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 Sta. 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.