History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

CHAPTER VII.

Roman empire—The cause of its decline—First invasion of Goths, A.D. 217—Their habits—Defeat the Emperor Decius, A.D. 257—Rebellion of Egypt, A.D. 273—Franks and Allemanni—The Veneti on the coast of Gaul—Constantinople founded, A.D. 323—Its commercial advantages and harbour—The extent of its ancient trade—Black Sea and Sea of Azov—The trading vessels on—Oppressive taxation—The laws affecting shipping—Constans and Julian—Produce of certain lands applied to the sea service—Neglect and decline of commerce, and sufferings of the people—Siege of Rome by Alaric and the Goths, A.D. 408—Genseric—His capture of Rome—Rise of Constantinople—Customs’ duties—Silk trade—Naval expedition of Justinian against the Vandals, A.D. 533, and conquest of Carthage—Rise of the Muhammedan power, A.D. 622—Rapid conquests; of Jerusalem, A.D. 636; of Alexandria, A.D. 638; and of Africa, A.D. 647—Sieges of Constantinople, A.D. 668-675.

Roman empire.

The cause of its decline.

A.D. 212-235.

From the close of the last Punic war to the middle of the third century after Christ, the Romans were the greatest if not the only enemies of Rome. The extravagance and heedless folly of her citizens were in themselves enough to ruin a less powerful nation. Without competitors, she maintained a position for centuries which, under other circumstances, the lavish expenditure of her people would have destroyed in as many years. The mistress of the world could do as she pleased; and the industry of the country districts was heavily burdened to support, in indolence and luxury, its rulers at Rome. Under such circumstances as these a fall must have come sooner or later; and so we find that even under the excellent government of the Antonines the decay of the imperial system had fully commenced. On their removal, and on the accession of such princes as Commodus, Caracalla and Elagabalus, the decay was much more rapid, till at length commerce, the true index of the real state of a nation, failed to recover its former position, even with the willing and active support of Alexander Severus. Nor was it possible that the corruption of Rome throughout its whole administration could be long kept a secret. On her distant and outlying provinces she had jealous enemies, burning to avenge past injuries and insults, and eagerly awaiting the opportunity of finding or making an entrance through her armour.

First invasion of Goths, A.D. 217.

A.D. 249.

Already in the reign of Caracalla, the Goths had begun to move southwards from their earliest known haunts in south Prussia and Poland,[325] but their advance was for a time checked by that emperor. This was their first attempt at marching in the direction of Rome. A little later, in the reign of Philippus, they seized a great part of the Roman province of Dacia (Hungary), and from this time their attacks, though from time to time repelled, became more frequent and more destructive. Under their two great divisions of Ostro-Goth and Visi-Goth they waged a continual predatory war against Rome, becoming able eventually to wrest from the Romans the whole of Italy, and to capture the haughty city itself.

Their habits.

The character of the Goths has probably been sketched with sufficient accuracy by Tacitus in his famous essay “De Germanis,” as that of a wild, illiterate, brave nation, preserving in their habits and ordinary mode of life their original savage character. They possessed nothing that could be called a city; but dwelt in rude and temporary huts wherever game and water were abundant. “The characteristic,” says he, “of all these nations is the round shield, the short sword, and obedience to their kings.”[326]

Defeat the Emperor Decius, A.D. 257.

Such were the people who, more than any others, caused the disruption of the Roman empire. Devastating the country on all sides, as they advanced through the Ukraine into Thrace, and having captured the city of Philippopolis, and defeated and slain the Emperor Decius, they were for a while checked by an ignominious peace, and by the payment of a considerable sum in money by his successor, Gallus, which only showed the weakness of the empire, and stimulated them to fresh attacks. The province of Dacia, ceded to them by Aurelian, was one of the first steps in advance they secured; for, though often repulsed with great loss, their perseverance was indomitable, while they showed an aptitude for war remarkable among men in other respects so ignorant; their recovery from crushing defeats being often scarcely less glorious than their victories. Thus, when joined with the Vandals in the expedition that ended in the possession of Dacia, they soon made themselves masters of the Black Sea. An enormous army needs an ample fleet; but it would seem that the fearless courage of the Goths made up for want of skill in the construction of their transport vessels. The natives of the coasts of that sea had for centuries made use of very frail boats for its navigation;[327] and there is no reason for supposing that the Goths had better ships than Tacitus describes as on the Euxine in his day. Speaking of a sudden invasion of Pontus, A.D. 69, that historian says: “The barbarians even insolently scoured the sea, in hastily constructed vessels of their own, called ‘cameræ,’ built with narrow sides and broad bottoms, and joined together without fastenings of brass and iron. Whenever the water is rough, they raise the bulwarks with additional planks, according to the increasing height of the waves, till the vessel is covered in like a house. Thus they roll about amid the billows, and as they have a prow at both extremities alike, and a convertible arrangement of oars, they may be paddled in one direction or another, indifferently and without risk.”[328]

It was in such frail craft as these that the Goths committed themselves to a sea with which they were wholly unacquainted, yet, under the guidance of local and impressed mariners, they succeeded in surprising the city of Trebizond, wherein immense treasures had been collected for safety, its capture, with many of its merchants, being the reward of their daring.

Seven years after obtaining possession of Dacia they were, however, again driven from it by Probus; but the skill and courage of these barbarous tribes were always conspicuous at sea; and in no instance more so than in the case of a party of Franks, who had been settled near the sea coast, and who, being suddenly seized with the desire of returning to their homes, surprised a small fleet then on the Euxine, and were thus enabled to carry out their plan. Unskilled in the art of navigation, and unacquainted with any other except the Baltic and the Black Seas, these adventurers made their way through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean, and, after sacking Syracuse and other towns, boldly steered through the Straits of Gibraltar, entered the Atlantic with a degree of hardihood almost unparalleled, and made a triumphant passage to the Batavian or Frisian coasts.[329]

Rebellion of Egypt, A.D. 273.

Though repeatedly defeated, their successes, together with the steady advance of other barbarian hordes from the north, were sufficient to destroy the prestige which had for centuries made Rome invincible. A general spirit of revolt was now awakened in all the provinces. Even Egypt, so long the most docile of the slaves of Rome, was aroused into active rebellion by Firmus, a wealthy merchant of Alexandria, who, after plundering that city at the head of a furious mob, maintained, though for only sixty days, the imperial purple, published edicts, and raised an army, supported, as he boasted vaingloriously, from the profits of his paper trade.[330]

Franks and Allemanni.

The dangerous secret of the wealth and weakness of the empire once clearly discerned, new swarms of barbarians, encouraged by the successes of those who had gone before them, sprang into existence, overran the northern districts, flooded Gaul and Spain, and carried desolation and terror almost to the very walls of Rome. Of these the most formidable were the Franks, or Freemen, who now occupied the Rhenish frontier, and the Allemanni, a name now generally held to imply a confederacy of many tribes of German origin. As in the case of the Goths, their first successes were of short duration, and, after three bloody battles, Aurelian was able to drive them out of Italy, securing, at the same time, by the overthrow of Zenobia and the destruction of Firmus, a short breathing time for the distracted empire. But the policy now, though not for the first time, adopted by the Roman generals, was not one likely to succeed against the hosts now arrayed against the empire. The principle of building walls of great size and length, which had failed in England and in Scotland, failed even more conspicuously when adopted by Probus,[331] who, at the head of his legions, still maintained vigorously the prowess and the name of ancient Rome. His wall, two hundred miles in length, from the Danube to the Rhine, could be of little real value against an active and experienced enemy; indeed, Gibbon stated the truth when he said, “The experience of the world has exposed the vain attempt of fortifying an extensive tract of country.” Nor did Probus’s second scheme of enlisting in the Roman armies large levies taken from tribes but partially conquered, prove, as might have been anticipated, a more effective source of security and strength. It must, indeed, have been clear to any persons of observation, that no permanent stability could be secured for a government which wasted its means by acts of wanton and revolting extravagance, such as those which Gibbon has so eloquently described in his “Decline and Fall” of the great empire.

The barbarians, ever on the alert, now discovered that there were traitors within the Roman camps who gave fresh assistance to their inroads. Such a traitor was Carausius, not, as Stukeley imagined, a descendant of the blood royal of Britain, but a Dutch soldier of fortune, of the tribe of the Menapii. Tampering with the fleet he commanded in the name of Maximian, he crossed with it from Gessoriacum (Boulogne), and, seizing on Britain, proclaimed himself Augustus and struck money with his effigy. For seven years he maintained his ill-gotten power, but, though at length murdered by his lieutenant, Allectus, Carausius deserves some historical remembrance as the first creator of a British-manned navy.

A.D. 287.

The Veneti on the coast of Gaul.

In the reign of Diocletian events somewhat similar occurred. The Britons again revolted; Egypt was again the scene of fresh discord and confusion, and though the various attempts to throw off the Roman yoke still proved abortive, the general decline of intellectual power among the Roman people became so apparent that fresh enemies arose against her in almost every quarter. The Veneti, who, four centuries before, had given Julius Cæsar[332] no little trouble ere he reduced them to subjection, perceiving the weakness of Rome and the impunity with which her territory had been ravaged by the Northern hordes, rose in arms against her, and exercising an arbitrary dominion over the seas that washed their coasts, exacted tribute from all strangers, and for a while successfully bade defiance to Rome, whose mariners dreaded the navigation of the Bay of Biscay.

Constantinople founded, A.D. 323.

Its commercial advantages, and harbour.

The reign, too, of Diocletian, who seems to have had an especial dislike for Rome and the senate, saw the commencement of a new system of imperial government, which, afterwards more fully developed by Constantine, led to the removal of the chief seat of government to Constantinople, a change which exerted a vast influence on commerce, and essentially altered the course of navigation. The splendid position of Constantinople, especially for all purposes of sea-borne trade, has been fully noticed by every author who has treated of this subject; and it seems probable that, when brought into communication with the whole of Europe, by means of the railways now fast approaching completion, it will rival in greatness any commercial city of the continent. The new route to India by way of the Suez canal, of which advantage will, no doubt, be taken by the establishment of a line of steamers to Port Said, cannot fail to afford it such facilities for becoming a great depôt for the produce of the East Indies, that it will be the fault of its government and of its merchants if it does not again assume and surpass the rank it held soon after its re-construction by Constantine the Great. Gibbon’s description of its position is as applicable now as ever.[333] “The imperial city,” he remarks, “may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmora: the basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the continent of Europe.”

“The epithet of ‘golden’ in ‘Golden Horn,’” he adds, “was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus, formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of the tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it has been observed that, in many places, the largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while the sterns are floating on the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that of the harbour this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a chain could be occasionally drawn across it to guard the port and city from the attack of a hostile navy.”

The extent of its ancient trade.

The Hellespont, in its winding course, is about sixty miles in length, with an average breadth of three miles; its lower end, where Xerxes is believed to have built his bridge of boats, is celebrated as the spot where Leander, in ancient times, is said to have swum across, and which has, in modern days, been certainly so crossed by Byron,[334] Ekenhead, Colquhoun, and others. Altogether Constantinople would seem to have been formed by nature as an important entrepôt for commerce; and this was peculiarly the case in ancient times, as caravan routes placed it in communication, not merely with the cities of Mesopotamia, but also with those on the Indus and the Ganges, thus securing for it the trade with the Euxine and the Caspian, and even the silk trade of China. With the Bosphorus and the Hellespont for its gates, whoever secures possession of these important passages can always shut them against a naval enemy, and open them to the peaceable fleets of commerce.

Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

Although the trade of the Black Sea was considerable, even in remote times, it greatly increased after the foundation of Constantinople. Across this sea a large portion of the goods of Asia found their way; while gold from Colchis; and from the surrounding coasts, corn, leather, flax, honey, wax, flocks of sheep and goats, furs, medicinal herbs, and timber suitable for ship-building, found a ready mart in the markets of the new city. The fisheries of the Euxine and the Bosphorus still maintained their ancient reputation. Sturgeon and tunny-fish, abundant in the Black Sea,[335] had, of old, fetched excessive prices in Greece and Italy, and, under the Greek emperors, contributed largely to the revenues of the state. The city of Byzantium, also, raised large sums annually from dues levied on shipping passing through the Straits.

The Palus Mæotis, or Sea of Azov, and the Tauric Chersonesus, now the Crimea, became, after the time of Constantine, places of importance; while Theodosia (now Kaffa) and Tanais (the present city of Azov) grew to be of great commercial value when occupied by the Genoese. Of these, Azov, Panticapæum (Kertch), and Odessa (probably at or near the ancient Olbia), have retained an extensive trade in corn, wool, and tallow, to the present time, the latter being now the most enterprising commercial port on the shores of the Black Sea.

The trading vessels on.

The rude vessels the Goths used in crossing the Black Sea were probably fair specimens of the ordinary craft in which the early maritime commerce along its shores was conducted. The largest of the corn ships employed within the Euxine and Azov seldom exceeded in capacity from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty quarters of wheat, or from fifty to seventy tons. Some of those which passed on to the Mediterranean may have been larger, for then, as now, there was considerable difference (though not nearly so great as in our own day) in the size of merchant vessels. It was not, however, until Constantinople was founded, and revived the trade with Egypt, that ships of great dimensions were constructed there, specially for the purposes of commerce. Gibbon[336] has described as “canoes,” consisting of a single tree hollowed out, the vessels used on the Black Sea by the Goths in their descent on Trebizond; but no one will believe that, with all their rash bravery, they actually trusted themselves to boats so small as this view suggests; nor, indeed, does the passage in Strabo to which Gibbon has referred, imply all that he has deduced from it. Many vessels, vastly superior in build to the simple monoxyle, must have existed; though their construction may easily have been so inartistic that they were scarcely safer than canoes.

Oppressive taxation.

To increase as rapidly as possible the size and magnificence of the new capital, the opulent senators of Rome and the great landowners or merchants of the eastern provinces were, at first, induced to make it their place of residence by the assignment to them, on the part of Constantine, of many of the palaces and of the costly mansions he had erected. In time, however, such encouragements became unnecessary and were gradually abolished. The court, and the fact that Constantinople had become the chief seat of government, attracted to it the wealthiest inhabitants of the provinces; while others were induced to dwell there through motives of interest, business, or pleasure, so that, in less than a century from the time of its foundation, Constantinople rivalled, if it did not equal, Rome herself, in population and in wealth. Nor does it seem to have been much less extravagant or less luxurious than the Western capital in life and morals, for the magnificence of the first Cæsars was largely imitated by its founder. The natural results followed in the form of an oppressive system of taxation, which fell heavily upon the trading portion of the community. Tributes of corn were exacted from Egypt, and the poorest traders, the industrious manufacturers, and the most obscure retail dealer, were, with the rich merchants, alike obliged to admit the officers of the revenue into a partnership of their gains.

This general tax on industry, which was collected every fourth year, appears to have caused such lamentation, that the approach of the period for collecting it “was announced by the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled, by the impending scourge, to embrace the most abhorred and unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property had been assessed.”[337] From the nature of this tax, it may be inferred that it was arbitrary in its distribution, while, from the rigorous mode of its collection, it could hardly fail to be both unequal and oppressive in its operation. The income tax of our own time has been frequently denounced for its inquisitorial character and the irregularity of the burden imposed on different sections of the people; and if it be difficult now to ascertain, in various branches of trade, the actual amount of a trader’s gains, it must have been far more so in ancient days, when the precarious profits of art or labour were capable of only a discretionary valuation.

The laws affecting shipping.

Constans and Julian.

A.D. 527.

A.D. 364 and 375.

A.D. 379-395.

It is certain, however, that laws pressing heavily on the merchant were now greatly modified in favour of those who followed maritime pursuits—a remarkable fact, as contrasted with the former legislation of Rome and the contempt in which seafaring persons had been previously held. The emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius exempted the ship-owners and the sailors who navigated their vessels, from the payment of taxes, on the ground that the merchant was enriched by foreign trade, while the mariners had all the trouble and risk. The fifth title of the thirteenth book of the Theodosian code referred exclusively to their interests; while the ninth law under that head, enacted by the emperors Constans and Julian, further shelters them from personal injuries and protects them “from all costs of violent proceedings, as well as extortions, ordinary and extraordinary.” Nearly two hundred years afterwards the Emperor Justinian considered it politic to incorporate this law into his celebrated code;[338] the same exemptions being granted by that emperor, in his fourth and fifth law under the same table as the Theodosian code. The laws of the emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, embodied in the Code of Justinian, likewise forbid, on pain of death, that any one should insult the persons of mariners, while the special enactments of Arcadius, Honorius, and Theodosius treated them with the like respect. The same code furnishes another law of Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius, wherein these privileges are confirmed and ordered to be continued for ever.

Such extraordinary privileges conferred on the seafaring population of the empire—privileges unknown in any other country or in any other age—were probably enacted in order to revive the nautical spirit which had been so long practically treated with contempt. No doubt, special bounties were needed to ensure the import of corn and the construction of vessels adapted to this purpose. Indeed, the necessity of a constant and steady supply of food sufficient to meet the wants of the people, and to prevent the tumults which too frequently arose whenever there was a prospect of a scarcity of corn, sufficiently accounts for the encouragement afforded to this particular trade. But in the later days it was found necessary to create laws to raise further in the social scale the seafaring classes. Indeed this seems the only reason why the emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius should have issued ordinances to prevent persons adopting the sea as a profession who had previously exercised any mean and disgraceful employment;[339] endeavouring thus, so far as laws could do so, to counteract the deep-rooted prejudice against seafaring pursuits. By the decrees of Constantine and Julian, sailors were even raised to the dignity of knighthood; while Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian enjoined that persons filling the functions of mariners should be admitted into the society of men of the most honourable and aristocratic parentage, and even into the senate.

Produce of certain lands applied to the sea service.

But while the Roman laws enacted at the new capital conceded so many privileges to persons who adopted the sea as a profession, the state also required the possessors of certain lands (making this, indeed, the condition of the grant) to perform the functions of public mariners; but this arrangement was so contrived that actual personal service was not enforced, although the expense of substitutes was charged on the lands. The nature of this scheme is fully explained in the Theodosian Code,[340] where the rights of the state and of the parties are defined. When these lands were sold, the law enforced the same obligations upon the purchasers; and the emperors Valentinian and Valens enacted, that if they passed into the hands of strangers, they should revert to “mariners,” on conditions regulated by the experience and practice of the previous fifty years. On the other hand, those persons who were employed in the service of the state were not permitted, in such voyages, to carry any private merchandise; moreover, the owners of vessels engaged in certain trades were required to hold them at the disposal of the state. In spite, however, of all these laws, the encouragement proposed or provided by them came too late.

Neglect and decline of commerce, and sufferings of the people.

But while a new life was being gradually infused into the empire by the creation of Constantinople, overgrown wealth and luxury, with the evils following in their train, indolence, waste, and extravagance, were only too surely working out the downfall of old Rome. Capital, which ought to have been used as a provision for fresh channels of employment for an increasing population, was devoted to pleasure and folly; while no middle class arose to create fresh capital by its industry and to supply the place of the annual waste. In no age or country have the extremes of wealth and poverty been so great; even the provincial merchants came not to the capital to increase its wealth, but rather to waste their own substance. They sought to rival, in display, the ancient noblesse; they rented their palaces to enjoy their society, and were ready to spend fortunes derived from commerce to win a ready entrance into their salons.

So early as the Augustan age, Livy and Pliny have alluded to the then enormous accumulation of wealth in Rome; the former describing the mass of treasure accumulated there as something fabulous;[341] the latter stating that there were side-boards in his time groaning under more solid silver than had been transported by Scipio from vanquished Carthage. Besides all this removable wealth in the shape of plate, there was, no doubt, a still greater supply in jewels and precious stones, in gold ornaments and in the current metallic coin of the empire. Unlike their poor and invincible ancestors, who were not distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers by the delicacy of their food or the splendour of their apparel, the nobles of Rome, in its latter days, were not merely fond of the most ostentatious display, but magnified the rent rolls of their estates, too frequently living in accordance with their imaginary rather than with their actual incomes. The “Satires” of Juvenal portray but too distinctly the corruption of manners which had in his time (the reign of Domitian) extended to the female portion of the population.[342]

History, it has been truly said, repeats itself; and the reading of the lengthened description Ammianus has given of the extravagance of Rome reminds us of too many of the gay assemblies so frequently met with in our own time. Nor is his description of the manners of the Roman nobility wholly unlike what may too frequently be now seen in the conduct of those persons who measure their importance by their wealth and gay equipages, or who, by their rapid acquisition of large fortunes, and their method of dealing with them, used to be known in England as “Nabobs,” but who now bear a less flattering name.

While such was the state of the upper, the middle classes, who derived their subsistence from their skill and industry, and who, in all communities, constitute the mainstay of a nation, had become comparatively insignificant, the still lower orders being reduced, in most instances, to abject poverty. Large allowances of bread were daily served out at the public expense; and, in one year, three millions six hundred and twenty-eight thousand pounds of bacon are said to have been distributed to the needy masses, as well as oil, indispensable alike for the lamp and the bath, to the extent of three hundred thousand English gallons; but the poor citizens had become almost as indolent and depraved as their rulers. In the baths, constructed in every part of the city with imperial magnificence for the indiscriminate use of the senators and the people, the meanest Romans idled away their time. For a small copper coin[343] they could there purchase the daily enjoyment of a scene of pomp and luxury which might well have excited the envy of princes. Baths, the extent of which we can now scarcely comprehend, surrounded with granite pillars from the quarries of Egypt and adorned with the precious green marble of Numidia, with streams of ever-running hot water from mouths of bright and massive silver, were the hourly resort of dirty and ragged plebeians without shoes or mantles.

Siege of Rome by Alaric and the Goths, A.D. 408.

Such was the state of the western capital of the once proud and powerful Roman empire, when the Gothic army first appeared before it. The barbarian Goths had greatly improved in discipline since they made their first invasion of Italy; they were well organised, and under the absolute control of Alaric, a commander in whom they had a confidence approaching to devotion. Their first action against the city itself was rather in the nature of a blockade, for they cut off all communication with it by land, while they held the mouths of the Tiber; hence, in spite of their rage and humiliation, the Romans saw at once that they had no alternative but submission, and it is to the credit of the victorious leader of the Goths that the terms he imposed were neither severe nor extravagant.

From Rome Alaric continued his march into Tuscany, where vast numbers of enslaved barbarians flocked to his standard; so that with the reinforcement of a large body of Goths and Huns, who had fought their way from the banks of the Danube, he had now, under his command, an army sufficient to overawe the whole of Italy. By this time the prestige of Rome had gone for ever; she was now destined to become the frequent prey of the barbarians of the north, till the tribes of Germany and Scythia, who had so long coveted her wealth, at length accomplished her destruction.

A.D. 409.

A.D. 413.

A.D. 427-439.

A.D. 409-426.

The first half of the century which saw Rome blockaded was full of events, all tending towards her final overthrow. Spain, separated from the enemies of Rome by her insular position and the Pyrenean mountains, had been almost undisturbed for four hundred years by foreign invaders or civil wars. It was her turn now. Ten months after Alaric’s attack on the capital, the Vandals and other barbarous tribes found their way thither, and plundered her rich and prosperous cities, her valuable mines, and her fruitful plains. Soon afterwards Africa revolted; the consul, Heraclian, assumed the title of emperor, and prepared a vast fleet for the invasion of Italy; but though he failed in his designs, Carthage and the whole of Africa were prepared, by this outbreak, for subjugation by the Vandals under Genseric, their able and energetic leader. Revolutions arose in Gaul. Its most opulent provinces became the prey of the barbarians, and its fairest and most fertile lands fell into the hands of rapacious strangers, and were assigned for the use of their families, their slaves, and their cattle. About the same time the regular forces were withdrawn from Britain, and the defenceless islanders abandoned to the Welsh and Scotch semi-savages and to the Saxon invaders. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that, reduced as she was by constant wars and invasions, distracted by the folly and weakness of her own people, and despoiled of her best provinces, the Imperial City itself fell an easy prey to the Vandal hosts of Genseric.

Genseric.

Having made himself master of Carthage, and having confiscated all the estates belonging to the Roman nobles and senators, Genseric at once resolved to build a fleet for the blockade of the Tiber, and to treat the Imperial City as she had treated Carthage. His bold resolve was executed with steady and active perseverance. The woods on Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible supply of timber suitable for his purpose, while the Moors and Africans, alike skilled in the arts of ship-building and navigation, were ready to execute commands which held out the hope of unlimited plunder. Nor, indeed, was Genseric without other and certain inducements to act at once on the plan he had proposed to himself. In the first place, he could hardly have failed to know that since the invasion of Alaric, the nobles and senators of Rome had sunk into their former state of apathy and indolence; that they were giving no heed to the dangers besetting their capital, while they had taken no warning from the losses they had sustained by the frequent invasions of the barbarians. “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” had become their maxim and that of the Emperor Maximus, who, however incapable of administering an empire, might at least have ascertained the extent and the object of the naval preparations on the opposite shore of Africa. Yet, like his nobles, he was content to await in luxurious ease the approach of the enemy, careless alike of any means of defence, of negotiation, or of retreat.[344]

His capture of Rome.

Within three days of a popular tumult which closed in ignominy the life of another feeble emperor, Genseric advanced from the port of Ostia to the gates of the defenceless city. An unarmed procession, headed by the bishop and clergy, met him and implored his mercy. But, though the barbarian conqueror promised to spare the unresisting multitude, to protect the buildings from fire, and to exempt the captives from torture, Rome and its inhabitants were given over to the licentious mercies of his army—a tardy but terrible revenge for the Roman sack of Carthage. During fourteen days and nights there was one almost uninterrupted scene of plunder and sacrilege, and all that remained of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was transported to the vessels of the Vandal king. The “gold table” and “the golden candlestick with seven branches,” which, three and a half centuries before, Titus had carried away from Jerusalem, were now transferred, by a barbarian conqueror, from Rome to Africa. The gorgeous decorations of the Christian churches, and of the Pagan temples, constituted a rich prize to the host of Genseric. Having time to collect and ships to transport any removable article of value in the capital, the conqueror spared neither church nor temple, dwelling-house, nor palace. The magnificent furniture and massive plate with which the palace of the emperor was furnished, were gathered up with disorderly rapine; even brass and copper were not beneath the notice of the Vandals, and were, whenever found, as carefully removed as articles of gold and silver. The Empress Eudoxia herself, at whose instigation, it is said, Genseric had been led to undertake his expedition, was compelled, with her daughters, to follow as a captive in the train of the conqueror, and to expiate, during a seven years’ exile in Africa, a treason of which her subjects alone had any ground of complaint.[345]

Rise of Constantinople.

When Rome fell, the sovereign of the eastern empire claimed, and long maintained, the fictitious title of Emperor of the Romans, adopting the hereditary names of Cæsar and Augustus, and declaring himself the legitimate successor of the imperial rulers of Rome; and, indeed, if mere splendour was enough to support such a claim, the emperors of Constantinople were well justified in all their assertions. The palaces of Constantinople rivalled, if they did not surpass, the gorgeousness of Rome in her proudest days; while in barbaric “pomp and circumstance,” and in their Oriental and tawdry magnificence, they unquestionably stood alone. Moreover, the emperor at Constantinople was inaccessible alike to the complaints of his own people and to the menaces of his enemies, the peninsular position of the city rendering it during many centuries impregnable against the attack of foes from without, so that the barbarian armies which had swept Europe and Africa from end to end, turned aside from a fortress no military knowledge or skill then available could have reduced.

For some time it would seem that Genseric remained undisturbed, for Leo, the eastern emperor, was little disposed to avenge his brother of the west. At length, however, he was obliged, or persuaded, to join Egypt and Italy in an attempt to deliver the Mediterranean from the sway of the Vandals, Genseric having become as oppressive on land as he was formidable at sea. By extraordinary exertions a vast fleet was collected, chiefly, as the historians inform us, at the cost of the emperor himself; but it was feebly commanded, and its destruction inevitable as soon as it should come into collision with so veteran a general as Genseric. Though it would seem that, at the first landing near Carthage, the attack on the Vandals was successful, their wily leader, obtaining from the commander of the Greeks a hollow truce, and watching the opportunity of a favourable change of the wind, suddenly launched his fire-ships on his unsuspecting foes. More than half their fleet was destroyed, and Genseric was again ready to complete the final destruction of Rome.[346] “Leave the determination to the winds,” was the favourite reply of the Vandal king when asked whither he meant to steer; “they will transport us to the guilty coast whose inhabitants have provoked Divine justice.”

During the fifty years that intervened between the fall of the Roman empire of the West, and the memorable reign of Justinian, Italy revived and flourished under the good and wise government of a Gothic king, who, with abilities equal to those of Genseric, had few of his vices and none of his predatory habits. During that period, also, the vast changes which had taken place in the ancient provinces of Rome had become consolidated, and out of these had arisen various independent nations destined to occupy a conspicuous position in the maritime commerce of the world. The rude tribes of the North had, to some extent at least, been blended with the more civilized and refined inhabitants of the South; and an admixture of races had taken place, which, though adverse for a while to the cause of learning, was of solid advantage to the people, tending, on the one hand, to save from entire annihilation the little refinement still preserved, and, on the other, softening and materially improving the hardier and ruder tribes. Constantinople, undisturbed by foreign invaders, reaped the advantages of a prosperous commerce, and when Justinian ascended the throne, was one of the most important commercial cities in the world.

A.D. 537.

A.D. 547.

A.D. 553.

A.D. 728.

Customs’ duties.

Fortunate in the choice of his generals, and supported by eminent lawyers, the thirty-eight years’ reign of Justinian was equally distinguished by his conquests and by his laws, to the maritime portion of which we have already referred. In his reign, the empire of the Vandals in Africa was overthrown, and the kingdom of the Ostro-Goths, in Italy, destroyed by Belisarius and Narses; while Rome was restored to the Romans, and the chief power placed in the hands of the descendants of its original population. In their hands it remained, generally, in a state of peace till, nearly two hundred years afterwards, it became independent under the rule of the Popes. But the expenses of the many public buildings Justinian erected—among which must be mentioned the great church (now the Mosque) of S^ta. Sophia—together with those incurred in his many wars, obliged him to impose several new and vexatious imposts on his people. Beyond a supply of corn, free of cost, for the use of the army and capital, he levied heavy customs’ dues on all vessels and merchandise passing the Bosphorus and Hellespont, which had hitherto been open to the freedom of trade.

Happily for the people, the empire of the East possessed vast natural advantages, which, in some measure, counteracted the injurious effects of heavy taxation. Blessed by nature with superior soil, situation, and climate, her people could bear burdens which would have ruined the inhabitants of countries less favourably situated. Embracing the nations Rome had conquered, from the Adriatic to the frontiers of Æthiopia and Persia, the capital of the East had the means within herself, in spite of tariffs, apparently ruinous, of creating and maintaining an extensive and lucrative inland and maritime commerce. Egypt still largely supplied her with corn, and afforded many other advantages; commerce gradually extended itself along the coast of the Mediterranean; and as her own wants in food and dress were many, these combined, afforded a large and varied field for employment. The Asiatic love of dress was duly—if not unduly—exhibited by the ladies of Constantinople; and if Aurelian complained that a pound of silk at Rome cost twelve ounces of gold, we may well believe that Justinian saw with concern the Persians intercepting and obtaining a monopoly of this important trade, and the wealth of his subjects continually drained by a nation of fire-worshippers.

Silk trade.

An unexpected event, however, afforded Justinian the means of cultivating in his own dominions that much prized article. Christian missionaries were then, as they have often been since, the harbingers of commerce, as well as of peace and good-will towards all men. Some of them who had settled at Ceylon, or, perhaps, more probably on the coast of Malabar, were induced, with a view of proselytising the Pagans, to follow the footsteps of trade to the extremities of Asia. Two of their number remained in China, and, in the course of their missionary occupations, observed that the common dress of the Chinese consisted of silk, at the same time noticing the myriads of silkworms, whence the raw material was produced. Having carefully collected a large number of the eggs in a hollow cane, they conveyed them to Constantinople, and, imparting their discovery to Justinian, were liberally rewarded, and encouraged to pursue the propagation of the valuable insect. Under their direction the eggs were hatched at the proper season by the artificial heat of dung; and the worms thus produced living and labouring in a foreign climate, Europe ceased to be dependent for her supply of this now necessary article on the chances of war or of Asiatic caprice.[347]

Naval expedition of Justinian against the Vandals, A.D. 533, and conquest of Carthage.

But the mind of Justinian was more occupied by foreign conquests than by commerce. Among his earliest maritime expeditions may be ranked the invasion of Africa and the overthrow of the Vandals, the preparations for which were not unworthy of the last contest between Rome and Carthage. Five hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbour of Constantinople. If the smallest of these are computed at thirty, and the largest at five hundred tons, the average will supply an allowance liberal, if not profuse, of about one hundred thousand tons, for the reception of thirty-five thousand soldiers and sailors, and five thousand horses, with military stores and provisions sufficient for a three months’ voyage. When the fleet lay moored ready for sea before the gardens of the palace, the Patriarch, amid great pomp and solemnity, pronounced his benediction for its safety and success; and when the emperor had signified his last commands, the expedition, at the sound of a trumpet, got under way. It was attended with the most complete success. Carthage became subject to Justinian; and the Romans were again masters of the sea—a position they maintained until a more formidable power arose in the East, which declared war against the empire both by land and by sea.

Rise of the Muhammedan power, A.D. 622.

A.D. 633.

It is not our province to trace the progress of that power, nor indeed of that of any nation, except as may be necessary to furnish an idea of the extent of its maritime commerce, so far as this can be ascertained from the limited sources of information now extant. Muhammed had not only introduced a new religion, but his warlike successors propagated their newly accepted faith by the sword with a success unparalleled in the history of the world. Nor were their exploits confined to the land. The Arabians, distinguished by the name of Saracens (that is, specifically “the Easterns”),[348] who, from the earliest period of history, were skilled as navigators, and daring as seamen, had by this time become not merely an important but a powerful maritime people. Masters of Persia and of the whole of the Arabian Gulf, the “true believers,” soon extended their conquests into Syria, nominally to abolish “infidelity,” but with a clear eye to the advantages of commerce.

Rapid conquests;

of Jerusalem, A.D. 636;

of Alexandria, A.D. 638;

and of Africa, A.D. 647.

Hatred of the Christians, love of spoil, and contempt for danger were the ruling passions of the Saracens; nor could the prospect of instant death shake their religious confidence, nor stay a course of conquest, on all occasions made in “the name of the most merciful God.” Bozrah and Damascus soon fell into their hands, as well as Abyla, thirty miles distant, where the produce and manufactures of the country were then collected at a great annual fair. Three years afterwards Jerusalem was besieged and taken, and the Syrian seaports captured. The possession of Tyre, not yet wholly obliterated, and of the province of Cilicia, secured them the command of the whole of the eastern Mediterranean. Extending their conquests to the shores of the Euxine, they threatened—indeed, for a short time, besieged—Constantinople, though in this, and in subsequent attempts, they failed with heavy loss.[349] These facts show how early in their history they were able to extend their conquering and marauding expeditions both by land and by sea. Egypt was an easy and rich prey to them. But Alexandria, still a great and flourishing city, offered the most strenuous resistance to the invaders. Abundantly supplied, and easily replenished with the means of subsistence and defence, her numerous inhabitants fought for the dearest of human rights, religion and property; and if the Emperor Heraclius had been awake to the public distress, fresh armies might have been poured into the harbour before the fleet of the Saracens had taken up their position before it. But the power of the Infidels prevailed, and after a siege of fourteen months, and the loss of twenty-three thousand of their men, the standard of Muhammed was planted on the walls of the capital of Egypt. In ten years more Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, fell into their hands. Shortly afterwards Cyprus, Rhodes, and Sicily were taken; Spain overrun, except the Asturias and Biscay; and Capua and Genoa became their possession by conquest.

Sieges of Constantinople, A.D. 668-675.

Although it cost the Saracens a siege of fourteen months, and a heavy loss of men, before they were able to take Alexandria, Constantinople from its stronger position offered a still more determined resistance. In the first siege thirty thousand Moslems are said to have been slain; but the destruction which awaited them on the occasion of the second was by far the heaviest reverse their arms had as yet sustained. Commanded by their ablest general, at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men, they had deemed success certain, and little anticipated the serious resistance the city really made. The Greeks were, however, resolved at all costs to force back these terrible invaders, who had plundered almost with impunity so many lands. All persons not provided with the means of subsistence for a year’s siege were ordered to leave the city, the public granaries and arsenals were abundantly replenished, the walls restored and strengthened, and engines for casting stones, or darts of fire, were stationed along the ramparts or in vessels of war, of which an additional number were hastily constructed. The Greeks, on perceiving that the Saracen fleet had been largely reinforced from Egypt and Syria, were at first induced to offer the large ransom of a piece of gold for each person in the city; but, on the contemptuous rejection of this proposal, the Muhammedan chief imagining he had the game in his own hands, they determined on a most daring expedient to get rid of the fleet that threatened their destruction. As it slowly approached, with a fair wind and over a smooth sea, overshadowing the Straits like a moving forest, the Greeks suddenly launched fire-ships[350] into the midst of the dense mass, and involved in one general and terrible conflagration their own and every vessel of the invading squadrons. The destruction of the Saracenic Armada was complete.

The fate of the Saracen army, though not quite so disastrous, was one of heavy loss and great suffering, materially increased by a severe frost which covered the ground with snow for more than one hundred days. In the spring the survivors, aided with new levies of troops from Africa, made a fresh attempt to storm the city; but, on this proving as futile as their former efforts had been, they at length withdrew, and for seven hundred years more Constantinople was spared the desecration of the Infidel flag.