Trade, Transport and Society in the Ancient World (Routledge Revivals)

A Sourcebook

Onno Van Nijf, Fik Meijer

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317575986
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Storia
• Categoria: Storia dell'antica Grecia

This book, first published in 1992, presents an introduction to the nature of trade and transport in antiquity through a selection of translated literary, papyrological, epigraphical and legal sources. These texts illustrate a range of aspects of ancient trade and transport: from the role of the authorities, to the status of traders, to the capacity and speed of ancient ships.

It is clear that the actual means of transportation were crucial; the book illustrates the limitations of ancient transport technology and the consequences for the development of commerce. It focuses first on different aspects of transport over land and then on transport by river and concludes with a discussion of several aspects of ancient seafaring,

This book is ideal for students of ancient history.

Part I

Ideology and practice of ancient trade

1 Greek and Roman values

The ideology of the landowning aristocracies of antiquity finds expression in Greek and Latin literature. Often praise is heaped upon agriculture, but trade is only mentioned as an afterthought, or not at all. Occasionally the negative aspects of trade are dealt with in more detail. Some authors merely sum up the traditional objections to trade; others deal with it in a more philosophical way.

I GREEK VALUES

1 Thucydides I.2.1–2

The Athenian historian Thucydides (fifth century BC) looks back to the early days of Greek history, and describes a situation that differs widely from circumstances prevailing in his own days:

For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness.

(trans. Crawley)

2 Homer, Odyssey XIV.288–9

In the world described by Homer regular trade existed on a small scale. The typical specialist trader was an outsider, like the Phoenician of this fragment. He was treated with distrust, even though his merchandise was welcome. Here Odysseus has returned to Ithaca after a long absence. He tells his trusted swineherd Eumaeus of his travels, and describes a Phoenician, whom he has met in Egypt.

But in the course of the eighth, I fell in with a rascally Phoenician, a thieving rogue who had already done a deal of mischief in the world.

(trans. Rieu)

3 Homer, Odyssey XV.415–17

Eumaeus, who was sold as a slave to the father of Odysseus by Phoenician merchants, shares his feelings.

One day the island was visited by a party of Phoenicians – famous sailors, but greedy rogues – with a whole cargo of trinkets in their black ship.

(trans. Rieu)

4 Hesiod, Works and Days 618–94

Around 700 BC Hesiod wrote his Works and Days. The poem is partially directed against his brother Perses, who has robbed him of part of his patrimony. Hesiod deals thoroughly with the social and economic problems that confront the farmer, and offers practical and moral advice. He praises the esthlos bios, the noble way of life of the countryman, and expresses his disapproval of the hazards of maritime trade.

If now the desire to go to sea (disagreeable as it is) has hold of you: when the Pleiades, running before Orion’s grim strength, are plunging into the misty sea, then the blasts of every kind of wind rage; at this time do not keep ships on the wine-faced sea, but work the earth assiduously, as I tell you. Pull the ship on to land and pack it with stones all round to withstand the fury of the wet-blowing winds, taking out the plug so that heaven’s rains do not cause rot. Lay away all the tackle under lock in your house, tidily stowing the wings of the seagoing vessel; hang the well-crafted steering-oar up in the smoke; and wait till the time for sailing comes.

Then drag the swift ship to the sea, and in it arrange your cargo fittingly so that you may win profit for your return: just as my father and yours, foolish Perses, used to sail in ships in want of fair livelihood. And one day he came here, making the long crossing from Aeolian Cyme in his dark ship, not running from riches, nor from wealth and prosperity, but from evil poverty, which Zeus dispenses to men. And he settled near Helicon in a miserable village, Ascra, bad in winter, foul in summer, good at no time.

But you, Perses, must attend to all tasks in season, and in the matter of seafaring above all. Compliment a small ship, but put your cargo in a big one: bigger will be the cargo, bigger the extra gain, provided that the winds withhold their ill blasts.

When you want to escape debt and joyless hunger by turning your blight-witted heart to trade, I will show you the measure of the resounding sea – quite without instruction as I am either in seafaring or in ships; for as to ships, I have never yet sailed the broad sea, except to Euboea from Aulis, the way the Achaeans once came when they waited through the winter and gathered a great army from holy Greece against Troy of the fair women. There to the funeral games for warlike Amphidamas and to Chalcis I crossed, and many were the prizes announced and displayed by the sons of that valiant; where I may say that I was victorious in poetry and won a tripod with ring handles. That I dedicated to the Muses of Helicon, in the original place where they set me on the path of fine singing. That is all my experience of dowelled ships, but even so I will tell the design of Zeus the aegis-bearer, since the Muses have taught me to make song without limit.

For fifty days after the solstice, when the summer has entered its last stage, the season of fatigue, then is the time for mortals to sail. You are not likely to smash your ship, nor the sea to destroy the crew, unless it be that of set mind Poseidon the earth-shaker or Zeus king of the immortals wants to destroy them, for in their hands lies the outcome of good and bad things alike. At that time the breezes are well defined and the sea harmless. Then without anxiety, trusting the winds, drag your swift ship into the sea and put all the cargo aboard. But make haste to come home again as quickly as you can, and do not wait for the new wine and the autumn rains, the onset of winter and the fearsome blasts of the South Wind, which stirs up the sea as it comes with heaven’s plentiful rains of autumn, and makes the waves rough.

There is another time for men to sail in the spring. As soon as the size of the crow’s footprint is matched by the aspect of the leaves on the end of the fig-branch, then the sea is suitable for embarkation. This is the spring sailing. I do not recommend it; it is not to my heart’s liking. A snatched sailing: you would have difficulty in avoiding trouble. But men do even that in their folly, because property is as life to wretched mortals. But it is a fearful thing to die among the waves. I suggest you bear all this in mind, as I tell you it.

And do not put all your substance in ships’ holds, but leave the greater part and ship the lesser; for it is a fearful thing to meet with disaster among the waves of the sea, and a fearful thing if you put too great a burden upon your cart and smash the axle and the cargo is spoiled. Observe due measure; opportuneness is best in everything.

(trans. West)

5 Plato, Laws IV.704b5–705b8

In the Laws, his last work, Plato (427–347 BC) offers a blueprint for his ideal state. In his opinion one consideration should be its location. Proximity to the sea offers more disadvantages than advantages.

Had it to be on the coast, well furnished with harbours and ill off for many of its necessaries, not productive of all, we should need a mighty protector and lawgivers who were more than men to prevent the development of much refined vice in consequence of such a situation. As it is, there is comfort in those eighty stadia. Even so, the site is nearer to the sea than it should be, all the more as you say it is well provided with a harbour. Still, we ought to be thankful for even so much. It is agreeable enough to have the sea at one’s door in daily life; but, for all that, it is, in very truth, a ‘briny’ and bitter ‘neighbour ’. It fills a city with wholesale traffic and retail huckstering, breeds shifty and distrustful habits of soul, and so makes a society distrustful and unfriendly within itself as well as towards mankind at large. In view of this situation, there is further comfort, however, in the universal productiveness of our site.

(trans. Taylor)

6 Plato, Laws XII.952d–953e

Traders from other cities would better be kept outside the city walls.

We are next to consider the welcome to be given to a visitor from abroad. The foreign visitors of whom account must be taken are of four sorts. First, and everlastingly, a guest who will pay his incessant calls, for the most part, in the summer, like a bird of passage; most of his kind are, in fact, just like winged creatures in the way they come flying overseas, at the proper season, on their profitable business errands. He shall be admitted by officials appointed for his benefit, to our market-place, harbours, and certain public buildings erected near the city but outside its walls. The officials will take care to prevent the introduction of novelties by these guests, and will administer proper justice to them, but shall keep their intercourse with them within the strict bounds of necessity.

(trans. Taylor)

7 Xenophon, Oeconomicus V.17

The word ‘economics’ is derived from a Greek word: oikonomia. Yet when in the fourth century Xenophon published his Oeconomicus and Aristotle his Economics, the subject was by no means an analysis of the ‘economic system as an enormous conglomeration of interdependent markets ’.¹ The subject-matter was the management of the oikos, the household, or management, administration and organization of larger units.

The Oeconomicus of Xenophon is a Socratic dialogue on the running of an agricultural estate. Agriculture is described as the only activity befitting a gentleman. It is praised for having a positive effect on a man’s character, deriving from the fact that agriculture is the only truly self-sufficient activity.

Whoever said that husbandry is the mother and nurse of all the other arts spoke finely indeed. For when husbandry goes well, all the other arts also flourish, but when the earth is compelled to lie barren, the other arts almost cease to exist, at sea as well as on the earth.

NOTE

1 M.I. Finley, The Ancient Economy, London 1985², 22.

8 Aristotle, Economics II. 1.1–6

The central problem of Aristotle’s Oeconomica is the way in which individual landowners, administrators and rulers managed their budgets. His main principle is the common-sense observation that expenditure should never exceed revenue. He distinguishes between four types of ‘economy ’:

He who intends to practise economy aright ought to be fully acquainted with the places in which his labour lies and to be naturally endowed with good parts and deliberately industrious and upright; for if he is lacking in any of these respects, he will make many mistakes in the business which he takes in hand.

Now there are four kinds of economy, that of the king (Royal Economy), that of the provincial governor (Satrapic Economy), that of the city (Political Economy), and that of the individual (Personal Economy). This is a broad method of ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Measures, weights and coins
• List of abbreviations
• Part I Ideology and practice of ancient trade
• Part II The commodities
• Part III Transport and means of transportation
• Select bibliography
• Index of passages cited
• General index