Reverting, however, to the trade of Ægina: its ancient traffic with Arcadia was marked by many curious circumstances. In the first place we must infer from it, as the historian of the island remarks, the existence of previous traffic elsewhere.[[1506]] For, if their merchandise consisted merely of raw materials, these must still have been procured from other lands; and, if of manufactured goods, then, in addition to the existence of a foreign trade to supply them with the raw articles, we must suppose in them the existence of considerable skill. Again, as Pompos, the Cypselid, probably reigned at Orchomenos, they must have been able to perform long voyages by sea, and long journeys by land; though we can account for their taking the dangerous route round capes Skylleion and Malea, and the mountainous roads from Eleia to Arcadia, in preference to the shorter way from Corinthia or Argolis, only by supposing them to have been driven to it by the rivalry of the Argives and Corinthians. It must be admitted to be honourable to their ingenuity thus to have opened up a road into Arcadia, which would seem to be shut out by nature from all commerce.
With the Arcadians alone, however, could inland trade be carried on upon a large scale; among every other Hellenic people possessing sea-coasts and harbours, it degenerated into mere peddling. Hence, the Æginetans obtained the character, once possessed in this country by the Scotch, of being a nation of pedlars—sometimes travelling from village to village, with their packs; at other times settling, like the Maltese of the present day, in towns on the coast of Greece, they became corn-chandlers, vintners, toymen, or victuallers, in established shops or stalls in the agora. Hence, all kinds of humble wares, or pedlary, obtained the appellation of Æginetan wares. Like the Jews, too, both they and the Cretans (noted liars, as St. Paul[[1507]] assures us) were regarded as skin-flints, and, in many cases, betook themselves to the practice of usury.[[1508]]
Frequently, however, they soared above these petty arts, and became merchants on a large scale, trading with distant lands and acquiring very great wealth. The entire island, in Strabo’s time, was regarded as an emporium; and, even so far back as the age of Aristotle, their whole marine was employed in commerce. In some cities, he says, nearly all the shipping is engaged in one kind of service; those of Byzantium and Tarentum in the fisheries; those of Athens in war; those of Chios and Ægina as merchantmen; and those of Tenedos as transports.[[1509]] It has been conjectured, not without reason, that Sostratos, the son of Leodamos, celebrated by Herodotus for his riches, was a merchant. “The Samians,” says this historian, “induced by divine command to undertake the voyage of Tartessos, brought home with them greater wealth (sixty talents) than any other Greeks ever gained by trade, if we except Sostratos, with whom no one can contend in opulence.[[1510]]”
But the Æginetans also engaged in foreign trade, sending ships to Tartessos towards the west, and to the Black Sea towards the east. It is related, for example, that when Xerxes was at Abydos, he saw merchantmen sailing down the Dardanelles with corn for Ægina and the Peloponnesos,[[1511]] which were stopped by his fleet with the design of taking both ships and men. But when Xerxes learned they were bound for Greece, he dismissed them, considering the corn as so much provision for his own army, which, he doubted not, would be able to subjugate the whole country. From which Müller conjectures, but without reason, that the great corn markets of the Black Sea were at that time exclusively in the hands of the Æginetans; though afterwards, during the Peloponnesian war, when Ægina fell, they passed over to the Athenians. The reason “that the Æginetans stood so much in need of the supply, that they would not have endured a rival,” could only hold good if they had the power to command a monopoly, which, for any length of time at least, is highly improbable, since although they are said to have been masters of the sea about the age of Darius Hystaspes,[[1512]] their domination was extremely short-lived.[[1513]] It would seem, however, that they were at that time in the habit of supplying the Peloponnesos with grain. Slaves they imported both from Pontos and from Crete, and it is doubtful whence they obtained the greater number. A large proportion of their exports found their way into Crete, where they had established a colony at Cydonia. Besides lying one day’s sail distant from the Peloponnesos, and that of a day and a night from Africa, this great island formed an excellent midway station between Ægina and the mouth of the Nile.
The port at which all the Greeks resided during their stay in Egypt was Naucratis in the Delta, which the Pharaohs granted them in the same way as the Chinese emperors now do Canton to the Europeans, as their only abode. Here, by permission of Amasis, such Greeks as merely traded with Egypt built altars and erected sacred enclosures in the neighbourhood of the city, though I vainly sought, when on the spot, to discover the slightest trace of them. The nine cities of Ionians, Dorians, and Æolians erected at their common expense a sacred edifice, which they called Hellenion. The Ionian cities were Chios, Teos, Phocea and Clazomenæ; the Dorian, Rhodes, Cnidos, Halicarnassos, and Phaselis; of the Æolian, Mitylene only. The Æginetans raised for their own use a temple to Zeus,—the Samians to Hera,—the Milesians to Apollo.[[1514]] At this time, however, Naucratis was the only harbour in Egypt; and as this was pretty generally known, ships making land anywhere else were naturally suspected of being pirates; for which reason the captain was required to swear that he had come hither involuntarily. This done, he was to steer from the Canopic mouth of the Nile; or, if the weather were contrary, his cargo was conveyed round the Delta in barides to Naucratis, which the historian[[1515]] understood to be done for the benefit of the foreign settlers, for so greatly, says he, was Naucratis honoured. At this time, one of the principal articles exported into Egypt by the Greeks would appear to have been wine, since all then drunk in the country was foreign, the vine not having been as yet introduced.
Of the trade of Sparta extremely little is known. In fact, until a comparatively late period, it appears to have been inconsiderable, and to have been conducted in the rudest manner possible. Each citizen, on receiving the proceeds of his lands, laid up in his storehouses what he judged sufficient for the consumption of the ensuing year, and disposed of the remainder in the Agora, not, it has been conjectured, for money, but by the ancient manner of barter.[[1516]] It is said that the Lacedæmonians exhibited much ingenuity in their mode of preserving the fruits of the earth; but in what that ingenuity consisted we are not informed. They were likewise noted for the care and order with which the implements of domestic economy were kept, so that everything was ready at hand when wanted.[[1517]] The fact that they had granaries on their estates, which were locked up and sealed, argues much greater connexion with the country, than they are supposed to have maintained; for had they never lived on those estates, it is not probable they would have left their property there, subject, as Mr. Müller[[1518]] thinks, to the conscientious visits of every poor man who might choose to out-hunt his provisions.
Money, we are incessantly told, was prohibited at Sparta; but, nevertheless, it seems to have been in constant use. It is affirmed, indeed, by a writer somewhat too prone to panegyric, that “it was employed more often as a medium of comparison than of exchange; small coins were chiefly used, and no value was attributed to the possession of large quantities.”[[1519]] But I do not see what is meant by employing money “as a medium of comparison;” and with regard to the value set on money by the Spartans, history incapacitates us for accepting the generous gloss of Mr. Müller. It is perhaps true that Lycurgos aimed at eradicating avarice from the Spartan breast, but, in the means to be adopted for that end, only showed his ignorance of human nature; since, though he might bring his vinegar-cooled iron medium of comparison into contempt, he could not thereby diminish the value of the things exchanged, that is of real wealth, which accordingly was estimated as highly at Sparta as elsewhere. Thus we see that poor men, not able to contribute their quota of provisions, were excluded from the common tables, which therefore resembled the hospitality and common tables of an inn,[[1520]]
Where the Red Lion staring o’er the way,
Invites each passing stranger—that can pay.
The learned, with all their leaning towards scepticism, sometimes interpret too literally the language of authors in whom license and exaggeration are a merit. Thus Bœckh[[1521]] conceives “that, even in the time of the Trojan war, the precious metals were well known in the Peloponnesos,” because Homer describes Menelaus as possessed of both gold and silver.[[1522]] But the Achæan prince had travelled in the East, whence, according to the poet, he brought his gold, and it does not appear historically that the precious metals were “well known,” which extensive use only could render them, till some ages after the Trojan war. The Dorians, however, whatever may have been the case with the Achæans, long continued to be scantily supplied with the precious metals, which may be accounted for from their isolated mountainous country, want of industry, and aversion for all intercourse with strangers, without adopting the unphilosophical fancy, that they were instigated by a kind of argyrophobia strictly to prohibit the use of gold and silver.[[1523]] Conceiving that, by cutting his people off from human intercourse, he might render them more warlike, as dogs are made savage by chaining, Lycurgos, or whoever was the author of the Spartan constitution, may have desired to keep them poor, and therefore have prohibited commerce. But even in their own domestic traffic, the necessity of some instrument of exchange was soon perceived, and iron[[1524]] being as plentiful as gold and silver were scarce, he adopted the expedient of employing iron money. At first the metal was used in bars or spits (ὀβελοὶ, ὀβελίσκοι) which were stamped with some mark in the furnaces of Laconia, just as in other countries bars of silver or copper were used; “whence the obolos or spit and the drachma or handful received their names.”[[1525]]