though many attempts had been made to rear them
for sacred purposes. And yet the laurel was found to brave the
inclemencies of the season on Mount Olympos. Most fruit-trees,
however, as apples, pears, figs, and pomegranates flourished in the
Crimea abundantly, though the pomegranate required to be covered in
winter, and all fruits ripened later. The usual timber trees of the
country were the oak, the elm, and the ash; the pine, the silver-fir,
and the pitch-tree, finding the climate uncongenial. Theoph. Hist.
Plant. iv. 5. 3. The nitrous plains around Panticapæum are still bare
of wood, though covered thickly by the harmala, a plant which grows
spontaneously upon saltpetre grounds. Pallas, Travels in Southern
Russia, iii. 356.
Footnote 1638:
Theoph. Hist. Plant. viii. 4. Lysias in Diogit. § 5. Athen. ii. 13.
xiii. 50.
-----
Yet the people of Athens were subject to few scarcities; and those they
experienced happened in later times, when their enemies had acquired the
superiority at sea. For so long as this state attended to her own navy
and maintained her maritime supremacy, there was never, I believe, a
deficiency of the grain in Peiræeus,[1639] though attempts were
frequently made by the corn-dealers to create a monopoly and extort
famine prices from the public,[1640] for which they were sometimes
punished with death. Numerous proofs of the ease with which Athens could
provision herself, occurred during the latter years of the Peloponnesian
war, and the age immediately succeeding. Thus, when the Spartans, with
their king Agis, were in possession of the pass of Deceleia, and ravaged
habitually the whole territory of Attica, they felt that even the
occupation of that important post was scarcely of any avail to them so
long as Athens remained mistress of the sea, since they daily saw
numbers of corn ships from all parts of the Levant, sailing into the
Peiræeus.[1641] Afterwards, when the Spartans had begun to apply
themselves to naval affairs, one of their first endeavours was to
distress Attica, by attacking her corn ships, as on the occasion when
Pollis sought to capture the transports in the neighbourhood of
Geræstos, which however were relieved by the fleet under Chabrias.[1642]
-----
Footnote 1639:
Though afterwards in the decline of the republic it was otherwise. See
in Plutarch an account of the base infraction of the law of nations by
Demetrius which caused a famine in Athens. Demet. § 33. Cf. Xenoph.
Hellen. v. i. 23.
Footnote 1640:
See the whole oration of Lysias, against the Corn Monopolists in the
Oratores Attici, ii. 523. Cf. Dem. cont. Dionysod. § 2.
Footnote 1641:
Xenoph. Hellen. i. 35.
Footnote 1642:
Id. v. 4. 61.
-----
No inconvenience was ever experienced from the reluctance of the
corn-growing states to export their produce. On the contrary, the petty
kings of the countries on the Euxine were so anxious to secure to
themselves the custom of Athens, that they conferred on that state
numerous privileges and made her great presents, in order to tempt her
corn ships into their harbours and prevent the application to rival
states. It may indeed be said, that peace was scarcely ever interrupted
between Athens and the exporting countries, and that not through the
Athenians truckling to them to obtain their corn, but through their
truckling to the Athenians to be allowed to supply them. Thus, as far as
the experience of antiquity can be relied on, it must be concluded, that
the country which purchases agricultural produce invariably exercises a
paramount influence over the countries which supply it. It is in fact a
rule all the world over, that it is the customer who coerces the dealer,
not the dealer who influences the customer.
But, further, this immense importation of grain did not throw any of the
lands of Attica, however poor and barren, out of cultivation.[1643] On
the contrary, the powers of the soil were still taxed to the utmost, and
the processes of agriculture carried to a much higher degree of
perfection than in any other part of Greece.[1644] In fact, with its
vineyards, the whole of Attica resembled a continued garden up to the
very walls of the city.[1645] From which, as well as from positive
testimony, it appears evident, that the Athenians always retained their
partiality for rural labours,[1646] notwithstanding the extent to which
the manufacturing system was carried among them. The cultivation of the
soil has, indeed, so many charms for mankind, that they will never
desert it so long as it is able to provide for their wants. Men become
manufacturers only when they can no longer live by agriculture.
-----
Footnote 1643:
Xenoph. de Vectigal. ch. i.
Footnote 1644:
Xenoph. Œconom. _passim_.
Footnote 1645:
Dicæarchos, p. 1.
Footnote 1646:
Aristoph. Acharn. 32, sqq.
-----
It should, perhaps, he added, that of the grain imported into the
Peiræeus the surplus was frequently exported to other parts of Greece,
when the wants of the commonwealth had been properly supplied, and that
a slight fixed duty, for the sake of revenue, appears to have been
always levied on imported grain.[1647]
-----
Footnote 1647:
Dem. cont. Neær. § 9.
-----
But this necessary of life was not generally paid for in specie. On the
contrary, it was with manufactures that Greece purchased the corn of the
rude nations on the Euxine, whom, by her trade, she gradually reclaimed
from barbarism, inoculated with a taste for harmless luxuries, and, at
length, even for Hellenic literature.[1648]
-----
Footnote 1648:
Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 14.
-----
In one case we find that the Nomadic Scythians applied themselves to the
cultivation of the soil, and, of course, became stationary merely for
the purpose of supplying Greece with corn.[1649] Again, in the later
ages of the Roman republic, when a corn-field was a rarity in Italy,
which had been almost entirely converted by the nobility into gardens
and pleasure-grounds,[1650] Sicily, Egypt, and other agricultural
countries of the Levant, furnished so ample a supply of grain, that
scarcity was never experienced, except when the public officers were
grossly negligent of their duty. In fact, the carrying trade devolved
upon the Phœnicians, who, to a great extent subsisting by it alone, were
necessarily most careful, for their own sake, to keep up the
supply.[1651] Had the Romans been themselves a commercial people, like
the English, their traffic might have been still better regulated.
-----
Footnote 1649:
Herod. iv. 17.
Footnote 1650:
Varro de Re Rust. l. 1.
Footnote 1651:
Lucian. Navig. § 6.
-----
To return, however: it is admitted, that liberal as, upon the whole, the
principles of trade were in antiquity, those of the Athenians were the
most so of any.[1652] The Argives and Æginetans, at one period,
prohibited the importation of Athenian manufactures, particularly their
pottery, or, at least, prohibited the use of them in religious
ceremonies, though up to that period they had been allowed. The object,
of course, was to bring their own earthenware into use, Argos,[1653]
especially, possessing a manufacture which at length rivalled that of
Attica itself. It is regarded as a mark of ancient simplicity, that
neither gold nor silver, nor jewelled plate, but fictile vases merely,
were originally employed in making libations to the gods.[1654]
-----
Footnote 1652:
Bœckh. i. 80.
Footnote 1653:
Herod. v. 88. Athen. iv. 13. xi. 60.
Footnote 1654:
Valcken. ad Herod. Wessel. p. 416.
-----
The same principles which regulated maritime commerce governed also the
intercourse which nations carried on by land. It would, therefore, be
unreasonable to look for what is, oddly enough, denominated
“unrestricted freedom,” since, without at all admitting that “the police
mixed itself with everything,” we cannot deny that the state, in this,
as in all other respects, sought to advance its own interests. Foolish
attempts were sometimes made to bring down the price of certain
necessaries, as salt, an example of which is mentioned by Aristophanes;
but the law was soon abrogated.[1655] Had the state been disposed to
interfere tyrannically in anything, it would have been where corn was
concerned. It is, however, admitted by Bœckh, who has taken the wrong
side on this question, that in this article “we certainly find a great
freedom of prices,” though the law interfered to prevent the evil
consequences to the public of combinations among corn-dealers for the
purpose of creating a monopoly.[1656]
-----
Footnote 1655:
Concion. 813, with the Scholiast.
Footnote 1656:
Econ. of Athens, i. 81.
-----
In general, the business of retail-dealing in the market was confined by
law to the citizens, but this was not always rigidly enforced, since we
find Egyptians, Phœnicians, and other foreigners, had their stalls
there, for which, it would appear, they paid a distinct duty.[1657] They
were more especially found among the fishmongers and dealers in small
wares. But, in the Peiræeus, the number of foreign traders greatly
exceeded that of the natives. For their use, moreover, a species of
exchange (δεῖγμα) was created, whither they brought specimens of their
merchandise for exhibition, the place being usually crowded with buyers
from all the neighbouring countries. This was, possibly, the most
striking scene in Greece, crowded with merchants from the East, in their
gorgeous and varied costumes, intermingled with Greeks of all classes,
and gay women who came hither to see and be seen.[1658]
-----
Footnote 1657:
It is thus that Bœckh understands a passage in the speech against
Eubulides, § 10, which both Wolf and Taylor interpret very
differently. With respect to the fact, however, of foreign dealers
actually holding stalls, we are not left to depend on any doubtful
testimony.
Footnote 1658:
Pollux, ix. 34. Comm. t. ii. p. 911, seq.
-----
On the prices of things in antiquity, compared with those at present
prevailing, we have only one way of judging, and that is by ascertaining
whether a greater degree of labour was required to provide the
necessaries of life. The contrary was certainly the case in Attica,
which, nevertheless, was, probably, the most expensive place of
residence in the world. Even the slaves would appear to have enjoyed
more leisure and exemption from toil than the industrious classes of our
own most industrious community: and the citizens themselves, with their
numerous festivals and amusements, public and private, evidently devoted
a far greater proportion of their time to pleasure than would now be
possible to any save the opulent. This, in fact, resulted from the
moderate custom duties charged by the state, but much more from the
superior fertility of the soil, which yielded greater returns for less
labour, and from the comparative fewness of unproductive inhabitants. In
modern language, the supply was greater in proportion to the demand.
Still, it appears quite certain, that, though the duties laid on by the
state were moderate, the merchants and retail dealers made very great
profits. “This,” as Bœckh observes, “is sufficiently proved by the high
rate of interest on money lent upon bottomry, in which thirty per cent
for one summer was not unfrequently paid.”[1659]
-----
Footnote 1659:
Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 81, seq.
-----
I am not quite sure that, as a general rule, “a high rate of interest
and profit is an infallible sign that industry and trade are yet in
their infancy,” and still less that lowness of interest is a sign of a
flourishing country.[1660] On the contrary, I should infer, from the
former, that trade was in that healthy state in which it is scarcely a
speculation; and, from the latter, that its current had become stagnant.
However, a high interest was paid, and great profits were made in
antiquity. Of this a striking example is furnished by Herodotus. A
Samian ship trading with Egypt was, by some accident, led to push its
way westward, as far as Tartessos, in Iberia, antecedent to the period
at which the Greeks began to trade regularly with that port.[1661] What
the nature and value of its cargo may have been is not known, any more
than the articles which it received in exchange. The conjecture,
however, that it received silver at a low rate, as the Phœnicians
anciently did, is not improbable. At all events, the merchants engaged
in this adventure cleared upon that one cargo the sum of sixty talents,
of which, in pious gratitude, they dedicated a tenth to Hera the tutelar
goddess of their island. And this historian adds, that, with the
exception of Sostratos of Ægina, the most fortunate of mercantile
adventurers, no Grecian merchant had ever up to his time made so
successful a voyage.
-----
Footnote 1660:
Compare Hume’s Essay on Interest, p. 172, sqq. with Mr. Bœckh’s Public
Economy of Athens, i. 82.
Footnote 1661:
Herod. iv. 152.
-----