Although the Greeks were for many centuries well known alike for their intellectual abilities and for their zeal as merchants and traders, Herodotus speaks with some contempt of their geographical knowledge in the time of Xerxes, and says they were so ignorant of the position and distance of places, that they could with difficulty be prevailed upon to advance as far as Delos,[177] and that all the countries beyond that island and in the vicinity of Ionia were avoided by them. “They believed,” he adds, “that it was as far from Ægina to Samos as from Ægina to Gibraltar.”
Habits of piracy.
On the other hand, history clearly demonstrates that each Greek power, as it became famous, turned its attention to the sea as a source of wealth and greatness; and that, during the struggles between the Lacedæmonians and Athenians, Philip of Macedon, with a powerful fleet under his command, swept the seas of the pirates and marauders, enriching himself by the spoils. The Greeks, moreover, paid a marked attention to the mode of conducting their local commerce, forbidding their vessels to sail with more than a specified number of men on board. Plutarch, quoting from a more ancient author,[178] names a limit of five persons only to each vessel; while others, referring to later periods, speak of a general law applicable to all Greece, which fixed the maximum crew of its merchant ships at one hundred men. These restrictive navigation laws were passed professedly for the suppression of piracy; but in those days, the strong were generally held to be right and the weak to be wrong, for even Philip resorted to the practice he had denounced, to recruit his finances at the siege of Byzantium. Nor, indeed, are such principles wholly forgotten at the present day; for, even now, while Great Britain captures and destroys at sea the private property of the people with whom she may happen to be at war (which is simply the right of the strong confirmed by ancient usage and unhappily still sanctioned by international maritime law), she does not allow depredations similar in their character to be perpetrated by nations that sell their prisoners as captives of war. We, like Philip of Macedon, denounce in others what we ourselves practise, because it is sanctioned by usage and by law. Who will say that the destruction at sea of the goods of private individuals is not as barbarous as the practice which still prevails among illiterate African chiefs? England, in this matter, simply overlooks the beam in her own eye, though sacrificing much to extract the mote in that of other and less civilized nations.
Corinth.
Corinth, once so celebrated, was among the first of the Greek states to avail herself of the many advantages nature had given her. Built a little to the west of the isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus with northern Greece, she was destined by her position to be the entrepôt of both. Nor did her people fail to appreciate this, for, contrary to what Herodotus states generally of the Greeks, the Corinthians are known to have been expert sailors, and to have made navigation and ship-building their study, being, as Thucydides remarks (i. 13), the inventors of the trireme.[179] In maritime pursuits, and by an extensive commercial intercourse with the neighbouring states, they amassed great wealth. Corinth also affords a striking instance that the cultivation of commerce can be successfully combined with a taste for the most refined arts, for the Corinthian column continues to this day the finest type of architectural beauty; while Corinth was famous in antiquity for her celebrated artists, and their works.[180]
B.C. 326.
The writers, however, of ancient Greece have left but few particulars either of the merchant vessels or of the trade in which they were engaged. Of the character and habits of its seamen, or of the remuneration they received, the accounts are brief and fragmentary, though we know that after the time of Demosthenes their wages were provided for by a tax upon property. In cases of emergency, it would seem that men of substance in Greece, besides paying the whole of this special tax, fitted out at their own expense numerous vessels for the service of the state, and that a patriotic and generous rivalry prevailed among them, inducing them to do their utmost for the good of their country. From this laudable public spirit arose, in a great measure, that enlarged and enlightened system of commerce with foreign nations, for which the Greeks have been in all times conspicuous, and which still largely prevails among the leading Greek merchants resident in England.
Athens.
Athens, too, though in a less degree than Corinth, was also a place of commercial importance; for though at some distance from the sea, it possessed three harbours—the Piræeus, Munychia, and Phalerum, themselves forming a city as large as, if not larger than, Athens herself. From the harbour of the Piræeus a large foreign trade, chiefly in corn, was carried on with the countries bordering on the Black Sea and the Crimea, as well as with Palestine and Egypt. The Piræeus contained extensive warehouses for the reception of various descriptions of produce, as well as a large portico or arcade, where, after the fashion of eastern bazaars, manufactures of every description were exposed for sale.
This portico (technically called the Deigma, or Show-Place) was in fact the Royal Exchange of Athens, where her merchants transacted business with those of Syria and of Asia Minor, who resorted thither in great numbers; and though Athenian commerce, even at its best times, was small when compared with that of Tyre, Carthage, or Miletus, Athenian merchants held a high position in ancient times.[181]