"tion to the intercourse with foreigners," and held great annual fairs, which were frequented by the neighbouring Illyrians. By this is meant, strange as it would seem, that they sought to cut off all such intercourse. For, as Plutarch 1 relates in his Greek Questions, the people of Epidamnia living in the vicinity of the Illyrians, and observing, that such of their citizens as associated with them grew corrupt, and fearing innovation, elected one of their chief citizens to conduct the necessary, intercourse and the barter which took place annually at a great fair. This officer, called Poletes, acted as brokergeneral for his fellow-citizens.

1 Quæst. Græc. 29. Var. Script. t. ii. p. 317. Cf. Steph. de Urb. voce Avppáxtov, p. 316,

sqq. Palmer. Descrip. Græe. Antiq. p. 73, sqq. 118, sqq. Pausan. vi. 10. 8.

276

CHAPTER IX.

COMMERCE OF ATTICA.

To speak now of the commerce of Attica, the most extensive and important in the ancient world. It is an error shared by persons in other respects above the vulgar, that a commercial people is necessarily sordid; and hence Napoleon considered it opprobrious to the English, that they are a nation, as he expressed it, of shopkeepers. There are some lessons in the science of human nature that Napoleon had not learned, among which this is one, that the greatest, wisest, and most virtuous of mankind have risen and flourished in trading communities, and been themselves in many instances engaged in commerce. No country in the modern world has produced men of more chivalrous honour or heroic disinterestedness than England; and in antiquity the Athenians, as a community and as individuals, far outshone in wisdom, high-mindedness, and patriotism, every other people with whom we could compare them. In one word, they were the English of antiquity; - bold, adventurous, indefatigable people, equally renowned in trade, philosophy, and war. That they were less fortunate may be accounted for from their geographical position, lacking the inestimable advantage which we enjoy in being seated on an island,—a misfortune well understood by Pericles, who alludes to it in his first oration for the war.1

1 Thucyd. i. 143. Bockh, therefore, is certainly in error when he says, that Attica en

joyed all the advantages of insular position. Book i. § 9.

No country, however fertile, produces all that its inhabitants, when advancing in civilisation, require, which tends more than any other circumstance to promote the amelioration of society; and Attica, from its comparative barrenness and very limited extent, peculiarly experienced the necessity of foreign commerce. To this accordingly the Athe

3

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nians from a very early period applied themselves, and with so much success, that whatever commodities the ancient world produced were generally to be found in the greatest abundance in their city.1 They enjoyed as has been already observed, most of the advantages of insular position, that is, excellent harbours conveniently situated, in which they received supplies during all winds, and, in addition to these, some of the compensating advantages of being situated on the continent, in facilities for inland traffic. Chief of all, however, were the blessings flowing from the wisdom, and moderation, and liberality, of its government, which rendered Athens the resort of all the enterprising and enlightened men of every other country. Its dealings with foreigners were facilitated by the purity of the coin, as the traders who did not choose to purchase merchandise might take bullion, which, as Xenophon expresses it, was a very handsome article, and of so little alloy as everywhere to pass for more than its nominal value, like the old Spanish dollars, and English gold currency in the East.* Prohibitions to export money, as Boeckh observes, were unknown in ancient times, and are only compatible with bills of exchange.5

Though war to a certain extent interfered with Athenian commerce, yet, being masters of the sea, they could generally command a plentiful supply of foreign commodities, so that many articles re

garded as rare in other countries might be found abundantly in the warehouses of the Peiraeus. "Hi"ther, on account of the richness of our city," says Pericles," are borne the products of all lands, so "that we are not more familiar with the use of "wheat grown in Attica than with the productions "of other countries."1 So Isocrates: "the Peiræeus, "has been established as an emporium in the heart of "Greece, and so far excels all its rivals, that arti"cles with difficulty met with singly in other ports 66 may be readily found here altogether." And true it is, that every region of the east and island of the Mediterranean poured their productions into Attica, whence they were distributed throughout Greece. Thither were brought the magnificent carpets and fine wool of Persia, Phrygia, and Miletos; the gloves and purple of Tyre and Sidon; the fine linen of Egypt; the gold and ivory of Africa; the pearls of India and the Red Sea; white and black slaves, and corn, and timber, and spices, and costly wines, and perfumes from Spain, Sicily, Italy, Cypros, Lydia, the Black Sea, and the farthest regions of the east.5

4

This extended commerce, and the encouragement which strangers of all countries found to settle at Athens, rendered it the home of all languages and religions, and led to the adoption of many barbarous words. But she thus created a boundless market for her own exports, whether consisting of manufactures or the surplus produce of the soil; and as we now retail to the Continental nations many productions of Eastern Asia, so the Athenians disposed, in the uncommercial countries around, of the commodities they had elsewhere collected. For example, they found a vent among the nations on the Black

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1 Thucyd. ii. 38.

Isocrat. Panath. § 11.

3 Demosth. cont. Aphob. § 6.

4 Philost. Vit. Soph. ii. 21. §

2. See chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of this book.

5 Bæckh, i. 66. 6 Strab. ix. 1. Athen. ii. 7.

Xen. de Rep.

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Sea for the wines of the islands and shores of the Ægean, Peparethos, Cos, Thasos, Mendè, Skionè, Lemnos, and Crete.1 From a passage in Xenophon, it would appear either that Greek sailors amused themselves by reading on their voyages, or that books were exported to Pontos, for there seems to be no foundation for the suspicions that they were blank books. "Here," says Xenophon, speaking of the coast of Thrace," are found numerous beds, cabinets, books, " and such other things as shipmasters are accustomed "to transport in chests." Theopompos represents the Persians as carrying books (χάρται βιβλίων) along with them in their invasion of Egypt, and the Greeks could have been scarcely less literary.* Certain, at all events, it is, that there was a book-market at Athens, probably resembling the bazars of the East, where the dealers in manuscripts kept their shops; and thence, in all likelihood, the Greek cities on the Black Sea were supplied; and this is by no means inconsistent with the proverb respecting Hermodoros, Plato's Sicilian publisher, who was said, contemptuously, to traffic in words; for, as he himself was one of Plato's hearers, it may have been thought beneath him to turn trader. Somewhat later we read of Zeno, a stranger in the city, going into a bookseller's shop to sit down, where he finds the owner reading Xenophon, and is recommended by him to follow Crates.

So extensive a trade as Athens carried on could not be conducted without protecting regulations, and the co-operation of a commercial police. Accordingly the government exhibited much wisdom and