A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels - Volume 18 / Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and / Commerce, from the Earliest Records to the Beginning of the Nineteenth / Century, By William Stevenson

by Robert Kerr; William Stevenson

Off the coast of Laconia, and about forty stadia from Cape Malea, lies the island of Cythera; the strait between it and the mainland was deemed by the ancients extremely dangerous in stormy weather; and indeed its narrowness, and the rocks that lay off Cape Malea must, to such inexperianced navigators, have been very alarming. The Phoenicians are supposed to have had a settlement in this island: afterwards it became an object of great consequence to the Lacedaemonians, who fortified, at great expence, and with much labour and skill, its two harbours, Cythera and Scandea. The convenience of these harbours to the Lacedaemonians compensated for the sterility of the island, which was so great that when the Athenians conquered it, they could raise from it only four Attic talents annually. The chief employment and source of wealth to the inhabitants consisted in collecting a species of shell-fish, from which an inferior kind of Tyrian dye was extracted. There were several fisheries on the mainland of Laconia for the same purpose.

Some of the other Greek islands require a short and general notice, on account of the attention they paid to maritime affairs. Corcyra was inhabited by skilful mariners, who, in the time of Herodotus, possessed a greater number of ships than any other people in Greece, with the exception of the Athenians; and, according to Thucydides, at one period they were masters of the Mediterranean Sea. On the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, they fitted out a fleet of sixty ships, with which they promised to assist their countrymen; but, instead of this, their ships anchored in a place where they could see the result of the battle of Salamis, and when they ascertained that the Greeks were victorious, they pretended that they had been prevented from affording the promised succours by contrary winds, so that they could not double Cape Malea. Of the commerce of this island we have no particulars detailed by ancient writers.

Egina, in the Saronic Gulf, acquired great wealth from the cultivation of commerce: in the time of the Persian war, they equipped a very powerful and well-manned fleet for the defence of Greece; and at the battle of Salamis they were adjudged to have deserved the prize of valour. According to Elian, they were the first people who coined money.

The island of Euboea possessed excellent harbours, from which, as it was very fertile, the Athenians exported large quantities of corn. This island is divided from the mainland of Greece by the Euripus, which the ancients represented to be so extremely narrow, that a galley could scarcely pass through it: its frequent and irregular tides were, also the subject of their wonder, and the cause of them, of their fruitless researches and conjectures. It hits several promontories, the doubling of one of which, Cape Catharius, was reckoned by the ancients very dangerous, on account of the many rocks and whirlpools on the const. Of all the cities of Euboea, Chalcis was the most famous: its inhabitants applied themselves, at a very early period, to navigation, and sent numerous colonies to Thrace, Macedon, Italy, &c. In the vicinity of another of its towns, Carystus, there were quarries of very fine marble, the exportation of which seems to have been a lucrative trade: in the same part of the island also was found the asbestos. Euboea possessed several rich copper and iron mines; and as the inhabitants were very skilful in working these metals, the exportation of armour, and various vessels made from them, was also one important branch of their commerce.

Of the numerous colonies sent out by the Greeks, we shall notice only those which were established for the purposes of commerce, or which, though not established for this express purpose, became afterwards celebrated for it. None of the Athenian colonies, which they established expressly for the purpose of trading with the capital, was of such importance as Amphipolis. This place was situated at the mouth of the river Strymon, on the borders of Macedonia. The country in its vicinity was very fertile in wood, and from it, for a considerable length of time, the Athenians principally derived timber for building their fleets: they also levied on its inhabitants a heavy tribute in silver coin. As this city was well situated for commerce, and the Athenians, wherever they went, or were settled, were eager in pursuit of gain, their colonists in Amphipolis extended their trade, on one side into Thrace, and on the other into Macedonia. They were enabled, in a great measure, to monopolize the commerce of both these countries, at least those parts of them which were contiguous, from the situation of their city on the Strymon; of which river they held, as it were, the key, so that nothing could depart from it without their consent. The ancients represent this river as frequently exhibiting immense logs of wood floating down it, which had been felled either on Mount Rhodope, or in the forests of Mount Hemus. The Athenians retained this important and valuable colony till the time of Philip, the father of Alexander, by whom it was taken from them.

The island of Samos may justly be regarded as a Grecian colony; having been chiefly inhabited by the Iones, to whose confederacy it belonged. Its situation between the mainland of Asia and the island of Icaria, from both of which it is separated by very narrow straits, which were the usual course for the ancient vessels in their voyage from the Black Sea to Syria and Egypt, rendered it the resort of pirates, as well as celebrated for its ships and commerce. The city of Samos, as described by the ancients, seems to have been a place of great consequence. Herodotus mentions three things for which it was remarkable in his time; one of which was a mole or pier, 120 feet long, which formed the harbour, and was carried two furlongs into the sea. The principal design of this mole was to protect ships from the south wind, to which they would otherwise have been much exposed. Hence it would appear, that even at this early period, they had made great advances in commerce, otherwise they would neither have had the disposition or ability to build such a mole. But we have the express testimony of Thucydides, that even at a much earlier period,--nearly 300 years before the Peloponnesian war,--the Samians gave great encouragement to shipbuilding, and employed Aminodes, the Corinthian, who was esteemed the most skilful ship-builder of his time; and Herodotus speaks of them as trading to Egypt, Spain, &c., before any of the other Greeks, except Sostrates, of Egina, were acquainted with those countries. The same author informs us, that the Samians had a settlement in Upper Egypt, and that one of their merchant ships, on its passage thither, was driven by contrary winds, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, to the island of Tartessus, which till then was unknown to the Greeks. This island abounded in gold; of the value of which, the inhabitants were so utterly ignorant, that they readily allowed the Samians to carry home with them sixty talents, or about 13,500 l. According to Pliny, they first built vessels fit to transport cavalry. We are not informed of what articles their exports and imports consisted, except that their earthen-ware was in great repute among the ancients, in their most splendid entertainments, and was exported in great quantities for this purpose. The Samian earth, from which these vessels were made, was itself also exported, on account of its medicinal properties. It is well known that the victory obtained by the Greeks over the Persians, at the sea-fight of Mycale, was chiefly owing to the Samians.

The commerce of the Black Sea was of so much importance and value to the Greeks, that we cannot be surprised that they founded several colonies on its shores, and in the adjacent countries. Heraclea, in this sea, is said to have been founded by the Beotians: the inhabitants availed themselves of their situation to engage very extensively in maritime affairs and in commerce, so that in a short time they were not inferior in wealth or power to any of the Greek states in Asia. When Xenophon was obliged to retreat after his expedition into Asia Minor, the Heracleans supplied him with ships, to transport his army into Greece. Their maritime strength and skill, or their commercial pursuits, involved them in almost every maritime war, their friendship and support being sought after by all the Asiatic princes. When the war broke out between Ptolemy and Antigonus, they sent to the assistance of the former a numerous fleet, all of which were well equipped and manned. Some were of an extraordinary size, especially one, which had on each side 800 oars, besides 1200 fighting men.

Trapezus was a Greek city, in Pontus, situated on a peninsula, in the Black Sea, where it begins to turn to the east: it had a large and convenient port, and carried on a considerable trade. But the most celebrated of the Grecian colonies in this part of the world, was Byzantium: it was anciently founded by the Megareans, and successively rebuilt by the Milesians and other nations of Greece. Its harbour, which was in fact an arm of the Bosphorus, obtained, at a very remote period, the appellation of the Golden Horn; most of the recesses, which were compared to the horn of a stag, are now filled up. The epithet "golden" was given to it as expressive of the riches, which (to use the language of Gibbon) every wind wafted from the most distant countries into its secure and capacious port. Never was there a happier or more majestic situation. The river Lycus, which was formed by the junction of two small streams, pouring into the harbour, every tide, a regular supply of fresh water, cleansed the bottom; while the tides in those seas being very trifling, the constant depth of the harbour allowed goods to be landed on the quay without the assistance of boats: and in some parts, the depth near the shore was so considerable, that the prows of the vessels touched the houses, while they were fully afloat. The distance from the mouth of the river to that of the harbour, or the length of this arm of the Bosphorus is seven miles; the entrance, about 500 yards broad, was defended, when necessary, by a strong chain drawn across it. The city of Byzantium was situated on a promontory, nearly of a triangular form; on the point of the promontory stood the citadel. The walls of the city itself were very strong, but not so lofty towards the sea as towards the land, being on the former side defended by the waves, and in some places by the rocks on which they were built, and which projected into the sea.

Thus favoured by nature, and strengthened by art, and situated in a territory abounding in grain and fruits, Byzantium was crowded with merchants, and supported and enriched by an active and flourishing commerce: its harbour, which was sheltered on every side from tempests, besides being easy of access and capacious, attracted to it ships from all the states of Greece, while its situation at the head of the strait enabled, and seemed to authorize it to stop and subject to heavy duties, the foreign merchants who traded to the Euxine, or to reduce the nations who depended on the countries bordering on this sea for their supplies of corn to great difficulties, and in some cases, even to famine. On these accounts the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were generally rivals for its alliance and friendship. Besides the necessary article of grain and abundance of rich and valuable fruit, the Byzantines derived great wealth from their fisheries: these were carried on with great spirit, enterprize, and success. A surprising quantity of fish was caught in the harbour itself, in autumn, when they left the Euxine for the Archipelago; and in the spring, on their return to Pontus. A great many people were employed both in this fishery, and in the curing of the fish: great sums were derived from this source, as well as from the sale of salt provisions; for the quality of which, Byzantium was in greater renown than even Panticapeum. The only disadvantage under which the Byzantines laboured, to counterbalance the excellence of their harbour, the fertility of their soil, the productiveness of their fisheries, and the extent of their commerce, arose from the frequent excursions of the Thracians, who inhabited the neighbouring villages.

There were many other Grecian colonies on the Bosphorus and the adjacent seas. Panticapeum, built by the Milesians, according to Strabo, the capital of the European Bosphorus, with which, as has been already mentioned, the Athenians carried on a considerable trade. Theodosia, also mentioned before, was likewise formed and colonized by the Milesians: its port could contain 100 ships. Tanais, on the Cimmerian Bosphorus; Olbia and Borysthenes, both situated near the mouth of the river from which the latter took its name; Panagorea and Hermonassa on the Bosphorus, and several others. Besides these colonies in this part of the world, the Greeks founded others, for the express purposes of commerce; as Syracuse, in Sicily; Marseilles, in Gaul, the mother of several colonies established on the neighbouring coasts, and, as we shall afterwards notice, a place of very considerable wealth, consequence, and strength, derived entirely from commerce, as well as the seat of the arts and sciences; Cyrene, an opulent city in Africa, and Naucratis, situated on one of the mouths of the Nile. They likewise formed settlements in Rhodes and Crete, in the islands of the Egean Sea, on the opposite coasts of Asia, &c.; most of which were of importance to the mother country, from the facilities they offered to the extension of its commerce.