Trade in tin.
Tin, which has been often attributed, as by the prophet, to Spain, probably came thence only in small quantities;[84] though some is, indeed, still found in Porto, Beira, and Bragança, and was exhibited in the Exhibition of 1862. The great bulk, however, of this metal was brought from the Cassiterides Insulæ, unquestionably the Scilly Islands, and from Cornwall; partly, as may be readily believed, by Phœnician vessels which sailed thither from Gades, and partly from St. Michael’s Mount, whence it was conveyed, through France, on the backs of horses, as Diodorus has pointed out, to the great Roman colonies of Marseilles and Narbonne.[85]
In the Museum at Truro is still preserved a pig of tin, supposed by some to be one of the original Phœnician blocks. It is impossible to assign even a probable period for the commencement of the tin trade; but this is certain, that some of the earliest objects in metal which have come down to us, are formed of an alloy of copper with tin, generally in nearly the same proportions, viz. ten to twelve per cent. of tin. Such monuments are the nails which fastened on the plates of the so-called Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ, the instruments found in the earliest Egyptian tombs, the bowls and lion-weights from Nineveh, and the so-called “celts” from European graves. All these facts tend to show that the ancient world must have been acquainted with tin at a very remote period.
Origin of the name “Insulæ Cassiterides.”
There has been much discussion as to the meaning of the word cassiteros, which has no equivalent in either the Semitic or the Greek families of languages; on the other hand, the Sanscrit name for tin, kastira, is almost the same. It seems, therefore, not improbable that the Phœnicians, while still in their old homes on the Persian Gulf, may have found their way in pre-historic ages to India, and may there have met with it, as it is abundant at Banka in the Straits of Sumatra; then, when in later days they found it again in even greater abundance in England, that they gave it the name they had previously adopted from the far East.[86] The trade in tin was so valuable that the Phœnicians did their best to keep secret the locality whence they obtained it; and Strabo tells a curious tale of a merchant captain, whose ship was pursued by the Romans, and who preferred stranding his vessel to allowing her to fall into their hands, whereby the secret would have been discovered; and moreover, that on his return home, he recovered from his government the value of the ship he had thus sacrificed for the public weal of his country.[87]
Amber.
Another very important trade may be noticed here, though it is not strictly of Phœnician origin, that in amber. This semi-mineral substance, as is well known, is procured chiefly from the shores of the Baltic, though it is not unknown elsewhere. There is a curious record of what was supposed to be its discovery, in Pliny’s account[88] of an exploratory voyage by Pytheas, of Marseilles, who named the island whence he obtained it Abulus. Xenophon of Lampsacus, however, calls the island Baltia—whence obviously our Baltic. The amber trade is strangely mixed up with one of the most poetical of ancient legends, that of the daughters of Phaethon, who are said to have been changed into poplars, and to have wept amber by the banks of a river called Eridanus, generally identified with the great river of Italy, the Po. But there was also an Eridanus on the Baltic shores, which has left traces of its name in that of a small river still flowing near the modern town of Dantzig. Tacitus, referring to amber as an article of commerce—the native name of which he states to be glesum (glass?)—refers to the Suionæ, who dwelt along those shores, and had vessels differing from the Roman type in that they were equally high at prow and stern. This is even now characteristic of what are called Norway yawls.[89]
Mainland trade of Phœnicia.
It is not so easy to trace the course of Phœnician commerce with the countries on the mainland to the north, east, and south, as it is in the case of the islands of the west. But here, too, the statements of the Prophet come to our aid, and enable us to fill up an outline which would have been otherwise very incomplete. Thus we find Ezekiel saying, “The men of Dedan were thy merchants ... they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony,”[90] and “precious cloths for chariots.”[91] So Syria,[92] Dan and Javan,[93] and “the merchants of Sheba and Raamah,”[94] dealt with Tyre in precious stones, fine linen, broidered work, and gold. From “Judah and the land of Israel,” from “Minnith and Pannag,” she obtained “wheat and honey, and oil and balm;”[95] from Damascus, “the wine of Helbon and white wool;”[96] and from “Arabia and all the princes of Kedar,” lambs and rams and goats.[97] Lastly, to those “of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut,” she was indebted for her mercenaries, for they “were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness. The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.”[98]
The probability is that most of the Tyrian commerce with the East was carried on by the aid of caravans passing through Arabia Felix to Petra, and thence to the western seaports of Gaza, Askalon, and Ashdod.[99] Many of the more precious articles were obtainable direct from Arabia;[100] spices, of which cinnamon and cassia (the produce of the same plant, Laurus cassia), were of great importance, were best procured thence up to the discovery of Ceylon;[101] while some, like the “bright iron” and the calamus (Calamus aromaticus) point to India itself for their origin. The “bright iron,” for which Diodorus states that the Arabians exchanged equal weights of gold,[102] is perhaps the famous Wootz steel.[103] Asshur and Chilmad, who were “thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar,”[104] point to articles of commerce for which, from a very early period, Babylon and Nineveh were famous.[105] We may also gather that it must have been for the extension of Babylonian commerce, from the Persian Gulf to Damascus on the north, that Nebuchadnezzar built Teredon, near the present Bussorah.[106] The mode of packing rich garments, like those described in Ezekiel, is one still in use among the natives of Upper India.