Chapter IX: Commerce of Attica

To speak now of the commerce of Attica, the most extensive and important in the ancient world. It is an error shared by persons in other respects above the vulgar, that a commercial people is necessarily sordid; and hence Napoleon considered it opprobrious to the English, that they are a nation, as he expressed it, of shopkeepers. There are some lessons in the science of human nature that Napoleon had not learned, among which this is one,—that the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of mankind have risen and flourished in trading communities, and been themselves in many instances engaged in commerce. No country in the modern world has produced men of more chivalrous honour or heroic disinterestedness than England; and in antiquity the Athenians, as a community and as individuals, far outshone in wisdom, high-mindedness, and patriotism, every other people with whom we could compare them. In one word, they were the English of antiquity;—bold, adventurous, indefatigable people, equally renowned in trade, philosophy, and war. That they were less fortunate may be accounted for from their geographical position, lacking the inestimable advantage which we enjoy in being seated on an island,—a misfortune well understood by Pericles, who alludes to it in his first oration for the war.[1570]

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Footnote 1570:

Thucyd. i. 143. Bœckh, therefore, is certainly in error when he says,
that Attica enjoyed _all_ the advantages of insular position. Book i.
§ 9.

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No country, however fertile, produces all that its inhabitants, when advancing in civilisation, require, which tends more than any other circumstance to promote the amelioration of society; and Attica, from its comparative barrenness and very limited extent, peculiarly experienced the necessity of foreign commerce. To this accordingly the Athenians from a very early period applied themselves, and with so much success, that whatever commodities the ancient world produced were generally to be found in the greatest abundance in their city.[1571] They enjoyed as has been already observed, most of the advantages of insular position, that is,[1572] excellent harbours conveniently situated, in which they received supplies during all winds,[1573] and, in addition to these, some of the compensating advantages of being situated on the continent, in facilities for inland traffic. Chief of all, however, were the blessings flowing from the wisdom, and moderation, and liberality, of its government, which rendered Athens the resort of all the enterprising and enlightened men of every other country. Its dealings with foreigners were facilitated by the purity of the coin, as the traders who did not choose to purchase merchandise might take bullion, which, as Xenophon expresses it, was a very handsome article, and of so little alloy as everywhere to pass for more than its nominal value, like the old Spanish dollars, and English gold currency in the East.[1574] Prohibitions to export money, as Bœckh observes, were unknown in ancient times, and are only compatible with bills of exchange.[1575]

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Footnote 1571:

Cf. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 6.

Footnote 1572:

Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.

Footnote 1573:

Xenoph. de Vectig. i. 7.

Footnote 1574:

Id. iii. 2.

Footnote 1575:

Bœckh. Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 65.

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Though war to a certain extent interfered with Athenian commerce, yet, being masters of the sea, they could generally command a plentiful supply of foreign commodities, so that many articles regarded as rare in other countries might be found abundantly in the warehouses of the Peiræeus. “Hither, on account of the richness of our city,” says Pericles, “are borne the products of all lands, so that we are not more familiar with the use of wheat grown in Attica than with the productions of other countries.”[1576] So Isocrates: “the Peiræeus, has been established as an emporium in the heart of Greece, and so far excels all its rivals, that articles with difficulty met with singly in other ports may be readily found here altogether.”[1577] And true it is, that every region of the east and island of the Mediterranean poured their productions into Attica, whence they were distributed throughout Greece. Thither were brought the magnificent carpets and fine wool of Persia, Phrygia, and Miletos; the gloves and purple of Tyre and Sidon; the fine linen of Egypt;[1578] the gold and ivory of Africa; the pearls of India and the Red Sea;[1579] white and black slaves, and corn, and timber, and spices, and costly wines, and perfumes from Spain, Sicily, Italy, Cypros, Lydia, the Black Sea, and the farthest regions of the east.[1580]

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Footnote 1576:

Thucyd. ii. 38.

Footnote 1577:

Isocrat. Panath. § 11.

Footnote 1578:

Demosth. cont. Aphob. § 6.

Footnote 1579:

Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. § 2. See chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of
this book.

Footnote 1580:

Bœckh, i. 66.

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This extended commerce, and the encouragement which strangers of all countries found to settle at Athens, rendered it the home of all languages and religions,[1581] and led to the adoption of many barbarous words. But she thus created a boundless market for her own exports, whether consisting of manufactures or the surplus produce of the soil; and as we now retail to the Continental nations many productions of Eastern Asia, so the Athenians disposed, in the uncommercial countries around, of the commodities they had elsewhere collected. For example, they found a vent among the nations on the Black Sea for the wines of the islands and shores of the Ægean, Peparethos, Cos, Thasos, Mendè, Skionè, Lemnos, and Crete.[1582] From a passage in Xenophon, it would appear either that Greek sailors amused themselves by reading on their voyages, or that books were exported to Pontos, for there seems to be no foundation for the suspicions that they were blank books.[1583] “Here,” says Xenophon, speaking of the coast of Thrace, “are found numerous beds, cabinets, books, and such other things as shipmasters are accustomed to transport in chests.”[1584] Theopompos represents the Persians as carrying books (χάρται βιβλίων) along with them in their invasion of Egypt, and the Greeks could have been scarcely less literary.[1585] Certain, at all events, it is, that there was a book-market at Athens, probably resembling the bazars of the East, where the dealers in manuscripts kept their shops;[1586] and thence, in all likelihood, the Greek cities on the Black Sea were supplied; and this is by no means inconsistent with the proverb respecting Hermodoros, Plato’s Sicilian publisher, who was said, contemptuously, to traffic in words; for, as he himself was one of Plato’s hearers, it may have been thought beneath him to turn trader.[1587] Somewhat later we read of Zeno, a stranger in the city, going into a bookseller’s shop to sit down, where he finds the owner reading Xenophon, and is recommended by him to follow Crates.[1588]

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Footnote 1581:

Strab. ix. 1. Xen. de Rep. Athen. ii. 7.

Footnote 1582:

Bœckh, i. 66. Demosth. in Laert. § 8.

Footnote 1583:

Bœckh, i. 67.

Footnote 1584:

Anab. vii. 5. 14. Larcher would read βυβλία, and translate “beaucoup
de cordages;” but where he learned that sailors used to carry cables,
or cordage either, in their sea-chests, does not appear.

Footnote 1585:

Ap. Longin. De Sublim. § 43.

Footnote 1586:

Pollux, ix. 47, with the commentary, t. vi. p. 934, seq.

Footnote 1587:

Cicero ad Att. xiii. 29. Suid. in v. λόγοισιν Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμπορεύεται.
t. ii. p. 54. b.

Footnote 1588:

Diog. Laert. vii. p. 164. c.

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So extensive a trade as Athens carried on could not be conducted without protecting regulations, and the co-operation of a commercial police. Accordingly the government exhibited much wisdom and liberality in whatever related to commerce, by all means seeking to encourage enterprise and industry. Numerous officers were appointed to watch over the commercial dealings of the citizens; such as the superintendents of the harbour, ten persons appointed annually by lot; the overseers of the market, likewise ten, of whom five superintended the markets in the city, the other five, those in the Peiræeus; fifteen inspectors of weights and measures, ten of whom attended in the city, the other five those in the port; and subordinate, probably, to these were the public meters, who seem to have been Scythians, and therefore slaves of the state: their duty was to measure whatever grain was sold in the market,[1589] for which was paid a small sum, applied, it may be supposed, to the augmentation of the revenue. Great care, in fact, was bestowed on the subject of weights and measures, and to the market regulations generally; and yet we find from the comic poets[1590] that much fraud was occasionally committed.[1591]

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Footnote 1589:

Harpocrat. in v. προμετρητὴς; and see the note of Gronovius, p. 111,
seq. Bekker omits more than half the article, p. 158.

Footnote 1590:

Aristoph. Eq. 1005.

Footnote 1591:

But see Bœckh, Corp. Inscript. i. 164.

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It is, by some writers, supposed that credit was at a low ebb in Greece; but this notion seems to have been formed hastily, without allowing for circumstances, as the condition of the times sufficiently accounts for the facts which suggested it; for all large and established houses are known to have possessed almost unlimited credit, since they were able, on the mere security of their name, to raise whatever money they needed; so that none, probably, but persons little known, or not known advantageously, were required to give security.[1592] The inhabitants of certain cities, as, for example, of Phaselis, enjoyed, as we say, a bad reputation,[1593] and were, no doubt, among those whom people refused to trust.

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Footnote 1592:

Vid. Bern. adv. Polycl. § 15. Compare Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la
Grèce, ii. 78, seq. 85.

Footnote 1593:

See the opening of the speech against Lacritos (§ 1), where the orator
heaps his compliments unsparingly upon those “honest dealers,” whom he
describes as “the most unjust and villanous of mankind:” πονηρότατοι
ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀδικώτατοι.

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If severity, however, in the laws of debtor and creditor have any tendency to support credit, the confiding portion of the community had little reason to complain at Athens, since the spirit of this branch of Athenian jurisprudence was unusually stern. The man who obtained the loan of money and fraudulently withheld his security, was deemed to have committed a capital offence, nor could his high rank or honourable connexions skreen him from punishment.[1594] For it was considered, observes the orator, that an offender of this description not only defrauded the individuals with whom he dealt, but also made an attempt against the sources of public prosperity, commercial operations depending not on the borrower but on the lender, without whose coöperation no ship, or captain, or passenger, can move. On which account the most effective protection was afforded them by law.

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Footnote 1594:

Dem. in Phorm. § 17. Mr. Bœckh, if the English translation exactly
represents his meaning, understands this passage differently, and his
interpretation is more favourable to the Athenian law: “Even a
citizen, who, in his capacity of a merchant, _withdrew_ from a
creditor a pledge for a sum vested in bottomry, could be punished with
loss of life.” (Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 69.) It may be doubted,
however, whether οὐ παρασχόντα τὰς ὑποθήκας can mean anything more
than “withholding the securities;” and I, therefore, suppose Bœckh’s
translators to have employed the verb “withdraw” for “withhold.”

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Merchants and sea-captains were also defended by very severe enactments against false accusers, who, upon conviction, were heavily fined, and, in default of payment, deprived of the rights of citizenship.[1595] Causes of this kind were tried in the Commercial Court of the Nautodikæ, which was also empowered to examine the claims of citizens accused of foreign extraction.[1596] The causes were introduced by the Thesmothetæ, and in lawsuits between citizens of different nations, by virtue of a particular agreement, there existed an appeal from one state to the other.[1597] Nothing more clearly shows the consideration in which nautical and mercantile affairs were held at Athens, than the laws which regulated the proceedings of this court: in the first place, not to interrupt the course of business and occasion loss to individuals, the Nautodikæ sat during the winter months, from September till March, when navigation was usually suspended. At first, indeed, they did not commence their sittings till January;[1598] but this was found inconvenient, the decision of the court being frequently delayed till late in the spring or summer, to the great loss and detriment of the litigants. Consequences still more disastrous, perhaps, ensued when the cause stood over till the ensuing winter, when, as new judges would be appointed, the whole business had to be commenced _de novo_. To remedy this evil a plan of reform was conceived by Xenophon,[1599] but with nothing like a statesman’s views, its chief merit consisting in proposing a prize to be awarded to the most able and expeditious judge. His scheme, however, may have had the merit of fixing the attention of wiser men upon the subject, which at length produced the monthly suits to which belonged all causes concerning trade-clubs, dowries, and mines.[1600] Upon the introduction of this improvement in the practice of the commercial court the advantage proposed by Xenophon was fully obtained, since causes could not, as some have imagined, stand over from month to month, but must absolutely be decided within the term.[1601] The more completely to protect and advance the interests of commerce, each state had its consul[1602] (προξένος) who represented the interests of his country, and, like our own consuls in the Levant, was bound to receive and entertain such citizens as arrived at the port where he resided. Besides, when a merchant or trader died abroad, it was part of the consul’s duty to take charge of his property, and transmit immediately to his friends an account of what had taken place, with the necessary particulars.[1603] Occasionally, however, very improper persons obtained this respectable and, no doubt, lucrative situation, as the man Lycidas, formerly one of Chabrias’s slaves, who contrived, by intrigue, to be appointed consul of Messina; and Dionysios, a man of like origin and character, and by birth a Megarean, who enjoyed the honour of representing Athens at Megara.[1604]

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Footnote 1595:

Liban. arg. ad Orat. in Theocrin. t. viii. p. 334.

Footnote 1596:

Poll. viii. 126. Petit, v. 5. p. 522.

Footnote 1597:

Bœckh, i. 69. Cf. Kühn ad Poll. viii. 63. t. iv. p. 675.

Footnote 1598:

Lysias, περὶ δημος. χρημ. § 4. Harpocrat. v. ναυτοδίκη, p. 131. Suid.
t. ii. p. 208, seq. Cf. Sigon. de Repub. Athen. iv. 3. 441.

Footnote 1599:

De Vectigal. iii. 3.

Footnote 1600:

Poll. viii. 63. 101, with the Notes. Bœckh. i. 70.

Footnote 1601:

Demosth. in Apatur. § 7, in Pantænet. § 1.

Footnote 1602:

Demosth. in Callip. § 3, adv. Leptin. § 14. Suid. in v. p. 609. a. b.
Poll. iii. 59. viii. 91. Προξένους ἐκάλουν, τοὺς τεταγμένους εἰς τὸ
ὑποδέχεσθαι τοὺς ξένους τοὺς ἐξ ἄλλων πόλεων ἥκοντας. Schol. Aristoph.
Av. 1022. Kust.

Footnote 1603:

Bœckh, Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 71.

Footnote 1604:

Demosth. adv. Lept. § 28. Cf. Dem. in Callip. § 3.

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It has been made a question, whether or not perfect freedom of trade existed among the ancients, and upon the whole it appears, that among the Athenians, at least, no unwise or vexatious interference habitually took place.[1605]

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Footnote 1605:

Publ. Econ. of Athens, i. 71, seq. Xen. de Vectigal. passim. Cf.
Heeren, Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.

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Bœckh remarks that, in the plan of Xenophon for restoring the revenue, no allusion is made to the removal of onerous restrictions on trade; from which it may be inferred that none such existed. Heeren[1606] is clearly of this opinion: “nothing was known of the balance of trade, and consequently all the violent measures resulting from it were never devised by the Greeks. They had duties as well as the moderns; but these duties were exacted only for the sake of increasing the public revenue, not to direct the efforts of domestic industry by the prohibition of certain wares. There was no prohibition of the exportation of the raw produce; no encouragement of manufactures at the expense of the agriculturist. In this respect, therefore, there existed a freedom of industry, commerce, and trade. And such was the general custom. As every thing was decided by circumstances, and not by theories, there may have been single exceptions, and perhaps single examples, where the state for a season usurped a monopoly. But how far was this from the mercantile and restrictive system of the moderns!”

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Footnote 1606:

Polit. Hist. of Anc. Greece, c. x. p. 163.

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This it appears to me is the philosophical view of the matter, which is not modified materially by the remarks of Bœckh. No doubt the interests of the state were regarded as paramount, comprehending, as in just states they do, the interests of all individuals; but for this very reason they would, to the best of their knowledge, beware of interfering capriciously or unnecessarily with private interests, since a prosperous community cannot be constituted of unprosperous members. Mr. Bœckh seems, with all his learning and acuteness, to misapprehend the political theory of the ancients, and to imagine that, because the right of governments to regulate the actions of individuals was recognized, they might safely do so on all occasions without rhyme or reason. But in this he is certainly in error. The object of government was understood then as well as it is now; so that I am apt to think that the erudite professor advances, in the following passage, a doctrine which would have met with but a cold reception among the Athenians, though adopted literally by the historians of the Doric race: “Not in Crete and Lacedæmon alone, two states completely closed up, and from their position unsusceptible of free trade, but generally throughout the whole of Greece, and even under the free and republican government of Athens, the poorest as well as the richest citizen was convinced that the state had the right of claiming the whole property of every individual; any restriction in the transfer of this property, regulated according to circumstances, was looked upon as just, nor could it properly be considered an infringement of justice before the security of person and property was held to be the sole object of government; a light under which it never was viewed by any of the ancients.”[1607]

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Footnote 1607:

Public Economy of Athens, i. 72.

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It would be difficult to select from any writer, ancient or modern, a passage more abounding than this with erroneous conclusions. Neither Lacedæmon nor Crete was excluded by its position from the advantages of free trade; and at Athens there was no citizen, however poor or ignorant, who acknowledged in the state any such right as Mr. Bœckh speaks of, except for the purpose of providing for the general safety, in which case it would be as cheerfully acknowledged in every modern community. While penning the concluding sentence, Mr. Bœckh must have been thinking of the despotic governments of Germany. An Englishman considers the preservation of his political rights as much an object of government as the protection of his person or his property, and would as strenuously contend for it, in which feeling he resembles the Athenian. But I will not permit even this theme to tempt me from the matter in hand.

There can be no difficulty in admitting that, as the very existence of commerce, properly so called, depends on the existence of political communities, the state has a right to interfere, under certain circumstances, with the movements of commerce. For example, merchants may justly be prevented by the laws from furnishing their country’s enemy with arms, with ammunition, with provisions, in short, with any article whatsoever, which, by strengthening the hands of the foe, may tend to the detriment of their own community. Again, in famines and scarcities, the law of self-preservation authorizes states to restrain the exportation of articles absolutely required for home consumption; because distress produces discontent and tumult and insurrection, and may thus endanger the very existence of the government itself. Prohibitions to export, originating in such motives, are perfectly defensible. But so much can scarcely be said for monopolies, which were not unknown to the Greeks, though it is not denied that they were of short duration.[1608] “It can, however, be safely asserted,” says Mr. Bœckh, “that no republic ever demanded of its citizens that they should furnish commodities to the state in specific quantities, and at prices arbitrarily fixed at a low rate, with a view to secure to itself a monopoly: such a demand could only have been enforced in countries under the government of a tyrant.”[1609] The folly, as well as the wickedness, of such despotic interference, I witnessed in the depopulation and misery of Egypt, which at length proceeded so far as to alarm the Pasha himself, and produce some amelioration of his vicious system.

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Footnote 1608:

Aristot. Polit. i. 7.

Footnote 1609:

Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 73.

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It is, no doubt, possible, that many monopolies of which we know nothing may have existed in antiquity;[1610] but it will be quite evident that, upon such possibility, it would be useless to reason. The monopolies which we know to have existed were few, and of short duration. Aristotle, while observing what advantages both individuals and states sometimes derived from them, attributes a better policy to Athens. He gives two or three examples of private monopolies, the well-known story of Thales and the oil-presses, and that of a man who bought up all the iron[1611] at Syracuse, and adds, that, in great pecuniary straits, governments were sometimes found to imitate them.[1612] Thus, at a late period of their history, the Athenians are supposed to have monopolised the lead obtained from the silver mines of Laureion, which they did, we are told, at the instigation of Pythoclos; that is, they bought it up at the usual price of two drachmas the commercial talent, and sold it at six drachmas.[1613] At Rome the price was higher. As there can be little doubt that the lead was for exportation, no injury was inflicted on individuals. With respect to the monopoly granted by the Byzantines to a banker, it may be observed, that it was only one of the many shifts to which the nakedness of their treasury compelled them to have recourse. The list is given in the second book of the Economics, and is not without interest. I would not affirm that their contrivances were innocent.[1614] Again, the Selymbrians, in a period of public difficulty, constituted themselves monopolists in a manner which Mr. Bœckh might fearlessly have pronounced “less defensible.” By law they were not permitted to export in times of scarcity; but being in want of money, they decreed that the state should purchase all the old stock at a fixed price, leaving individuals sufficient for their yearly consumption, after which they sold the surplus at a higher price, with permission to export.[1615]

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Footnote 1610:

Id. Ibid.

Footnote 1611:

Dr. Gillies translates “corn,” and calls the man a banker! “Ethics and
Politics,” ii. 52.

Footnote 1612:

Aristot. Pol. i. 11, seq. 18, seq. Bekk.

Footnote 1613:

Aristot. Œcon. ii. 37. Bœckh it is who conjectures the commercial to
be meant, no weight being mentioned in the original. Pub. Econ. of
Ath. i. 44. 73. Cf. Plin. Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 48. Dr. Wordsworth
restores, with great felicity, the true reading in the passage of
Aristotle: τῶν ἀργυρίων for τῶν τυρίων. Athens and Attica, p. 208.
Bœckh’s conjecture, though ingenious, is less probable. Publ. Econ.
ii. 429.

Footnote 1614:

Aristot. Œcon. ii. 4.

Footnote 1615:

Id. ii. 18. From Mr. Bœckh’s account it might seem as though the
exportation of corn was always prohibited at Selymbria (Pub. Econ. i
73); whereas this was the case during famines only.

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It is difficult to say what men will agree to consider “perfect freedom of trade;” but it appears to me, that commerce was as unshackled at Athens as it could have been consistently with the welfare of the community. Mr. Bœckh says, “There are abundant proofs that exportation and importation were regulated according to the exigencies and interests of the community, which is by no means consistent with the perfect freedom of trade.”[1616] There appears to lurk a fallacy in this. Such freedom as this writer would call perfect is inconsistent with the very existence of civil society, whose fundamental laws require that no man’s freedom shall trench upon the freedom, and still less upon the life, of another. But if in commerce the exigencies and interests of the community could have been set at nought, there would have been an end of such community, since frequently its well-being, if not its being, depended on its commercial relations with foreign states.

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Footnote 1616:

Pub. Econ. i. 73, seq.

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So far, therefore, it must, doubtless, be admitted, that commerce was not free. To this extent, and no further, does Aristotle counsel or contemplate interferences with trade: “With regard to importation and exportation,” he says, “it is necessary to know how large a supply of provisions the state requires, and what proportion of them can be produced in the country and what imported, and what imports and exports are necessary for the state, in order that commercial treaties and agreements may be concluded with those of whom the state must make use for this purpose.”[1617]

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Footnote 1617:

Rhet. i. 4.

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With regard to the prohibition to export attributed to Solon, it is necessary either to abandon the subject altogether, or to understand it in the contrary sense to that usually given. Plutarch, as his text now stands, tells a very strange story, observing, that the exportation of every thing but oil was prohibited by Solon, and therefore he adds, it is not wholly improbable that figs also were prohibited.[1618] I understand the matter differently. Solon, probably observing that Attica, at that time, produced barely sufficient oil for its own consumption, prohibited its exportation, though as agriculture improved, the law fell into desuetude, and oil became a principal export. From this example, Plutarch thinks it not improbable, that figs also may at some time or another have been prohibited. The matter is thus clear and natural. Besides, the Scholiast on Pindar, alluding no doubt to some particular period, observes, that the exportation of oil was not permitted.[1619] It is therefore surprising that Bœckh should have laid any stress at all on so contradictory a passage, without endeavouring to restore it, particularly as Solon was himself a merchant and a transgressor of his supposed law. That the exportation of corn should not have been allowed is both intelligible and reasonable, as Attica never produced sufficient for its own consumption; and they were not disposed to adopt the system of the modern Tuscans, who would sell their own corn to the English, and subsist on an inferior sort from the Black Sea, if indeed it be inferior.[1620]

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Footnote 1618:

Plut. Solon. § 24.

Footnote 1619:

Pind. Nem. x. 64. Shulz. Cf. Dissen. t. ii. 505. Petit, p. 417.

Footnote 1620:

Bowring, Statistics of Tuscany, p. 15. Ulpian, to whom Bœckh, i.
74, refers, merely repeats the well-known prohibition to ship-captains
to take a cargo of corn to any foreign port. Orat. x. p. 271. a.

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Certain commodities were, however, undoubtedly not allowed to be exported, as for example, timber, tar, wax, rigging, and “leathern bottles, articles which,” as Bœckh observes, “were particularly important for the building and equipment of the fleet.”[1621] But the word which this distinguished scholar conceives to mean “leathern bottles,” had a very different signification, and meant that leathern defence through which the oars passed, and which was designed to keep the sea from rushing in at the row-port. This we gather as well from the scholiast on Aristophanes,[1622] as from several passages of Pollux overlooked by Bœckh. This writer observes, that the leathern defence of the row-port was called ἄσκωμα,[1623] and elsewhere he says that a woman’s breast, when full of milk, was also so called;[1624] from which we may conjecture what form the askoma assumed, when the oar forced it outwards during the act of rowing. Nor do I suppose that such prohibition existed only during time of war, for it would have been equally imprudent to furnish such articles to men preparing for war, as men always are in peace, as to such as were actually engaged in it. From a passage in Theophrastus, it has been inferred that permission to export timber for ship-building was sometimes granted free of duty to individuals; but as it is the Boaster who makes the assertion, adding that, to avoid envy, he never made use of it,[1625] it may be regarded as no less a joke than the reason for prohibiting lamp-wicks from Bœotia, viz., that they might set the fleet on fire![1626]

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Footnote 1621:

Economy of Athens, p. 75.

Footnote 1622:

Ran. 364: ἄσκωμα δὲ δερμάτιον τι ᾧ ἐν ταῖς τριήρεσι χρῶνται, καθ᾽ ὁ ἡ
κώπη βάλλεται.

Footnote 1623:

Pollux. i. 88: τὸ δὲ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ σκαλμῷ δέρμα ἄσκωμα.

Footnote 1624:

Pollux. ii. 164: τὸ δε ὑποπιμπλάμενον τοῦ γάλακτος, κὸλπος καὶ ἄσκωμα.
Cf. Schol. Aristoph. Acharn. 97. Hescych. Etym. Mag. et Suid. in v.
But more especially Scheffer, De Militiâ Navali, p. 13, Cf. Brunck ad
Ran. 364. This confirms the extremely ingenious conjecture of Mitford,
though he was mistaken in supposing the thing to have been called
ὑπηρέσιον, which meant simply “a cushion.” Hist. of Greece, iii. 154.
Casaub. ad Theoph. Char. p. 344, is very unsatisfactory.

Footnote 1625:

Theoph. Char. p. 63. Casaub. 344.

Footnote 1626:

Aristoph. Acharn. 916.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Footnote 1633:

Pub. Econ. of Athens, i. 77. i. 65.

Footnote 1634:

De Modo Usur. ap. Vet. p. 193, sqq. Bœckh, i. 78.

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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]

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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]

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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.

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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.

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Footnote 1643:

Xenoph. de Vectigal. ch. i.

Footnote 1644:

Xenoph. Œconom. _passim_.

Footnote 1645:

Dicæarchos, p. 1.

Footnote 1646:

Aristoph. Acharn. 32, sqq.

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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]

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Footnote 1647:

Dem. cont. Neær. § 9.

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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]

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Footnote 1648:

Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 14.

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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.

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Footnote 1649:

Herod. iv. 17.

Footnote 1650:

Varro de Re Rust. l. 1.

Footnote 1651:

Lucian. Navig. § 6.

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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]

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Footnote 1652:

Bœckh. i. 80.

Footnote 1653:

Herod. v. 88. Athen. iv. 13. xi. 60.

Footnote 1654:

Valcken. ad Herod. Wessel. p. 416.

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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]

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Footnote 1655:

Concion. 813, with the Scholiast.

Footnote 1656:

Econ. of Athens, i. 81.

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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]

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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.

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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]

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Footnote 1659:

Pub. Econ. of Ath. i. 81, seq.

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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.

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Footnote 1660:

Compare Hume’s Essay on Interest, p. 172, sqq. with Mr. Bœckh’s Public
Economy of Athens, i. 82.

Footnote 1661:

Herod. iv. 152.

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