The abundance of sequins throughout the East proves that the Venetians had great commerce there—that their coin was taken confidently, and that they were obliged to pay for a part of their purchases in ready money. There is another fact by which one can judge of the great number of Venetians spread through the Greek Empire. When Manuel Comnenus, imitating the example of Mithridates, arrested in one day all subjects of the republic found in the state, the prisons could hardly suffice to contain them; they had to fill the churches and monasteries. The difficulty of protecting their establishments in Asia, the jealousy of the Genoese, and the revolutions of the Eastern Empire, obliged the Venetians many times to seek new routes to re-establish their constantly interrupted commercial relations.
The story of the vicissitudes which have changed so often the course of commerce—that commerce which like a river pours continually into the West, is one well worthy of attention. It seemed that Europe could not suffice for herself. The activity of its inhabitants exhausted itself in a thousand ways which produced needs foreign to its welfare. From all time they counted eastern merchandise among objects of the first necessity, and this commerce has occupied the industry of several peoples more or less fortunately placed.[g]
Let us go back to Roman times, and trace briefly the development of trade routes.
THE COMMERCIAL FOREBEARS OF THE VENETIANS
The crowd of barbarian people who inundated the Roman Empire at the end of its existence brought with it the germs of a new life; when Rome had succumbed, these germs began to develop themselves in all parts of Europe—races young and vigorous but still half barbarous came, all at once, into the foreground of history; mingled with the people whom Rome, up till now, had kept under the yoke, they founded new nationalities; it was a general transformation in the state, in society, and in the ways and customs. Nevertheless, this overthrow did not affect all the conditions of the life of the people in the same degree. In the domain of commercial life we do not find, on the threshold of the Middle Ages, any event which approaches in importance the discovery of the sea route to the East Indies and the discovery of America, events which coincide with the beginning of the modern epoch, and which have unexpectedly opened new paths for commerce.
Between antiquity and the Middle Ages the transition was less abrupt; the commercial intercourse and markets remained, generally, the same as of old. Since the conquests of Alexander had brought the civilised people of the West into contact with the remote East, the main currents of commerce set thitherward, for there was the source of production of those articles which had become necessary to the insatiable masters of the world. From the Indies were obtained those spices which the Greeks and Romans put into their food to heighten its flavour, the greater part of the perfumes which they sprinkled on their persons and in their apartments, and the ivory with which they made their precious utensils. China furnished the silk with which the women, and later on, with the growth of luxury, even the men of the imperial epoch loved to clothe themselves; for jewels, the mountains of Persia and India sent their precious stones; the Indian Ocean, its pearls.
Little by little, this commerce increased to such an extent, that in the time of Pliny, the Roman Empire expended each year in Asia, in payment of merchandise obtained from thence, 100,000,000 sesterces (about £800,000), of which India alone absorbed one-half. In the Middle Ages, the Levant was still the principal goal of the merchant of the West. The commodities which later generations brought from America, such as sugar and cotton, were then obtained from Smyrna, Asia Minor, or Cyprus; condiments from India, spices and especially pepper, were some of the most highly appreciated commodities at this period. But if we seek the origin of the delicate fabrics, or the carpets which were used at the courts and among the wealthy burghers of the Middle Ages, we have almost always to go to the East. Thence came the raw material, very often the tissue or the embroidery, and finally the name of the material.
A Venetian Bronze Knocker