[281] Herod. iii. 111.
[282] History of India, s. iii. p. 99.
[283] The Malay and many local dialects are still chiefly written in Arabic characters.
[284] Robertson’s “History of India,” p. 106.
CHAPTER VI.
Rome—The repugnance of the Romans to seafaring pursuits—Single-banked galleys of the Liburni—The fleets of Rome—Their creation and slow progress—The form and construction of their galleys—War with the pirates of Cilicia—First treaty with Carthage, B.C. 509—Its purport—College of merchants, established B.C. 494—No senator allowed to own ships, B.C. 226—Cicero’s opinion of merchants—Contempt for mariners—Reduction of Egypt, B.C. 30, and trade with India—Customs’ duties—The excise—Bounties on the importation of corn, A.D. 14—System of collecting the taxes—Value of the trade with Alexandria—Its extent—Vessels of Spain—Pharos or lighthouse at Gessoriacum—The shipping described by Tacitus—Rhodians—Their maritime laws—System of accounts in use at Rome—The corn trade of the city—Port of Ostia.
Rome.
In a previous chapter an outline has been given of the commerce and navigation of the Carthaginians in succession to that of the Phœnicians. A rapid glance will now be taken of the shipping and progress of the maritime commerce of the great nation that destroyed Carthage, and, by the valour of its arms and the vigour of its political system, rather than by its genius and industry, extended its dominions over the whole of Italy, Syria, Egypt, and Western Asia, ultimately reducing to the condition of provinces all the habitable portions of Europe.
The repugnance of the Romans to sea-faring pursuits.
Great as soldiers, the citizens of Rome had, however, a repugnance to maritime affairs. “Their ambition,” remarks Gibbon,[285] in his history of their decline and fall, “was confined to the land; nor was that warlike people ever actuated by the enterprising spirit which had prompted the navigators of Tyre, of Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to enlarge the bounds of the world, and to explore the most remote coasts of the ocean. To the Romans the ocean remained an object of terror rather than of curiosity.”