Chapter DXXVI: Section 63: of this latter act reads: 'For all purposes (5)

The account of Chilean affairs given in volume 1 (pages
411-415) ends with the overthrow and suicide of the
dictatorial usurper, Balmaceda (September 20, 1891), the
triumph of the Congress party, and the election to the
Presidency of Admiral Jorge Montt. During the civil war which
had this termination, the representative of the United States,
Minister Egan, showed marked favor to Balmaceda and his party,
which irritated the Chileans and produced among them a hostile
feeling towards Americans and the American government. This
was increased by the action of Mr. Egan, after the defeat of
the Balmacedists, in sheltering a large number of refugees of
that party within the walls of the American legation.
{3695}
The same was done by other foreign representatives, but to no
such extent, except in the case of the Spanish legation. A
telegram sent by Mr. Egan on the 8th of October to the State
Department at Washington stated: "80 persons sought refuge in
his legation after the overthrow of the Balmaceda government;
about the same number in the Spanish legation, 8 in the
Brazilian, 5 in the French, several in the Uruguayan, 2 in the
German and 1 in the English. Balmaceda sought refuge in the
Argentine. All these have gone out except 15 in his own
legation, 1 in the German and 5 in the Spanish." Not venturing
to violate the privileges of the American Minister's
residence, the Chilean authorities placed it under police
surveillance, and arrested a number of persons entering the
premises. The Minister complained, and was supported in his
complaints at Washington, causing further irritation in Chile.
This was again greatly increased by his claiming the right,
not only to shelter the refugees in his residence, but to
protect them in their departure from the country. In that,
too, he was sustained by his government, and the refugees were
safely sent away. Meantime a more serious cause of quarrel
between the two countries had risen. A party of sailors on
shore at Valparaiso, from the United States ship Baltimore,
had been assailed by a mob, October 16, and two were killed,
while eighteen were wounded. The United States demanded
satisfaction, and much angry correspondence ensued, made
particularly offensive on the Chilean side by an insulting
circular which Señor Matta, the Chilean Foreign Minister,
issued December 13, and which he caused to be published in the
Chilean newspapers. But Señor Matta disappeared from the
Foreign Department soon after and his successor made
apologies. "On January 16th the Chilean authorities notified
Mr. Egan that they would withdraw any offensive passages in
the Matta circular, and had instructed their Minister in
Washington to express regret. The apology, thus expressed both
in Washington and Santiago, was stiff and ungraceful, perhaps
inadequate; but it was made in good faith. On January 20th,
evidently feeling that all was now serene, the Chileans
ventured, acting on a hint of Mr. Blaine's, to ask for Egan's
withdrawal as a 'persona non grata.' What, therefore, must
have been the dismay of the Chileans on January 23d, to
receive an official notice, which the newspapers dubbed an
'ultimatum,' containing the statement that the United States
Government was not satisfied with the result of the judicial
investigation at Valparaiso and still asked 'for a suitable
apology;' that for the Matta note there must be still another
'suitable apology,' without which the United States would
terminate diplomatic relations; and that the request for Mr.
Egan's withdrawal could not at that time be considered. It was
a bitter draught for any government; but threats of war were
resounding through the United States; American naval vessels
were hurriedly being made ready; coal and supplies were going
into the Pacific. There was power behind the note, and Chile
prepared to bend to the storm. The 'ultimatum' appears to have
reached the Chileans on Saturday, January 23d. On Monday,
January 25th, they sent an answer which could not possibly be
read as anything but a complete and abject apology on all the
three points." But on the same day on which this answer was
being forwarded, the President of the United States sent a
warlike message to Congress. "It rehearsed the whole
controversy at great length, submitted copious correspondence,
and ended with the significant phrase: 'In my opinion I ought
not to delay longer to bring these matters to the attention of
Congress for such action as may be deemed appropriate.' … It
is an unprofitable controversy as to whether the authorities
in Washington knew that an answer was on its way: if they had
read the correspondence they knew that an answer must come,
and that the Chilean Ministry must sent a peaceful answer. It
is therefore difficult to understand the purpose of the
President's message. … The effect … was to inflict an
unnecessary humiliation on Chile. Spanish-Americans have good
memories. Mexico still cherishes resentment for the war begun
against her forty-five years ago; and forty-five years hence
the Chileans are likely to remember the Balmaceda affair as
Americans remembered the impressment of American seamen by
Great Britain. We have the apology, but with it we have the
ill-will."

_A. B. Hart,
Practical Essays on American Government,
essay 5._

CHINA,
Education in.

See EDUCATION (pages 675 and 724).

CHINA,
Imperial Library of.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: CHINA (page 2024).

CHINA,
Mediæval trade with India and the West.

See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.

CHINA,
Paper Money, ancient.

See MONEY AND BANKING: CHINA (page 2200}.

CHINA,
War with Japan.

See (in this Supplement) COREA.

CHOLERA, Asiatic, The visitations of.

See PLAGUE: 19TH CENTURY (page 2543).

CHRISTIAN BROTHERS, The.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 739).

CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1816-1886 (page 2939).

CID, The.

See (in this Supplement)
SPAIN: A. D. 1034-1090.

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM:
Progress in the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895 (page 3586).

CLARK UNIVERSITY, The founding of.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 738).

CLEVELAND, Grover.
Message on the Tariff question.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1884-1888 (page 3083).

Special Message on the National Finances.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895 (page 3586).

COCHIN-CHINA.

See TONKIN(page 3141).

CODES, New York.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883, and 1848 (page 1979).

COINAGE.

See MONEY, &c. (page 2198).

COLET, John, and St. Paul's School.

See EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE (page 707).

COLLECTIVISM.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: DEFINITION OF TERMS (page 2933).

COLLEGES.

See EDUCATION (page 673) and the same in this Supplement.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, The founding of.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 730).

COMENIUS, and Educational Reform.

See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 739).

{3696}

----------COMMERCE: Start--------

COMMERCE:
Ancient.
The Earliest Records of Trade.

Probably the oldest commercial record that exists was found
sculptured on the rocks in the valley of Hammamat, east from
Koptos on the Nile. It relates to an expedition which was sent
out by the Pharaoh Sankh-ka-ra, to trade in the "land of
Punt." Dr. Brugsch fixes the reign of Sankh-ka-ra at about
2500 B. C., which is five or six centuries before the time
when Abraham is supposed to have lived. The "land of Punt" he
considers to have been the Somali coast of Africa, south of
the extremity of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aden. Other
writers maintain that it was southern Arabia. It was the "Holy
Land" of the Egyptians, from which their gods were supposed to
have anciently come. The trading expedition of Sankh-ka-ra was
commanded by one Hannu (a name which has a Phœnician sound)
and it is he who tells the story of it in the inscription at
Hammamat. "I was sent," he says, "to conduct ships to the
country of Punt, to bring back odoriferous gums." He then
describes the army of 3,000 men which accompanied him, and
narrates their march from Koptos to the Red Sea, through the
desert, at several stations in which they dug reservoirs for
water. "I arrived," he continues, "at the port Seba [believed
to be the harbor now called Koseir or Quosseir] and I made
transport vessels to bring back all kinds of products. I made
a great offering of oxen, cows and goats. When I returned from
Seba I executed the order of his Majesty; I brought him back
all kinds of products which I met with in the ports of the
Holy Land. I came back by Uak and Rohan. I brought back
precious stones for the statues of the temples. Never was a
like thing done since there were kings." It would seem from
this that Hannu's expedition opened the first direct trade of
the Egyptians with the land of Punt. But it is evident that
they already had knowledge of the country and of its products,
and it is probable they had formerly been receiving its gums
and precious stones through the traders of some other country.
Some seven or eight centuries after Hannu's voyage to Punt was
made, we obtain in the Bible a most interesting glimpse of the
trade then going on between Egypt and surrounding countries.
It is found in the story of Joseph. When Joseph's brethren
threw him into a pit, intending that he should be left there
to die, their plans were changed by seeing a "Company of
Ishmaelites from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and
balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." Then Judah
said, "let us sell him to the Ishmaelites," and when these
"Midianites, merchantmen," as they are called in the next
verse, came near, the heartless brothers of Joseph drew him
out of the pit and sold him, to be taken as a slave into
Egypt. Now this story is found to agree well with other facts
that have been learned, and which go to show that some, at
least, among the ancient tribes in northern Arabia—the
Ishmaelites of the Bible—were great traders between the richer
countries that surrounded them. The Midianites and Edomites,
who occupied the region near the head of the Red Sea, were
especially the masters of that trade. Their poor land, which
gave them little to subsist upon, had one gift for its people
that went far toward making up for its barren poverty. It gave
them the camel—that strange and homely beast, which is better
fitted than any other for bearing burdens and for making long
journeys without food or drink. At a later day they acquired
the horse, from Media or from Mesopotamia, and bred that noble
animal to such perfection that Arabia was long supposed to be
its native home. But in Joseph's time the horse can hardly
have been in use among the Arabs, since it seems to have been
unknown in Egypt, which they constantly visited, until a
considerably later day. However that may be, the camel was
always the Arab's most useful servant—his carrier, his patient
burden-bearer, his "ship of the desert," as Eastern poets have
fitly named it. By the poverty of their country, by their
wandering disposition, by their possession of the camel, and
by their geographical situation, intermediate between several
of the richest regions of antiquity, these Arabs of the olden
time must have naturally been made a trading people, as early
as it became possible for trade to exist. To the west of them
was Egypt, with its fertile basin of the Nile and its
remarkable people, probably first among all races that we know
to rise out of barbarism and acquire order and industrial
arts. To the east, in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris,
were the fertile plains of Mesopotamia, where the second
oldest civilization that Is known was growing up. To the north
were Canaan and Gilead, the Scripture "land of promise," full
of vineyards, of pastures and of harvest fields, with wide
Syria beyond, and with Phœnician merchant cities just rising
along the coast of the sea. To the south, in their own
peninsula, was Arabia Felix, or Arabia the Blest, a famous
land of pleasantness and plenty in ancient days. With their
caravans of camels they traveled back and forth, very busily,
no doubt, through the desert, which needed no building of
bridges or making of roads. In one direction they carried the
barley, wheat, millet, flax and woven goods of Egypt; in
another, the honey, wine, wax, wool, skins, gums, resins and
asphalt of Canaan and Syria; in still another the more costly
freight of gold ornaments, precious stones, pearls, ivory,
ebony, spices and fragrant gums from the south. In all
directions, it is probable, they dragged poor unfortunates
like Joseph, whom they bought or kidnapped from home and
friends, to sell as slaves.

COMMERCE:
Babylonia.

"The industry of the Babylonians quickly attained great skill
and wide development. They were famous for their weaving in
wool and linen. The nations of the West agree in acknowledging
the excellence of the cloths and coloured stuffs of Babylonia.
Their pottery was excellent and the manufacture active; the
preparation of glass was not unknown; the ointments prepared
in Babylon were famous and much sought after, and the stones
cut there were highly valued. The products of Babylonian skill
and industry were first brought to their kinsmen in Syria, who
could offer oil and wine in exchange. In the Hebrew scriptures
we find Babylonian cloaks in use in Syria before the
immigration of the Hebrews into Canaan. … The rough material
required by Babylonian industry was supplied in the first
place by the Arabs, who exchanged their animals, skins, and
wool for corn and weapons.
{3697}
Wine, and more especially wood, of which there was none in
Babylonia, were brought by the Armenians from their valleys in
the north down the Euphrates to Babylon. Before 1500 B. C. the
commerce of the Arabs brought the products of South Arabia,
the spices of Yemen, and even the products and manufactures of
India, especially their silks, which reached the coasts of
Southern Arabia, to Babylon. The Babylonians required the
perfumes of Arabia and India to prepare their ointments. …
When the cities of Phenicia became great centres of trade
which carried the wares of Babylonia by sea to the West in
order to obtain copper in exchange, the trade between
Babylonia and Syria must have become more lively still. It was
the ships of the Phenicians which brought the cubic measure,
and the weights, and the cubit of Babylonia to the shores of
Greece, and caused them to be adopted there."

_M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._

See, also, MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).

COMMERCE:
Egypt.

"In ancient Egypt agricultural counted for more than
manufactures, and manufactures were of more importance than
commerce. The trade which existed was brisk enough as far as
it went, but it aimed at little more than the satisfaction of
local wants by the more or less direct exchange of commodities
between producers. The limited development of internal traffic
was due to two principal causes: the natural products of
different parts of the country were too much alike for much
intercourse to be necessary for purposes of exchange, and the
conformation of the country, in itself scarcely larger than
Belgium, was such as to give the longest possible distance
from north to south. … The Nile was the only known highway, so
much so that the language scarcely possessed a general word
for travelling; going southward was called 'going up stream,'
and a journey to the north, even by land into the desert, was
described by a term meaning to sail with the current. … While
internal traffic was thus brought to a minimum by natural
causes, foreign commerce can scarcely be said to have existed,
before the establishment of peaceable intercourse with Syria
under the new empire. The importation of merchandize from
foreign countries was a political rather than a commercial
affair. Such foreign wares as entered the country came as
tribute, as the spoil of war, or as memorials of peaceful
embassies. … The list of the spoil taken by Thothmes III.
gives a tolerably exhaustive account of the treasures of the
time. It includes, of course, bulls, cows, kids, white goats,
mares, foals, oxen, geese, and corn; then follow strange
birds, negroes, men and maid-servants, noble prisoners and the
children of defeated kings, chariots of copper, plated with
gold and silver, iron armour, bows, swords and other
accoutrements, leather collars ornamented with brass, gold and
silver rings, cups, dishes and other utensils, vessels of iron
and copper, statues with heads of gold, ell-measures with
heads of ivory, ebony, and cedar inlaid with gold, chairs,
tables and footstools of cedar wood and ivory, a plough inlaid
with gold, blocks of bluestone, greenstone and lead, 'a golden
storm-cap inlaid with bluestone,' jars of balsam, oil, wine
and honey, various kinds of precious woods, incense,
alabaster, precious stones and colours, iron columns for a
tent with precious stones in them, bricks of pure brass,
elephants' tusks, natron, and, finally, by way of curiosity,
from the land of the kings of Ruthen, three battle-axes of
flint."

_E. J. Simcox,
Primitive Civilizations,
book 1, chapter 3, section. 1 (volume 1)._

See, also, MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).

COMMERCE:
India.

"It is said in the Rig-Veda that 'merchants desirous of gain
crowd the great waters with their ships.' And the activity in
trade, thus early noted, has continued ever since to be
characteristic of the country. Professor Lassen considers it
remarkable that Hindus themselves discovered the rich,
luxurious character of India's products. Many of the same
beasts, birds, and fragrant oils are produced in other
countries, but remain unnoticed until sought for by
foreigners; whereas the most ancient of the Hindus had a keen
enjoyment in articles of taste or luxury. Rajas and other rich
people delighted in sagacious elephants, swift horses,
splendid peacocks, golden decorations, exquisite perfumes,
pungent peppers, ivory, pearls, gems, &c.; and, consequently,
caravans were in constant requisition to carry these, and
innumerable other matters, between the north and the south,
and the east and the west, of their vast and varied country.
These caravans, it is conjectured, were met at border
stations, and at out-ports, by western caravans or ships bound
to or from Tyre and Egypt, or to or from the Persian Gulf and
the Red Sea. To the appearance of India goods in Greece,
Professor Lassen attributes the Greek invasion of India. … The
indirect evidence afforded by the presence of India's products
in other ancient countries, coincides with the direct
testimony of Sanskrit literature, to establish the fact that
ancient Hindus were a commercial people. The code of Manu
requires the king to determine the prices of commodities, and
also the trustworthiness of the weights and measures used. And
that the transactions contemplated were not restricted to
local products is evident from reference to the charges for
freight for articles in river boats, and the undetermined and
larger charges to which sea-borne goods were liable. The
account of King Yudhishthira's coronation in the Mahâbhârata
affords an instance of precious articles from distant lands
brought into India. So also in the Ramayana, we read that when
Rama and his brothers were married, the brides were clad in
silk from China. … Merchants are constantly being introduced
into Sanskrit fiction, and equally often into Buddhist legend.
They seem to have been always at hand to give variety and
movement to the monotony of daily life."

_Mrs. Manning,
Ancient and Mediæval India,
chapter 40 (volume 2)._

COMMERCE:
Phœnicians and Carthaginians.

"The Phœnicians for some centuries confined their navigation
within the limits of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the
Euxine, land-locked seas, which are tideless and far less
rough than the open ocean. But before the time of Solomon they
had passed the pillars of Hercules, and affronted the dangers
of the Atlantic. Their frail and small vessels, scarcely
bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded southwards along
the West African coast, as far as the tract watered by the
Gambia and Senegal, while northwards they coasted along Spain,
braved the heavy seas of the Bay of Biscay, and passing Cape
Finisterre, ventured across the mouth of the English Channel
to the Cassiterides.
{3698}
Similarly, from the West African shore, they boldly steered
for the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), visible from certain
elevated points of the coast, though at 170 miles distance.
Whether they proceeded further, in the south to the Azores,
Madeira, and the Cape de Verde Islands, in the north to the
coast of Holland, and across the German Ocean to the Baltic,
we regard as uncertain. It is possible that from time to time
some of the more adventurous of their traders may have reached
thus far; but their regular, settled and established
navigation did not, we believe, extend beyond the Scilly
Islands and coast of Cornwall to the north-west, and to the
south-west Cape Non and the Canaries. The commerce of the
Phœnicians was carried on, to a large extent, by land, though
principally by sea. It appears from the famous chapter [xxvii]
of Ezekiel which describes the 'riches and greatness of Tyre
in the 6th century B. C., that almost the whole of Western
Asia was penetrated by the Phœnician caravans, and laid under
contribution to increase the wealth of the Phœnician traders.
… Translating this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we
find the following countries mentioned as carrying on an
active trade with the Phœnician metropolis:—Northern Syria,
Syria of Damascus, Judah and the laud of Israel, Egypt,
Arabia, Babylonia, Assyria, Upper Mesopotamia, Armenia,
Central Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas or Greece, and
Spain."

_G. Rawlinson,
History of Phœnicia,
chapter 9._

"Though the invincible industry and enterprise of the
Phenicians maintained them as a people of importance down to
the period of the Roman empire, yet the period of their widest
range and greatest efficiency is to be sought much
earlier—anterior to 700 B. C. In these remote times they and
their colonists [the Carthaginians especially] were the
exclusive navigators of the Mediterranean: the rise of the
Greek maritime settlements banished their commerce to a great
degree from the Ægean Sea, and embarrassed it even in the more
westerly waters. Their colonial establishments were formed in
Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Isles, and Spain. The
greatness as well as the antiquity of Carthage, Utica, and
Gades, attest the long-sighted plans of Phenician traders,
even in days anterior to the first Olympiad. We trace the
wealth and industry of Tyre, and the distant navigation of her
vessels through the Red Sea and along the coast of Arabia,
back to the days of David and Solomon. And as neither
Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, or Indians, addressed
themselves to a sea-faring life, so it seems that both the
importation and the distribution of the products of India and
Arabia into Western Asia and Europe were performed by the
Idumæan Arabs between Petra and the Red Sea—by the Arabs of
Gerrha on the Persian Gulf, joined as they were in later times
by a body of Chaldæan exiles from Babylonia—and by the more
enterprising Phenicians of Tyre and Sidon in these two seas as
well as in the Mediterranean."

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 18._

"The Commerce of Carthage may be conveniently considered under
its two great branches—the trade with Africa, and the trade
with Europe. The trade with Africa … was carried on with the
barbarous tribes of the inland country that could be reached
by caravans, and of the sea-coast. Of both we hear something
from Herodotus, the writer who furnishes us with most of our
knowledge about these parts of the ancient world. … The goods
with which the Carthaginian merchants traded with the African
tribes were doubtless such as those which civilized nations
have always used in their dealings with savages. Cheap finery,
gaudily coloured cloths, and arms of inferior quality, would
probably be their staple. Salt, too, would be an important
article. … The articles which they would receive in exchange
for their goods are easily enumerated. In the first place
comes … gold. Carthage seems to have had always at hand an
abundant supply of the precious metal for use, whether as
money or as plate. Next to gold would come slaves. … Ivory
must have been another article of Carthaginian trade, though
we hear little about it. The Greeks used it extensively in
art. … Precious stones seem to have been another article which
the savages gave in exchange for the goods they coveted. …
Perhaps we may add dates to the list of articles obtained from
the interior. The European trade dealt, of course, partly with
the things already mentioned, and partly with other articles
for which the Carthaginian merchants acted as carriers, so to
speak, from one part of the Mediterranean to another. Lipara,
and the other volcanic islands near the southern extremity of
Italy, produced resin; Agrigentum, and possibly other cities
of Sicily, traded in sulphur brought down from the region of
Etna; wine was produced in many of the Mediterranean
countries. Wax and honey were the staple goods of Corsica.
Corsican slaves, too, were highly valued. The Iron of Elba,
the fruit and the cattle of the Balearic islands, and, to go
further, the tin and copper of Britain, and even amber from
the Baltic, were articles of Carthaginian commerce. Trade was
carried on not only with the dwellers on the coast, but with
inland tribes. Thus goods were transported across Spain to the
interior of Gaul, the jealousy of Massilia (Marseilles) not
permitting the Carthaginians to have any trading stations on
the southern coast of that country."

_A. J. Church and A. Gilman,
The Story of Carthage,
part 3, chapter 3._

A high authority on questions of intercourse in ancient times
throws doubt on the supposed African caravan trade of the
Carthaginians—as follows: "There seems no doubt that the
existing system of caravan trade dates only from the
introduction of Islamism into Africa. It was the Arabs who
first introduced the camel into Northern Africa, and without
camels any extensive intercourse with the interior was
impossible. The Negro races have never shown any disposition
to avail themselves of this mode of transport, and at the
present day the commerce of the interior is carried on almost
entirely by Moorish, that is, by Mohammedan, traders. The
spread of Islamism has doubtless led to increased
communication from another cause, the necessity for the
Mohammedan inhabitants of the outlying and detached regions of
the continent to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even in the
most flourishing times of the Carthaginians they do not appear
to have made any use of camels; and as late as the days of
Strabo the communications with the tribes of Western Africa
who dwelt beyond the Sahara were scanty and irregular. In the
time of Herodotus there is certainly no indication that either
the Carthaginians or the Greeks of the Cyrenaica had any
commercial intercourse with the regions beyond the Great
Desert."

_E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 8, note I (volume 1)._

See, also, PHŒNICIANS (pages 2530-2534);
and CARTHAGE (pages 392-395).

{3699}

COMMERCE:
Jews.

Beginning early in his reign, Solomon made great and
enlightened efforts to promote the commerce and industries of
the people of Israel. "To increase the land traffic, he had
small cities built in advantageous localities, in which goods
of all sorts in large quantities were kept in suitable
storehouses; a practice similar to that which had from ancient
times prevailed in Egypt. … They were established chiefly in
the most northern districts of Israel, towards the Phœnician
boundaries, as well as in the territories of the kingdom of
Hamath, which was first conquered by Solomon himself.—The main
road for the land traffic between Egypt and the interior of
Asia must have been the great highway leading past Gaza and
further west of Jerusalem to the Northern Jordan and Damascus.
Here it was joined by the road from the Phœnician cities, and
continued as far as Thapsacus, on the Euphrates. This was
entirely in the dominions of the king; and here, under the
peaceful banner of a great and powerful monarchy, commerce
could flourish as it had never flourished before. It was
clearly for the improvement of this route, which had to
traverse the Syrian desert on the north, that Solomon built,
in a happily chosen oasis of this wilderness, the city of
Thammor, or Tadmor, of which the Greek version is Palmyra.
There is not a single indication that this city was of
importance before Solomon's time, but from that era it
flourished for more than a thousand years. … For any distant
navigation, however, Solomon was obliged to rely on the aid of
the Phœnicians, inasmuch as they were in that age the only
nation which possessed the necessary ability and inclination
for it. It is true that the idea of competing with the
Phœnicians upon the Mediterranean could hardly have occurred
to him, since they had long before that time attracted all the
commerce upon it to themselves, and would scarcely have
desired or even tolerated such a rival. … But the Red Sea,
which had been thrown open to the kings of Israel by the
conquest of the Idumeans, offered the finest opportunity for
the most distant and lucrative undertakings, the profit of
which might perfectly satisfy a nation in the position of
Israel in the dawn of maritime activity; and on their part,
the Phœnicians could not fail to be most willing helpers in
the promotion of undertakings which it lay in the hands of the
powerful king of Israel entirely to cut off from them, or at
any rate to encumber with great difficulties. In this way the
mutual desires and needs of two nations coincided without any
injury to the one or the other. … Phœnician sailors were at
first, it is true, the teachers of the Israelite. It was they
who aided them in constructing and manning the tall ships,
which, destined to distant voyages upon uncertain seas, needed
to be strongly built; but yet how many new ideas and what
varied knowledge the nation would in this way acquire! The
ships were built in Ezion-geber, the harbour of the town of
Elath (or Eloth), probably on the very spot where Akaba now
stands. The cargo brought back each time from the three years'
voyage consisted of 420 talents of gold, besides silver,
ivory, red sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks, probably also nard
and aloe."

_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
volume 3, page 261-264._

COMMERCE:
Greeks.

"When the Greeks had established themselves, not only on the
peninsula, but also on the islands and on the east coast of
the Ægean Sea, their navigation was greatly extended. That
this, even in the first half of the 8th century, was
profitable in its results, we see from the instance of Dius of
Cyme, the father of Hesiod, who maintained himself in this
manner. The works of art in which Lydia and Caria excelled,
together with the products and manufactures of the east, which
reached the western coasts of Asia, the products of these
coasts, and wine and oil from Lesbos and Samos—all these could
be shipped from the Greek maritime cities of Asia Minor, and
carried to the peninsula. It was through this commerce … that
Chalcis and Eretria laid the foundation of their greatness. To
what proportions it had attained, even in the course of the
8th century, we find from the mint marks of Phocæa and Cyme,
the standards of Chalcis and Eretria, the coins and weights
and measures of Phidon of Argos. … From the middle of the 8th
century, the Greeks no longer merely practised navigation;
they became, in an eminent sense, a maritime nation. At the
time when Sinope and Trapezus were founded in the east, Naxos,
Catana, and Syracuse in Sicily, and Cyme in Campania, a
nautical discovery had already been made, by means of which
the Greeks surpassed the Phœnicians, the ancient voyagers of
Syria; this was the building of triremes. To what an extent
and proficiency must seamanship have attained, what importance
naval battles must have assumed, to give rise to the attempt
to replace the ancient war vessels by others of a far more
powerful kind! When the first triremes were built at Corinth
and Samos, about the year 700 B. C., Greek cities already
existed on the southern shore of the Black Sea, on the coasts
of Thrace, in Corcyra and Sicily; the southern coast of Italy
had also been colonised. The products of Greek industry,
pottery, implements, and weapons, were advantageously bartered
on the coasts of the Thracians, Scythians, Illyrians,
Sicilians, and Oscans, for the fruits of the soil, and for the
cattle of those regions. The need of the means of exchange
must have given great encouragement and impetus to
manufactures in the Greek cities of the peninsula, on the
coasts of Asia, and in the newly-founded Asiatic settlements
themselves. … Navigation and commerce must have become
permanent occupations. And the great increase of manufactures
must also have given employment to numbers of the country
people. Thus there grew up under the very rule of the
aristocracy a powerful rival to itself; a nautical, artisan,
commercial class, side by side with the land population. If
the protecting walls of the chief place of the canton had
previously been sought only in time of need, in case of
surprises or hostile landings, the new industrial classes were
now settled together in the harbours and centres of trade.
Handicrafts, navigation, and commerce, could not exist without
one another. In the maritime cantons on the east of the
peninsula, and in the cantons on the coasts of the
Peloponnesus, there sprang up simultaneously with the burgher
class a town population."

_M. Duncker,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

{3700}

"Between 700 B. C. and 530 B. C., we observe … an immense
extension of Grecian maritime activity and commerce—but we at
the same time notice the decline of Tyre and Sidon, both in
power and traffic. The arms of Nebuchadnezzar reduced the
Phenician cities to the same state of dependence as that which
the Ionian cities underwent half a century later from Crœsus
and Cyrus; while the ships of Miletus, Phokæa and Samos
gradually spread over all those waters of the Levant which had
once been exclusively Phenician. In the year 704 B. C., the
Samians did not yet possess a single trireme: down to the year
630 B. C. not a single Greek vessel had yet visited Libya. But
when we reach 550 B. C. we find the Ionic ships predominant in
the Ægean, and those of Corinth and Korkyra in force to the
west of Peloponnesus—we see the flourishing cities of Kyrene
and Barka already rooted in Libya, and the port of Naukratis a
busy emporium of Grecian commerce with Egypt. The trade by
land—which is all that Egypt had enjoyed prior to
Psammetichus, and which was exclusively conducted by
Phenicians—is exchanged for a trade by sea, of which the
Phenicians have only a share, and seemingly a smaller share
than the Greeks. Moreover the conquest by Amasis of the island
of Cyprus, half-filled with Phenician settlements and once the
tributary dependency of Tyre—affords an additional mark of the
comparative decline of that great city. In her commerce with
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf she still remained without a
competitor, the schemes of the Egyptian king Nekos having
proved abortive. Even in the time of Herodotus, the spices and
frankincense of Arabia were still brought and distributed only
by the Phenician merchant. But on the whole, both political
and industrial development of Tyre are now cramped by
impediments, and kept down by rivals, not before in operation.
… The 6th century B. C., though a period of decline for Tyre
and Sidon, was a period of growth for their African colony
Carthage, which appears during this century in considerable
traffic with the Tyrrhenian towns on the southern coast of
Italy, and as thrusting out the Phokæan settlers from Alalia
in Corsica."

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 21._

"It is a remarkable fact in the history of Greek colonies that
the exploration of the extreme west of the Mediterranean was
not undertaken either by the adventurers who settled at Cyme,
or by the powerful cities of Sicily. A century or more elapsed
from the foundation of Syracuse before any Greek vessel was
seen on the coast of Spain or Liguria, and when the new
beginning was made, it was not made by any of the colonies,
Chalcidian, Dorian, or Rhodian, which had taken part in the
discovery of the West. It was the Phocaeans of Ionia,
Herodotus tells us, who first made the Greeks acquainted with
the Hadriatic, with Tyrrhenia, Iberia (Spain), and Tartessus
(the region round Cadiz). The first impulse to these distant
voyages arose from a mere accident. At the time of the
foundation of Cyrene, about the year 630 B. C., a Greek of
Samos, by name Colaeus, when on his way to Egypt, was carried
by contrary winds beyond the pillars of Heracles to Tartessus.
There he found a virgin market, from which he returned to
realise a profit of 60 talents (£12,000), an amount only
surpassed by the gains of Sostratus of Aegina, who was the
premier of Greek merchants. But this was the beginning and the
end of Samian trade to the West; why they left it to the
Phocaeans to enter into the riches which they had discovered,
we cannot say, but within thirty years of this date, the
enterprising Ionian town sent out a colony to Massilia near
the mouth of the Rhone, in the district known as Liguria. …
The mouth of the Rhone was the point where all the routes met
which traversed France from the English Channel to the Gulf of
Genoa. Of these Strabo specifies three. Merchandise was
carried by boats up the Rhone and Saône, from which it was
transferred to the Seine, and so passed down the river; or it
was taken by land from Marseilles (or Narbo) to the Loire; or
again carried up the Aude and transported thence to the
Garonne. By one or other of these routes, the wares collected
by the Gaulish merchants—more especially the tin, which they
imported from Britain—was brought into the Greek market, if
indeed it was not carried on pack-horses straight across the
narrowest part of the country. The importance of these lines
of transit at a time when the western Mediterranean was held
by the Carthaginians, and the northern Hadriatic by the
Tyrrhenians, can hardly be over-estimated. The colonists
extended their borders by degrees, though not without severe
contests with the Ligurians and Tyrrhenians by sea and land.
New cities were founded to serve as outposts against the
enemy; Agatha in the direction of the barbarians of the Rhone;
Olbia, Antipolis, and Nicaea in the direction of the Salyans
and Ligurians of the Alps. They also spread themselves down
the coast of Spain."

_E. Abbott,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 13._

COMMERCE:
Rome.

"Rome, placed like a mightier Mexico in the centre of her
mighty lake, was furnished with every luxury and with many of
her chief necessaries from beyond the waters; and cities on
every coast, nearly similar in latitude and climate, vied in
intense rivalry with each other in ministering to her
appetite. First in the ranks of commerce was the traffic in
corn, which was conducted by large fleets of galleys, sailing
from certain havens once a year at stated periods, and pouring
their stores into her granaries in their appointed order. Gaul
and Spain, Sardinia and Sicily, Africa and Egypt were all
wheat-growing countries, and all contributed of their produce,
partly as a tax, partly also as an article of commerce, to the
sustentation of Rome and Italy. The convoy from Alexandria was
looked for with the greatest anxiety, both as the heaviest
laden, and as from the length of the voyage the most liable to
disaster or detention. The vessels which bore the corn of
Egypt were required to hoist their topsails on sighting the
promontory of Surrentum, both to distinguish them from others,
and to expedite their arrival. These vessels moreover,
according to the institution of Augustus, were of more than
ordinary size, and they were attended by an escort of war
galleys. The importance attached to this convoy was marked by
the phrases, 'auspicious' and 'sacred,' applied to it. … A
deputation of senators from Rome was directed to await its
arrival at the port where it was about to cast anchor, which,
from the bad condition of the haven at Ostia, was generally at
this period Puteoli in Campania.
{3701}
As soon as the well-known topsails were seen above the horizon
a general holiday was proclaimed, and the population of the
country, far and near, streamed with joyous acclamations to
the pier, and gazed upon the rich flotilla expanding gaily
before them. The vessels engaged in this trade, however
numerous, were after all of small burden. The corn-fleets did
not indeed form the chief maritime venture of the
Alexandrians. The products of India, which had formerly
reached Egypt from Arabia, and were supposed indeed in Europe
to have come only from the shores of the Erythræan Sea, were
now conveyed direct to Cleopatris or Berenice from the mouths
of the Indus and the coast of Malabar, and employed an
increasing number of vessels, which took advantage of the
periodical trade winds both in going and returning. The
articles of which they went in quest were for the most part
objects of luxury; such as ivory and tortoise shell, fabrics
of cotton and silk, both then rare and costly, pearls and
diamonds, and more especially gums and spices. The consumption
of these latter substances in dress, in cookery, in the
service of the temples, and above all at funerals, advanced
with the progress of wealth and refinement. The consignments
which reached Alexandria from the East were directed to every
port on the Mediterranean; but there was no corresponding
demand for the produce of the West in India, and these
precious freights were for the most part exchanged for gold
and silver, of which the drain from Europe to Asia was
uninterrupted. The amount of the precious metals thus
abstracted from the currency or bullion of the empire, was
estimated at 100,000,000 sesterces, or about £800,000 yearly.
The reed called papyrus, the growth of which seems to have
been almost confined to the banks of the Nile, was in general
use as the cheapest and most convenient writing material, and
the consumption of it throughout the world, though it never
entirely superseded the use of parchment and waxen tablets,
must have been immense. It was converted into paper in Egypt,
and thence exported in its manufactured state; but this
practice was not universal, for we read of a house at Rome
which improved on the native process, and produced what Pliny
calls an imperial or noble out of a mere plebeian texture.
With respect to other articles of general use, it may be
remarked that the most important, such as corn, wine, oil, and
wool, were the common produce of all the coasts of the
Mediterranean, and there was accordingly much less interchange
of these staple commodities among the nations of antiquity
than with ourselves, whose relations extend through so many
zones of temperature. Hence, probably, we hear of none of
their great cities becoming the workshops or emporiums of the
world for any special article of commerce. The woollens indeed
of Miletus and Laodicea, together with other places of Asia
Minor, were renowned for their excellence, and may have been
transported as articles of luxury to distant parts; but Africa
and Spain, Italy and parts of Greece, were also breeders of
sheep, and none of these countries depended for this prime
necessary on the industry or cupidity of foreigners. The
finest qualities of Greek and Asiatic wines were bespoken at
Rome, and at every other great seat of luxury. The Chian and
Lesbian vintages were among the most celebrated. … Again,
while the clothing of the mass of the population was made
perhaps mainly from the skins of animals, leather of course
could be obtained abundantly in almost every locality. When we
remember that the ancients had neither tea, coffee, tobacco,
sugar, nor for the most part spirits; that they made little
use of glass, and at this period had hardly acquired a taste
for fabrics of silk, cotton, or even flax, we shall perceive
at a glance how large a portion of the chief articles of our
commerce was entirely wanting to theirs. Against this
deficiency, however, many objects of great importance are to
be set. Though the ruder classes were content with wooden cups
and platters fashioned at their own doors, the transport of
earthenware of the finer and more precious kinds, and from
certain localities, was very considerable. Though the Greeks
and Romans generally were without some of our commonest
implements of gold and silver, such for instance as watches
and forks, it is probable that they indulged even more than we
do in personal decoration with rings, seals, and trinkets of a
thousand descriptions. … The conveyance of wild animals,
chiefly from Africa, for the sports of the amphitheatres of
some hundreds of cities throughout the empire, must alone have
given occupation to a large fleet of ships and many thousand
mariners. Nor were the convoys smaller which were employed to
transport marble from the choicest quarries of Greece and Asia
to many flourishing cities besides the metropolis. … After due
deduction for the more contracted sphere of ancient commerce,
and the lesser number of articles, for the extent also to
which the necessaries and conveniences of life were
manufactured at home in the establishments of wealthy slave
owners, we shall still readily believe that the
inter-communication of the cities of the Mediterranean, such
as Corinth, Rhodes, Ephesus, Cyzicus, Antioch, Tyrus,
Alexandria, Cyrene, Athens, Carthage, Tarraco, Narbo and
Massilia, Neapolis and Tarentum, Syracuse and Agrigentum, and
of all with Rome, must have been a potent instrument in fusing
into one family the manifold nations of the empire. … In the
eyes of the Orientals and the Greeks, the mistress of lands
and continents, the leader of armies, and the builder of roads
was regarded as the greatest of all maritime emporiums, and
represented in their figurative style as a woman sitting
enthroned upon the waves of the Mediterranean. The maritime
aspect thus assumed by Rome in the eyes of her subjects beyond
the sea, is the more remarkable when we consider how directly
her ancient policy and habits were opposed to commercial
development. … The landowners of Rome, in the highday of her
insolent adolescence, had denounced both commerce and the arts
as the business of slaves or freedmen. So late as the year 535
a law had been passed which forbade a senator to possess a
vessel of burden, and the traffic which was prohibited to the
higher class was degraded in the eyes of the lower. … It was …
by following the natural train of circumstances, and by no
settled policy of her own, that Rome secured her march across
the sea, and joined coast to coast with the indissoluble chain
of her dominion. On land, on the contrary, she constructed her
military causeways with a fixed and definite purpose. … The
population of Gaul crept, we know, slowly up the channel of
the rivers, and the native tracks which conveyed their traffic
from station to station were guided by these main arteries of
their vital system.
{3702}
But the conquerors struck out at once a complete system of
communication for their own purposes, by means of roads cut or
built as occasion required, with a settled policy rigidly
pursued. These high roads, as we may well call them, for they
were raised above the level of the plains and the banks of the
rivers, and climbed the loftiest hills, were driven in direct
lines from point to point, and were stopped by neither forest
nor marsh nor mountain."

_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 39._

COMMERCE:
Gaul under the Romans and after the fall of the Empire.