Commerce being a result of that division of
labour, or of that appropriation of particular individuals
to particular pursuits, which is cöeval with the establishment of
society, would, at first, be extremely limited, and be confined to
the exchange or barter of articles produced by individuals belonging
to the same tribe or neighbourhood. But as civilisation extended, and
an intercourse began to grow up between different districts and
countries, commerce would be proportionally increased. It no doubt
was very soon found that certain products were wholly confined to
certain localities, while others were more abundant, or of better
quality, in some than in others. And this observation would naturally
be followed by a commercial intercourse, the extent of which would
depend on the character of the parties carrying it on, the diversity
of their products, their proximity, and the ease with which articles
might be conveyed from the one to the other. The intervention,
between different countries, of an arm of the sea, or a navigable
river, by affording them an easy means of communication, would serve,
in no ordinary degree, to promote their mutual traffic. On this
principle Dr Smith conjectured that the wealth and cultivation of
ancient Egypt and India, were principally to be ascribed to the
facility of intercourse between their different towns and provinces,
afforded by the Nile and Ganges, and the canals and subsidiary
streams connected with these great rivers. And the vast magnitude of
Nineveh and Babylon, and the wealth and early refinement of the great
empires of which they were respectively the capitals, were no doubt
mainly owing to their being intersected by the Tigris and Euphrates,
and to the extraordinary facilities which were thereby given to their
internal and external trade.1
It is worthy of remark, that,
with the exception of India and the empires now mentioned, the
nations which made the first advances in commerce and the arts, dwelt
round the shores of the Mediterranean and Red Sea. And this may,
perhaps, be explained from the circumstance, that those great inland
seas having no tides, nor, consequently, any waves, except such as
are caused by the wind only, were eminently fitted, by the smoothness
of their surface, the number of their islands, and the proximity of
their shores, to facilitate and promote the infant commerce of the
world, when, from their ignorance of the compass, men were afraid to
quit the view of the coast, and from the imperfection of the art of
shipbuilding, to adventure themselves upon the boisterous waves of
the ocean.2
The wonderful improvement that has been made in
navigation is known to every one; and the seas and harbours of the
remotest and least advanced nations are now frequented by the
ships and steamers of those which have made the greatest progress in
science and art. But in land-commerce the advance has not, speaking
generally, been by any means so great; and, except in Europe and
North America, most part of the land-trade of the world is conducted,
at this day, nearly in the same manner, and by the same routes, that
it was conducted 3,000 years ago. The vast deserts by which Asia and
Africa are intersected have given a peculiar, and, as it would seem,
an indelible character to their internal intercourse. Being very ill
supplied with water, their transit could hardly have been undertaken
without the aid of the camel, or ship of the desert! This animal,
which is native to those regions, is not only patient of fatigue and
easily subsisted, but it has the farther and invaluable quality of
being able to exist for three, four, or even more days without water.
It is, therefore, used in crossing those “seas of sand,” in
preference to the horse, the ass, or any other animal. The scarcity
of water is not, however, the only difficulty with which the
traveller has to contend in making his way across the great Asiatic
and African deserts. From the remotest antiquity they have been
infested with wandering tribes of predatory Arabs, who assault, tax,
or plunder all who attempt to pass through the arid and inhospitable
wastes over which they have established their lawless sway. And hence
the origin of caravans, or of associations or companies of merchants
or travellers. These usually comprise hundreds, and frequently
thousands of individuals, with camels, horses, etc., for conveying
the travellers and their goods. Being well armed, they are able to
defend themselves against the attacks of the Arabs. Generally,
indeed, they have treaties with the latter, by which they secure
either their forbearance or their services, on payment of a certain
tribute or toll. The routes followed by the caravans are determined
by various circumstances. The most direct would seldom, however, be
either the speediest or the safest and best. When oases are found in
or adjacent to the line of route, they are uniformly selected for
resting-places; and in their absence halts are, when practicable,
made at wells. The cities of Palmyra, Baalbec, and Petra, the ruins
of which continue to excite the astonishment of the traveller, and
evince alike the taste and the wealth of those by whom they were
constructed, owed their existence to their being situated in spots
well supplied with water, in the line of the great commercial routes
of antiquity, and to the trade of which they consequently became the
centres. When, however, any circumstance occurs to divert a caravan
from its accustomed pathway, or when the wells are dried up, or do
not furnish the anticipated supply of water, the consequences are
sometimes fatal. Under such circumstances, entire caravans have been
destroyed.3 But this fearful contingency seldom occurs in the more
frequented routes, or in what may be called the ordinary commercial
channels.
One of the earliest commercial transactions of which
we have any account, the sale of Joseph by his brethren for twenty
pieces of silver, was made to merchants forming part of a caravan
conveying spices to Egypt. And the incident is interesting not merely
from its showing the mode in which commerce was thus early carried
on, but also from its showing that a traffic was then established in
slaves, and that silver was employed as a measure of value and
universal equivalent.
It is not uninteresting to observe, that
the earliest branch of commerce which we find noticed in history, has
continued down to this day to be esteemed the most important and
valuable. We refer to the trade between the countries bordering on
the Mediterranean and Europe generally, on the one side, and Arabia,
India, and the regions more to the east, on the other. At the first
dawn of authentic history, this trade had its centre in Phoenicia, a
country of very limited extent, occupying that part of the Eastern Mediterranean
coast which stretches from Aradus (the modern Rouad) on the north, to
a little below Tyre on the south, a distance of about 150 miles. It
breadth was much less considerable, being for the most part bounded
by Mount Libanus to the east, and Mount Carmel on the south. The
surface of this narrow tract is generally rugged and mountainous; and
the soil in the valleys, though moderately fertile, did not afford
adequate supplies of food for the population. Libanus and its
dependent ridges were, however, covered with timber suitable for
ship-building; and besides Tyre and Sidon, Phoenicia possessed the
ports of Tripoli, Byblos, Berytus, etc. In this situation, occupying
a country unable to supply them with sufficient quantities of corn,
hemmed in, on the one hand, by mountains and by powerful and warlike
neighbours, and having, on the other, the wide expanse of the
Mediterranean, studded with islands, and surrounded by fertile
countries, to invite their enterprise, the Phoenicians were naturally
led to engage in maritime and commercial adventures; and became the
boldest and most experienced mariners, and the greatest discoverers
and merchants, of ancient times.
Tyre, the principal city of
Phoenicia, and the most celebrated emporium of the ancient world, was
situated nearly on the spot where the inconsiderable town of Tsour
now stands, in lat. 33° 17′ N., long. 35° 14½′ E. It was
founded by a colony from Sidon, the most ancient of the Phoenician
cities. The date of this event is not certainly known, but Larcher
supposes it to have been about 1,690 years BC4 It is singular, that
while Homer mentions Sidon, he takes no notice of Tyre, whose glory
speedily eclipsed that of the mother city. But this is no
conclusive proof that the latter was not then a considerable
emporium. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who flourished
from 700 to 600 years bc, represent Tyre as a city of unrivalled
wealth, whose “merchants were princes, and her traffickers the
honourable of the earth.” Originally, the city was built on the
main land. But having been besieged by the Babylonian monarch
Nebuchadnezzar, the inhabitants conveyed themselves and their goods
to an island at a little distance, where a new city was founded,
which enjoyed an increased degree of celebrity and commercial
prosperity. The old city was, on that account, entitled Palætyre,
and the other simply Tyre. The new city continued to flourish,
extending its colonies and its commerce on all sides, till it was
attacked by Alexander the Great. The resistance made by the Tyrians
to that conqueror showed that they had not been enervated by luxury,
and that their martial virtues were nowise inferior to their
commercial skill and enterprise. The overthrow of the Persian empire
was effected with less difficulty than the capture of this single
city. The victor did not treat the vanquished as their heroic conduct
deserved. In despite, however, of the cruelties inflicted on the
city, she rose again to great eminence.5 But the foundation of
Alexandria, by diverting the commerce that had formerly centered in
Tyre into a new channel, gave her an irreparable blow. And she
gradually declined, till, consistently with the denunciation of the
prophet, her palaces have been levelled with the dust, and she has
become “a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the
sea.”
The Phoenicians are designated in the sacred writings
by the name of “Canaanites,” a term which, in the language of the
East, means merchants. They were the first to establish and carry on
a traffic between the eastern and western portions of the ancient
world. The spices, drugs, precious stones, pearls, ivory, and other
valuable products of Arabia and India, have always been highly valued
in Europe; and have been exchanged for the gold and silver, the tin,
linens, wines, etc., of the latter. The former were originally
conveyed to Tyre by caravans, or companies of travelling merchants,
formed in the way previously stated. The routes of these caravans may
yet be traced with more or less accuracy. One of the principal came
from Arabia Felix (Southern Arabia), a distance of about 1,500 miles,
by Macoraba (Mecca) and Petra6 to Gaza and Tyre. Another caravan set
out from Gerrha, an important emporium on the west side of the
Persian Gulph, crossing Arabia to Petra. Others came from
Babylon, Nineveh, and other cities on the Euphrates and Tigris, and
from Armenia, etc.
At a later period, a part at least of the
eastern trade of the Phoenicians, which had long been wholly carried
on by land, began to be carried on by sea. Having formed an alliance
with David and Solomon, kings of Judea, the Phoenicians acquired by
that means the ports of Elath and Eziongeber on the north-east arm
(Gulph of Akabah) of the Red Sea. Here they fitted out ships, which
traded with the ports on that sea, Southern Arabia, and Ethiopia, and
probably also with the western ports of India, or those on the
Malabar coast. It is also stated that they penetrated into the
Persian Gulph, and conquered or colonised the isles of Tylos and
Aradus (the Bahrein Islands), contiguous to Gerrha. Ophir would
appear to have been a favourite resort of the Phoenician ships from
the Red Sea; and a great deal of erudition has been expended in
attempting to determine the situation of that emporium or country.
We, however, agree with Heeren, in thinking that it was not the name
of any particular place; but a general designation given to the
coasts of Arabia, India, and Africa, bordering on the Indian Ocean,
somewhat in the same loose way that we now use the terms East and
West Indies.7
The goods brought to Elath and Eziongeber by sea
were mostly conveyed to the great emporium of Petra, whence they
were forwarded by different routes to Tyre. But as the distance of
Tyre from Petra is very considerable, and the transit of goods might
be interrupted by the Hebrews, the Tyrians, to lessen this
inconvenience, seized upon Rhinoculura, the nearest port on the
Mediterranean to Elath and Petra. And the products of Arabia, India,
etc., being conveyed thither by the most compendious route, were then
put on board ships, and carried by a brief and easy voyage to Tyre.
If we except the transit by the isthmus of Suez, this was the
shortest and most direct, and for that reason, no doubt, the
cheapest, channel by which the commerce between Southern Asia and
Europe could then be conducted. It is not certain whether the
Phoenicians possessed any permanent footing on the Red Sea after the
death of Solomon. But if they did not, the want of it does not seem
to have sensibly affected their trade. And Tyre continued, till a
considerable period after the foundation of Alexandria, to be the
grand emporium for Eastern products.
The commerce of the
Phoenicians with the countries bordering on the Mediterranean was
still more extensive and valuable. At an early period, they
established settlements in Cyprus and Rhodes. The former was a very
desirable acquisition, from its proximity, the number of its ports,
its fertility, and the variety of its vegetable and mineral
productions. Having passed successively into Greece, Italy, and
Sardinia, they proceeded to explore the southern shores of France and
Spain, and the northern shores of Africa. They afterwards adventured
upon the Atlantic; and were the first people whose flag was displayed
beyond the Pillars of Hercules.1
Gades, now Cadiz, one of the
most ancient and important of the Tyrian colonies, is supposed by St
Croix to have originally been distinguished by the name of
Tartessus or Tarshish, mentioned in the sacred writings.8 Heeren, on
the other hand, contends, as in the case of Ophir, that by Tarshish
is to be understood the whole southern part of Spain, which
was early discovered and partially settled by Phoenician
adventurers.9 At all events, it is certain that Cadiz early became
the centre of a commerce which extended all along the coasts
of Europe as far as Britain, and perhaps the Baltic. There can be no
reasonable doubt, that by the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, visited
by the Phoenicians, are to be understood the Scilly Islands and
Cornwall.10 The navigation of the Phoenicians, probably, also extended
a considerable way along the western coast of Africa.
But
of all the colonies founded by Tyre, Carthage was deservedly the most
celebrated. At first only a simple factory, it was materially
increased by the arrival of a large body of colonists, forced by
dissensions at home to leave their native land, about 883 years bc5
Imbued with the enterprising mercantile spirit of their ancestors,
the Carthaginians rose, in no very long period, to the highest
eminence as a naval and commercial state. The settlements founded by
the Phoenicians in Africa, Spain, Sicily, etc., gradually fell into
their hands; and, after the capture of Tyre by Alexander the Great,
Carthage engrossed a considerable share of the commerce of which her
mother city had previously been the centre. The subsequent history of
Carthage, and the misfortunes by which she was overwhelmed, are well
known. And we need only observe, that commerce, instead of being, as
has sometimes been imagined, the cause of her decline, was the real
source of her power and greatness; the means by which she was enabled
to wage a lengthened, doubtful, and desperate contest with Rome
herself for the empire of the world.11
The commerce and
navigation of Tyre probably attained their maximum from 850 to 550
years bc The Tyrians were at that period the factors and
merchants of the civilised world, and enjoyed an undisputed
pre-eminence in maritime affairs. The prophet Ezekiel (chap. xxvii.)
has described in magnificent terms the glory of Tyre; and has
enumerated several of the most valuable products found in her
markets, and the countries whence they were brought. The fir trees of
Senir (Hermon), the cedars of Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan (the
country to the east of Galilee), the ivory of the Indies, the fine
linen of Egypt, and the purple and hyacinth of the isles of Elishah
(Peloponnesus), are specified among the articles used for her ships.
The inhabitants of Sidon, Arvad (Aradus), Gebel (Byblos), served her
as mariners and carpenters. Gold, silver, lead, tin, iron, and
vessels of brass; slaves, horses, mules, sheep, and goats; pearls,
precious stones, and coral; wheat, balm, honey, oil, spices, and
gums; wine, wool, and silk; are mentioned as being brought into the
port of Tyre by sea, or to her markets by land, from Eastern Mediterranean, Arabia,
Damascus, Greece, Tarshish, Ophir, and other places, the exact site
of which it is difficult to determine.12
Such, according to the
inspired writer, was Tyre, the “Queen of the waters,” before she
was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar. But, as already seen, the
result of that siege did not affect her trade, which was as
successfully carried on from the new city as from the old. Inasmuch,
however, as Carthage soon after began to rival her as a maritime and
mercantile state, this may perhaps be considered as the æra of her
greatest celebrity.
It would not be easy to overrate the
beneficial influence of the extensive commerce carried on by the
Phoenicians. It roused the people with whom they traded from their
indolence; and, while it gave them new wants and desires, it gave
them, at the same time, the means by which they might be gratified.
The rude inhabitants of Greece, Spain, and Northern Africa, acquired
some knowledge of the arts and sciences practised by their visitors.
And the advantages of which they were found to be productive, secured
their gradual, though slow, advancement.
Nor were the
Phoenicians celebrated only for their wealth, and the extent of their
trade and navigation. Their fame, and their right to be classed
amongst those who have conferred the greatest benefits on mankind,
rest on a still more unassailable foundation. “If,” says Strabo,
“the Greeks have learned geometry from the Egyptians, they are
indebted for their astronomy and arithmetic to Sidon and Tyre.”13
Antiquity, indeed, is unanimous in ascribing to them the invention
and practice of all those arts, sciences, and contrivances
that facilitate commercial undertakings. They are held to be the
discoverers of weights and measures, of money, of the art of keeping
accounts, and, in short, of everything which belongs to the business
of a counting-house. They were also famous for the invention, or
improvement, of ship-building and navigation; for the discovery of
glass; for their manufactures of fine linen and tapestry; for their
skill in architecture, and in the art of working metals and ivory;
and for the incomparable splendour and beauty of their purple
dye.14
The invention and dissemination of these highly useful
arts form, however, but a part of what the people of Europe
owe to the Phoenicians. It is not possible to say in what degree the
religion of the Greeks was borrowed from theirs; but that it was to a
pretty large extent seems abundantly certain. Hercules, under the
name of Melcarthus, was the tutelar deity of Tyre; and his
expeditions along the shores of the Mediterranean, and to the straits
connecting it with the ocean, seem to be merely a poetical
representation of the progress of the Phoenician navigators, who
introduced arts and civilisation, and established the worship of
Hercules, wherever they went. The temple erected in honour of the god
at Gades was long regarded with peculiar veneration.
The
Greeks were, however, indebted to the Phoenicians, not merely for the
rudiments of civilisation, but for the great instrument of its future
progress—the gift of letters. Few facts in ancient history appear
to be better established than that a knowledge of alphabetic writing
was first carried to Greece by Phoenician adventurers; and it may be
safely affirmed, that this was the greatest boon any people ever
received at the hands of another.
The attention of the
Phoenicians was not, however, wholly occupied by manufactures,
navigation, and trade, and the cultivation of the arts and sciences
subsidiary to their advancement. From the earliest ages they evinced
a taste for philosophy and literature. Moschus, a native of Sidon, is
said to have taught the doctrine of atoms previously to the Trojan
war. And the treatise of Sanchoniathon on the Phoenician Cosmogony
and Theogony is referred to about the same epoch.15 At a later period,
Phoenicia continued to be a favoured seat of learning. Boethus of
Sidon is said by Strabo to have been one of his
fellow-students; and Antipater and Apollonius of Tyre are names well
known in the history of the Stoical philosophy. Under the Roman
emperors, Berytus, one of the oldest of the Phoenician cities, became
no less famous for the study of law in the East than Rome was in the
West. It was said by Justinian to be the mother and the nurse of the
laws. It is not known when or by whom this legal school was founded.
But it is obvious, from a decree of the emperor Dioclesian, that it
had been established long before his time.16
Before quitting
this part of our subject, we may shortly notice the statement of
Herodotus with respect to the circumnavigation of Africa by
Phoenician sailors. The venerable father of history mentions, that a
fleet fitted out by Necho king of Egypt, but manned and commanded by
Phoenicians, took its departure from a port on the Red Sea, at an
epoch which is believed to correspond with the year 604 before the
Christian æra, and that, keeping always to the right, they doubled
the southern promontory of Africa; and returned, after a voyage of
three years, to Egypt, by the Pillars of Hercules.17 Herodotus further
mentions, that they related that, in sailing round Africa, they had
the sun on their right hand, or to the north, a circumstance
which he frankly acknowledges seemed incredible to him, but which, as
every one is now aware, must have been the case if the voyage was
actually performed.
Many learned and able writers, and
particularly Gosselin,18 have treated this account as fabulous. But
the objections of Gosselin have been successfully answered in
an elaborate note by Larcher;19 and Major Rennell has sufficiently
demonstrated the practicability of the voyage.20 Without entering
upon this discussion, we may observe, that not one of those who
question the authenticity of the account given by Herodotus,
presumes to doubt that the Phoenicians braved the boisterous seas on
the coasts of Spain, Gaul, and Britain; and that they had, partially
at least, explored the Indian ocean. But the ships and seamen that
did this much, might, undoubtedly, under favourable circumstances,
double the Cape of Good Hope. The relation of Herodotus has, besides,
such an appearance of good faith, and the circumstance, which he
doubts, of the navigators having the sun on the right, affords so
strong a confirmation of its truth, that there really seems no
reasonable ground for doubting that the Phoenicians preceded, by more
than 2,000 years, Vasco de Gama in his perilous enterprise.21
After
the sack of Tyre and the conquest of Egypt, Alexander, who was no
less eminent as a statesman than as a general, perceived the
advantage that might be derived from the establishment of a
commercial entrepôt at a convenient harbour near the western arm of
the Nile. For this purpose he founded Alexandria, a city which, being
connected with the Nile by a canal,22 became, first under the
Ptolemies, and subsequently under the Roman emperors, a place of
great trade, and the principal emporium for the exchange of
the commodities of the eastern and western worlds. The trade with
India was carried on from Myos-Hormos and Berenice, ports on the Red
Sea, the latter being nearly under the tropic. The commodities landed
at Berenice were conveyed by a N.W. route to Coptos on the Nile, and
were thence conveyed by that river and the canal to Alexandria. This
was not so short nor so expeditious a route as that by which the
commerce of India had previously been carried on by the Phoenicians.
And it is singular that none of the Eastern Mediterranean monarchs, the successors
of Alexander, should have made an effort to secure to their dominions
the advantages resulting from the possession of so lucrative a
traffic, by restoring it to its old channel, or by establishing a
route from the Persian Gulph to the Mediterranean.
