History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Its extent.

Although the value of the trade with Egypt, which comprised the chief portion of that with India and Arabia, was in itself greater than any other, it fell far short of supplying the numerous wants of Rome. Caravans traversed, as they had done centuries before that city became mistress of the world, the whole latitude of Asia in two hundred and forty-three days,[308] from the Chinese ocean to the sea coast of Syria, to supply her with the silk her rich citizens were always eager to obtain. Nor could Egypt alone supply her demands even for corn and cattle. That fertile country, which stretches from the southern foot of the Alps to the shores of the Mediterranean, grew large quantities of corn for Rome, and reared numerous cattle for her market, while from Northern Italy she drew her supplies of salt provisions for the use of her troops and mariners. The Sabine country also furnished wheat, rice, and barley; and thence large quantities of wine were imported, as well as from Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. Timber, suitable for ship-building purposes, was extensively imported from Etruria. Genoa exported largely, for the use of the Romans, wood for furniture, coarse wool for the clothing of their slaves, hides, and honey.

There was likewise a very considerable trade between Malta and the Tiber in white cloths of wool and linen. Greece, and the Greek islands, Samos, Cos, and Thrace, furnished green marble, dyes, cambrics, and earthenwares; and from the Euxine were imported wax, hemp, and pitch, and wool of the finest quality; while the ancient trade with Persia, through Trebizond, remained unbroken during the Roman supremacy, greatly increasing when Constantinople became the eastern capital of the empire. Phrygia produced alabaster; Miletus woollen goods, and Tyrian purple; and Sidon and Tyre, glass manufactures and rich work in embroidery. From Africa proper the Romans imported very considerable quantities of corn, drugs, and horses, together with the wild elephants and lions required for their gladiatorial exhibitions.[309]

Trade with Spain.

Next to Egypt, Spain was the largest seat of their foreign trade. Its products of lead, iron, copper, silver, and gold, were sources of vast wealth; and the corn, wool, wine, oil, honey, wax, pitch, dyes, and salted provisions of a superior quality afforded a large and lucrative commerce to the merchants, ship-owners, and manufacturers of Rome. Indeed, so extensive were the commercial transactions carried on in the Spanish Peninsula, that nearly as many ships were employed in its trade as in that with the whole of Africa. Nor need we doubt that the vessels so occupied were as large as those engaged in the Egyptian trade already noticed. New Carthage (Cartagena), Saguntum, Tarragona, and Bilbilis (Bilboa), even then famous for its steel, had a large commercial intercourse with Rome, in provisions, cordage, and linens of remarkable whiteness and texture. The province of Gaul formed a rich appendix to the Roman empire, though the only ports directly connected with the Tiber were Massalia (Marseilles), Arelate (Arles), and Narbo[310] (Narbonne), at that period the most frequented and most populous city in Gaul. Narbonne has since suffered the same fate as Ostia, the silting up of its port having entirely destroyed its value.

Pharos, or lighthouse at Gessoriacum.

The chief exports of Gaul appear to have been gold, silver, and iron from its own mines; linens from every part of the country; corn and cheese of superior quality; with excellent salt pork, and tartan cloths. Burdigala (Bordeaux,) on the Garonne, was its chief port on the west, and on the north the Portus Itius (by some supposed to be Wissant, near Cape Grisnez, but more probably Boulogne). At this port, called afterwards Gessoriacum,[311] and whence Cæsar sailed for Britain, was the lighthouse constructed by Caligula, some remains of which are said to have existed in the early part of the seventeenth century. This tower, or Pharos, the first lighthouse on record for any part of the coasts of the North Sea or English Channel, stood upon the promontory or cliff which commanded the port. Of an octagonal form (if Bucherius is right in supposing the building he has drawn to be the remains of Caligula’s structure), it was twenty-five feet in breadth, and the circumference of the whole at the base two hundred feet. It had twelve storeys or spaces for galleries, rising above each other. Each storey diminished in diameter as you ascended, and on the top of the tower a fire was kindled every evening at sunset, and served as the beacon light for the guidance of mariners.

The shipping described by Tacitus.

Rhodians.

Tacitus[312] has preserved a description of the expedition of Germanicus, but his “Annals” throw little light upon the state of that portion of the Roman navy which assisted in the conquest of Germany, and frequented the northern seas about the period when the first lighthouse was erected in the English Channel. Indeed his description very imperfectly represents either the vessels or seamen of those maritime nations, who, becoming subject to Rome, largely aided her alike in her naval and in her commercial victories. Of these none have left a more lasting record of their existence as a maritime people than the Rhodians. Alike celebrated for their skill as navigators, and their honesty and shrewdness as merchants, they excelled all others as jurists. Their laws relating to navigation were introduced into the Roman code, and formed the groundwork of maritime jurisprudence throughout the civilized world. Colonized, no doubt, by some of the more civilized nations of Western Asia, and probably by the Phœnicians, the Rhodians from their position, in a small island and on the great highway of commerce, as well as from their skill in astronomy and in navigation, soon took a prominent part among nations more populous and powerful than themselves. Accessible to all the surrounding naval powers, and deriving their chief commercial wealth from their trade with Egypt, the Rhodians from the first made it their business to keep the police of the surrounding seas; and having punished the pirates who then infested the Mediterranean with exemplary severity, pursued their trade as merchant navigators with equal security and success.