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Bible Dictionaries
Trade and Commerce
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or 1. Introductory.-Trade and commerce occupied almost as great a place in the life of ancient communities as they do in modern times. Indeed, apart from such developments as the railway, the steamship, the telegraph, and the telephone have introduced, the chief difference between the two periods might be found in the somewhat changed attitude of the leisured and professional classes towards them. The attitude which the philosopher Plato adopts towards manual industries as βάναυσοι, ‘base, ignoble, vulgar,’ was only too faithfully followed by the whole class of writers, Greek and Roman. It is wonderful how long the absurd hypocrisy has persisted in Europe, by which the very processes which bring the necessaries of life within our reach, and the very sources from which directly or indirectly many draw their income, are despised.
It would have been hardly necessary to mention this attitude except for the reason that it affords a ready explanation of the scant mention which trade and commerce receive in the ancient authors. The extreme meagreness of our information makes it impossible to give any comprehensive or detailed account of the subject. The inscriptions are here more valuable than the authors, and even they as a rule make mention of commercial matters rather by accident than of set purpose. The everyday experience of life is not as a rule that with which writers earlier than our own period have thought fit to deal. The obvious is avoided, and we are often left to inference more or less hazardous. There is one way, however, in which the permeating influence of trade makes itself everywhere felt, and that is in the language of metaphor. The Roman writers, for example, constantly employ metaphors from book-keeping.
The Jewish attitude to trade was altogether healthier than that of their Western neighbours. It was the custom to have every Hebrew child, whatever his station, taught a handicraft. The advantage of such a system from the mere health point of view, as a prevention of exaggerated mental development, is obvious. The prudential gain, under altered circumstances, is no less so. St. Paul, though a Pharisee, had been taught the trade of making tents out of rough Cilician material, and this enabled him to be independent of his churches. The valuable fruit of this independence was seen in his power to rebut charges that were levelled at fellow-apostles, who accepted a lawful material recompense for evangelistic work. The true Christian attitude has always given labour, however humble, an honourable place. It could hardly be otherwise, seeing that the Master Himself was a carpenter by trade, and that a large proportion of the early converts gained a livelihood from manual labour, whether as free men or as slaves.
2. In the NT.-The NT contains a considerable body of references to trade in one aspect or another, some of which may be mentioned here, while others are reserved for later mention. St. Paul (2 Corinthians 2:17) contrasts himself with the many who ‘hawk (make merchandise of, καπηλεύοντες) the word of God.’ ‘Christ has bought us (ἐξηγόρασεν) from the law’s curse’ (Galatians 3:13; Galatians 4:5, 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:23; 1 Corinthians 7:30); we are advised ‘to buy up,’ ‘make a market of’ (ἐξαγοραζόμενοι) the opportunity (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 4:5; cf. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London, 1895, p. 148 f.). One of St. Paul’s favourite words is λογίζομαι, ‘reckon,’ ‘calculate’ (literally) (cf. Romans 4:3-4 : of some forty instances in the NT, only seven belong to other authors; cf. the rarer word ἐλλογάω, ἐλλογέω, Romans 5:13, Philemon 1:18). He constantly uses πλοῦτος, πλουτέω, πλουτίζω (e.g. 2 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Corinthians 1:5, Romans 2:4, Ephesians 1:7) of spiritual wealth; cf. θησανρίζω (Romans 2:5). A metaphor from the testing of coin, etc., is δόκιμος, ‘approved,’ and cognates (Romans 14:18, 2 Corinthians 10:18, etc.); a metaphor from the earnest, the large portion of the price paid as a first instalment of a debt, is ἀρραβών (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5, Ephesians 1:14), and βεβαιόω, βεβαίωσις (1 Corinthians 1:6, Philippians 1:7) are supposed by some to be connected with surety. Partnership in business is suggested by κοινωνός (2 Corinthians 1:7, etc.), κοινωνία μετοχή (2 Corinthians 6:14; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 2 Corinthians 9:13, Philippians 1:5), συνκοινωνός, συνκοινωνέω, συνμέτοχος (Ephesians 3:6; Ephesians 5:7; Ephesians 5:11, Philippians 4:14, Romans 11:17). Profit, gain, is suggested by κέρδος (Philippians 3:7), by the constant use of περισσός and its derivatives, by πλεονάζω, πλεονεξία (2 Corinthians 8:15; 2 Corinthians 9:5, etc.), and perhaps by καρπός. Indeed, the language of St. Paul especially constantly suggests a mental background of trade and commerce, only natural in one brought up in great cities like Tarsus and Jerusalem. (On the subject of St. Paul’s metaphors, see J. S. Howson’s Metaphors of St. Paul, new ed., London, 1883, and W. M. Ramsay’s Luke the Physician and Other Studies in the History of Religion, London, 1908, ch. x.)
3. Trade and the Roman army.-Trade in the Roman Empire both preceded and followed the eagles of the Roman army. That it preceded is a natural inference from the invariable practice of traders, who seek for every market that they can get, even at great personal risk. The ancient authors naturally say little of this phase of activity. But the facilities for greater trade activity opened up by the legions enormously increased its volume. The armies helped trade not only by keeping the population of a conquered country in subjection, but also by the building of those splendid military roads which, constructed for military purposes, benefited trade no less, by the rapidity and the security of movement which they made possible. The requirements of the army itself also brought trade to remote parts of the Empire. The soldiers were in time of peace citizens accustomed to the use of certain commodities and comforts. Traders, in order to supply these, settled at the armed camps and outposts, and the rows of their shops helped to convert the camps into towns. They at the same time served as valuable agents of Romanization, and helped the provincials to become Romans, in externals at least, in a very short time. Fifty years after Gallia Narbonensis became a province, all the business done by the provincials was done through the Roman merchants. The vast numbers of these in the rich Roman province of Asia as early as the beginning of the 1st cent. b.c. are revealed by the statistics of the Italians murdered by Mithradates, variously given as 80,000 and 150,000. Later evidence with regard to Asia points the same way. So with regard to Africa in the same century, our authorities show the abundance of Roman merchants, bankers, and commercial companies. In London, about the time of the death of St. Paul, the merchant class was already large, though the province Britain was then new. The importance of such merchants is also seen from the fact that, being Roman citizens, they constituted the aristocracy of every provincial community in which they lived.
4. Inter-provincial trade.-Not only were Italian traders to be found in all parts of the Empire, but provincials from one part are found established in trade in another part. At a place like Aquileia, a Knotenpunkt and distributing centre of commerce between the North-East provinces, Italy, the East, and Africa, there was a cosmopolitan population. But the Orientals were the great traders. The great Phœnician and Syrian cities had factories in Italian cities like Puteoli and Rome. Alexandrian commerce found ready markets in the great coast towns of the Black Sea. The officer who had charge of St. Paul found an Alexandrian trading vessel at Myra in Lycia (Acts 27:6). The graves of Syrian merchants in particular are to be found all over the Roman Empire, and there is abundant evidence of their importance as bankers in the 5th and 6th cent. records of Gaul. There is, strangely, no evidence for commercial settlements of Jews.
5. Coins and bills.-As mediums of exchange coins and bills were in universal use, and the system of banking had reached a very considerable development. The coinage system of the Roman Empire was based on a settlement made between the senate and Augustus (15-11 b.c.). The right of coining gold and silver in Rome was reserved to the Emperor, but the senate was authorized to issue copper and brass coins, with the letters SC (= senatus consulto) stamped on them. The governors of senatorial provinces had the right to issue coins, which after a.d. 6 bore the portrait, not of the governor, but of a member or members of the Imperial family. The weigh t of the aureus, or gold coin, was reduced by Augustus from 1/40; of a pound (= 126 grammes), the weight of Julius Caesar’s, to 1/42; (= 120 grammes). The weight of the silver denarius remained as before, 60 grammes. In the senatorial coinage brass (aurichalcum, used to render χαλκολιβάνῳ in certain Latin versions of Revelation 2:18, copper alloyed with 20 per cent of zinc) was used as well as copper. The supervision of the senatorial coinage was nominally under the charge of three commissioners of senatorial rank, tres uiri auro argento aere flando feriundo (‘for the melting and striking of gold, silver, copper’). The Imperial mint was a branch of the Imperial household, supervised by the a rationibus, or Keeper of the Privy Purse. The coinage from the Roman mint was inadequate to meet the needs of the great Empire, and was supplemented by other issues, which were also legal tender. Settlements of Roman citizens outside Italy (coloniae) might, if the Imperial permission were granted, issue bronze coins, a privilege which apparently was withdrawn about a.d. 70. A number of cities and unions of cities (κοινά) in the Eastern provinces were allowed to issue coins. Syrian Antioch and Caesarea in Cappadocia (now Kaisarieh) issued large numbers of silver coins, and the cistophorus of republican times (cf. Cic. Att. II. xvi. 4) in Asia was replaced by a coin of the value of three Roman denarii. An enormous quantity of bronze was also coined in the East. The needs of the East were further in great part provided for by an Imperial mint at Alexandria. Besides these, smaller Imperial mints existed throughout the provinces, and the senate had a mint at Syrian Antioch; Lugudunum (Lyons), for example, served as a mint for the Gallic provinces.
An aureus was equivalent in value to 25 denarii. Under Nero both were reduced in weight, the aureus to 1/45 of a pound, and the denarius to 1/96 of a pound; the quality of the denarius was also debased. The victoriatus (so called because it has Victory crowning a trophy as reverse) deserves mention. It was a silver coin, originally 1/96 of a pound in weight, in reality a Greek drachma, adopted by the Romans for purposes of trade with the Greeks of Southern Italy. Half victoriati and one double victoriatus have been found. Its weight was at least twice reduced. The senatorial coins in the baser metals, above mentioned, were the brass sestertius (four asses), brass dupondius (two asses), the copper as, and the copper semis. The original value of the denarius was, as the name indicates, ten asses. The denarius was the standard coin in the Empire, and in it all legal payments were made.
6. Bonds and bankers.-The bond (syngrapha) and the banker (trapezita, tarpessita [Plaut.]) were Greek institutions, as their Greek names show (συγγραφή, τραπεζίτης; cf. Matthew 25:27, Mark 11:15, and ║). In early Roman times a man’s word was his bond. Contracts (sponsiones, stipulations) were verbal, made in the presence of witnesses, and not written down. The whole system of credit had been elaborated by the Greeks of the Hellenistic period. The universality of the Greek language was accompanied by the Greek commercial system. The Romans readily adapted themselves to it. Syngrapha was used to indicate a bond, permutatio a bill of exchange, and perscriptio a cheque or banker’s draft. The men who engaged in financial operations were called negotiatores, and are originally to be distinguished from the mercatores, merchant princes; but in Imperial times the distinction became obliterated. Two instances of the value of the negotiatores may be given. Cicero, in spite of his good government of the large province of Cilicia (the name included in his time Cilicia, Cilicia Tracheia, Pamphylia, Lycia, Pisidia, Isaurica, Lycaonia, Phrygia, and part of Galatia [Ramsay, Historical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, London, 1899, map opposite to p. 103]), was able to acquire about £18,000, which he deposited at Ephesus on his return journey (Correspondence of M. T. Cicero, ed. R. Y. Tyrrell and L. C. Purser, 7 vols., Dublin, 1879-1901, vol. iii. p. xxxvi). If he had not been so anxious for a triumph he could doubtless have entered Rome and cashed a cheque there. As it was, Pompey annexed Cicero’s savings for the civil war. It is highly probable, also, that the great collections of the Pauline churches in the four provinces (Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia, Acts 20, etc.) for the poor Christians at Jerusalem were conveyed there, not in coin, but in the form of bank drafts on Jerusalem. The risk of conveying large sums by land and sea was considerable.
7. Profits.-With regard to the profits made by Roman traders not much can be said. Friedländer (Roman Life and Manners tinder the Early Empire, i. 305) estimates that modern profits of European trade range between 10 per cent in Europe and 66 per cent in Japan, and is of opinion that Roman profits must have been still greater. The state of universal peace and the security of travel in the 1st cent. must certainly have conduced to the quicker circulation of money and the expansion of trade.
8. Travel.-In modern times correspondence and advertisement play a much larger part than they did in ancient times. If even we, however, have been unable to dispense with the personal interview (and indeed German foreign trade has been built up mainly by the persuasiveness and resource of German commercial travellers), in the 1st cent. it played an important part. The merchant prince himself made long journeys by sea and land from end to end of the Empire to sell his wares. Horace makes several allusions to the hardship of constant travel undergone by them in the pursuit of wealth (Carm. I. i. 15-16, xxxi. 10-11, III. xxiv. 39-40, Serm. I. i. 4-6, 16-17, Ep. I. i. 45, xvi. 71, Ars Poet. 117). The mercator seems to have impressed him as one of the greatest of fools. Other authorities are in accord with him as to the daring and tireless activity of the class.
One or two specimen voyages may be referred to in illustration. The best known case is that of a merchant Flavius Zeuxis of Hierapolis in Phrygia, an inland city, be it observed, who voyaged from Asia to Rome seventy-two times (CIG [Note: IG Corpus Inscrip. Graecarum.] , 3920), taking the dangerous route by the south of the Peloponnese on each occasion, instead of the easier method of trans-shipment over the Isthmus of Corinth. A certain Gaius Octavius Agathopus at Puteoli mentions that place as his final home after many wearisome journeys East and West (CIL [Note: IL Corpus Inscrip. Latinarum.] x. 2792). The Black Sea ports, Britain, and Ireland were known to such traders. The love of Christ led St. Paul to take the same risks as the merchants took for less worthy motives. Besides the classic account of the great voyage in Acts 27, we learn from 2 Corinthians 11:25-26, which of course antedates, and does not post-date, as Pelagius imagined, the narrative in Acts, that St. Paul had suffered shipwreck three times, and had spent a night and a day in the deep, also that he had been in perils in (on) the sea.
9. Merchant ships.-There were, of course, various kinds of merchant vessels. There were the heavy merchantmen, or onerariae naves, the ponto and the corbita, of which the first appears to have been Gallic in origin (cf. Caes. de Bell. Ciu. III. xxix. 3, xl. 5). A mosaic ound in the province of Africa shows us a ponto with a mainmast and a square sail, and with a foremast which appears to be dipped; it is also provided with long planks (wales) outside the bulwarks on either side, to protect the steering paddles. The stern is sharply pointed. The corbita, or basket-shaped vessel (from corbis, ‘basket’), was, as its name indicates, a much dumpier structure and a very heavy craft. These two kinds of vessel would of course be more useful for river traffic. Lighter craft, more suitable for the open sea, were the actuaria (from ago) and myoparo. They are represented in the mosaic referred to as having a single mast and oars in addition to sail. They were designed for rapid rowing, and had a bank of oars, numbering from ten to thirty. Their character made them useful as dispatch-boats, and we hear of them as also used by pirates. They, however, used the myoparo (μυοπάρων, from μῦς, ‘rowing-boat,’ and παρών, ‘light ship’) more frequently. Other craft which may be mentioned are the fishing-boat, very much like our own salmon-coble, called horeia, horicula, and carrying nets; the stlatta, greater in breadth than in length, used for river traffic; and the celox, a light rowing-boat.
10. Roman docks, etc.-Rome was itself a harbour-town, the quays for landing merchandise being at the foot of the Aventine Mount on the Tiber, and called the Emporium (ἐμπόριον). This quarter became more and more covered with large warehouses (horrea). Much, perhaps most, of the traffic which came to Rome by water did not come in ships direct. The great sea-harbour of Rome was at the mouth of the Tiber, at Ostia (lit. [Note: literally, literature.] ‘mouths’). Ostia is now a mile or two from the sea, owing to the silt thrown up throughout centuries by the yellow river (flauus Tiberis), but the thorough excavation which the site is now undergoing at the hands of the Italian Government has revealed its importance. Horrea were long buildings bounded by a street on each of the longer sides, and divided by a wall longitudinally into two rows of store-rooms, placed back to back. Sometimes they formed the boundaries of a platea (square). At Ostia they were used to receive the heavy goods, pending their transportation up the Tiber on barges to Rome. From the warehouses in Rome, which were partly public and partly private, and not all situated in the Emporium quarter, the goods found their way to the tabernae (shops), and thus to the private purchasers. There must have been large warehouses at Alexandria and Puteoli in connexion with the great corn traffic between Egypt and Italy, as well as at other ports (cf., in fact, the name Emporiae, of a Greek city in N.E. Spain). We find instances of factories in the West belonging to Easterns. For example, various Syrian and Phœnician cities had factories at Puteoli, Rome, Naples, Portus, Ravenna. The Alexandrians had them at Perinthus (modern Eregli) in Thrace, and at Tomis (near modern Constantza) on the Black Sea.
11. Fairs.-The great fairs held in various parts of the Empire played their part in the dissemination of trade. The Mysteries of Eleusis near Athens and of Samothrace, the Feasts of Dionysus at Argos and of Pythian Apollo at Delphi, the Isthmian Games at Corinth, and the Olympian Games in Elis (Peloponnese), all attracted countless visitors and stimulated trade, being the ancient counterparts of the Stourbridge, Leipzig, and Nijni Novgorod fairs of more modern times. Thus the pursuit of athletics and of religion benelited trade.
12. Customs dues.-The harbour or customs dues in our period are not known. They were probably not high. The Empire was divided into large customs districts, and an ad ualorem duty was charged on goods passing from one of these to another. A uicesima (1/20, i.e. 5 per cent) duty is known for Sicily and Africa, and was probably general; a quadragesima (1/40, i.e. 2 1/2 per cent) duty was also in use, for example, in the province of Asia, in the Bithynia-Pontus and Paphlagonia group, and in the ‘Three Gauls’ (Gallia Lugudunensis, Gallia Belgica, Gallia Aquitanica).
13. Trade with distant countries
(a) Egypt and India.-Some account may now be given in detail of the distant countries with which trade was carried on by the Mediterranean peoples. Egypt holds a very important place. Not only did that country supply a third or the corn consumed in Italy; it was also the home of the papyrus plant, so extensively used as writing material. From there also were exported various building stones (cf. Stat. Siluae II. ii. 86, Assouan), linen, glass, embroidered stuffs, etc. It was, further, the way to East India, the source of pepper, pearls, etc. From Alexandria the journey to Coptos up the Nile took twelve days, with a favourable wind. At Coptos the goods were laden on camels and Berenice-Troglodytice to the S.E. was reached in eleven or twelve days. Berenice with its warehouses was a centre for Arabia, India, and Ethiopia, and the trade-routes were guarded by Roman garrisons, which had also dug wells. Doubtless this was the route taken by the eunuch of the Candace mentioned in Acts 8. Thirty days were required to go from Berenice to Ocelis in Arabia at the south end of the Red Sea, or to Cane on the south coast of Arabia. From Cane it was forty days to Muziris on the coast of Malabar, whence goods went to Barace (Barygaza), their ultimate destination. The unloading and loading took little time, and in December they started the return journey. The whole journey from Alexandria to Barace and back took six months. From South Arabia, especially through Adane (Aden), came incense (cf. ‘grana turis unius assis, Arabicae arboris lacrimas,’ Tert. Apol. 30) and other perfumes, spices, and precious stones. From the Great Lakes, East Africa, and Somaliland ivory was brought via Abyssinia to the Nile.
(b) Syria.-Syria was itself an important centre of production. The purple dyes of Tyre and Sidon are constantly referred to in ancient literature (cf. Stat. Siluae III. ii. 139, ‘qua pretiosa Tyros rubeat, qua purpura suco Sidoniis iterata cadis,’ and especially Mayor on Juvenal, Sat. i. 27). Artistic work in glass was also associated with Sidon, and throughout Syria fine linen (Luke 16:19, Revelation 18:12; Revelation 18:16; Revelation 19:8; Revelation 19:14) was woven from the flax of the country. But Syria’s chief significance was as a halfway house for the merchandise of the Further East. In addition to the Indian route mentioned in the last paragraph, goods from India could be brought by the port of Charax at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, by the Euphrates, and then by the caravan route passing through Palmyra to Damascus. The importance of Palmyra (cf. W. Wright, An Account of Palmyra and Zenobia, London, 1895) was very great. The tariff levied by that city brought it the greatest material prosperity (cf. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, vol. i. ch. xi., ed. J. B. Bury, London, 1905, p. 306). Another trade-route which passed through Syria was that by the head of the Arabian Gulf to Petra through Bostra to Damascus or, for southern Syria, to the port of Gaza.
(c) China.-Silk from China also reached Italy in part through Syria. Yellow silk from Cos (Coae uestes) and from Assyria (bombycinae uestes) made from the cocoon of the wild silk-worm (bombyx) was the first kind known to the Romans, and references to these products abound from the beginning of the Augustan Age to the seventh decade of the 1st cent. a.d. But this sort was ousted from the market by the superior pure white silk of China (sericae [from Seres, the Chinese] or holosericae [‘all-silk’] uestes [to the examples of the latter word in Lewis and Short’s dictionary add pseudo-Augustine, Sermons, cclii. 1, cclxii. 1]). Raw silk and silk thread were also exported. Four trade-routes brought the silk products of China to Rome: (a) the overland route from Northern China through Chinese Turkestan to Bactria, by the Caspian gates to Media and the Euphrates; (b) a branch of this, crossing the Pamirs from Kashgar and descending the valley of the Indus to Karachi, thence by sea to the Persian Gulf; (c) from Central China through Tibet and Nepal to Palibothra on the Ganges, down the Ganges, and then by sea to Egypt; (d) from Cattigara (Tonkin) (Jones, A Companion to Roman History, p. 320).
(d) The Baltic coast.-The amber trade opened up the north of Europe and the Baltic coast. From the latter district it was brought to Italy by a route which eventually passed through Carnuntum, an important military station (now Petronell, near Vienna) on the upper Danube. The discovery of various hoards of Roman coins and articles in Northern Europe suggests that there was a trade in other commodities as well. Certainly timber, iron ore, and gold were obtained in the northern provinces.
(e) Gaul and Britain.-The Romans had entered Gaul, even before Caesar’s conquest of it, from the old province of Gallia Narbonensis up the Rhone valley from Marseilles (later from Aries), and from Italy by the Great St. Bernard Pass. A cask of Italian or Narbonese wine bought a Gaulish slave, and it seems to have been chiefly wine that the Roman traders brought. Gallic clothing and pottery were also bought by the Romans. At the other northern corner of the Empire, at Dioscurias or Sebastopolis in the Caucasus, there was a great trading centre, at which the products of Southern Russia were exchanged. The lead-mines of the Mendip hills and North Wales were worked by the Romans. Iron was extracted in the Weald and the Forest of Dean, and gold in West Wales. A trade-route existed from Britain to the mouth of the Loire. But the most important country for the supply of minerals was Spain, from which copper, lead, silver, gold, and tin were obtained. From this short account, pieced together from scanty data, it is difficult to realize the tremendous commercial activity of Rome in every direction open to her.
14. Centres of distribution.-Not much is known of the distribution of the goods. Juvenal’s words, ‘iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes’ (Sat. iii. 62), are typical of the whole Empire. At Rome was the greatest distributing mart of the world. There everything that could be bought for money was obtainable. Other great distributing centres were Corinth (the most natural explanation of ‘they of Chloe’ [1 Corinthians 1:11] is that they were business agents of a house trading between Corinth and Ephesus), Alexandria, Syrian Antioch, Arelate (now Aries). Alexandria was a distributing centre for paper, spices, etc. Tin was in stock almost everywhere, though found only in the West in a natural state. Amber was to be found everywhere. Iron goods-for example, Roman-made weapons-were universally known. The Italian pattern of stewpan or casserole has been found in various parts of Northern Europe. Greek pottery from the islands of the aegean was sold widely, but Western was no less important (the classic work is that by J. Déchelette, Les Vases céramiques ornés de la Gaule romaine-Narbonnaise, Aquitaine et Lyonnaise, 2 vols., Paris, 1904; see also the literature referred to in P. Gwynne, The Guadalquiver: its Personality, its People, and its Associations, London, 1912). Each maker had his own hall-mark; the wares of Saguntum, Arretium, Mutina, Lyons, and other centres can thus be traced over the Western Empire. So also Alexandrian glass articles, Syrian fine linen fabrics, Italian wines, sausages, and hams, African carpets, Gaulish, Numidian, Rhaetian, and British clothing, Tarentine wool, Cartagena fish-sauce, etc., were on sale in the most unlikely places.
15. Articles of commerce
(a) Slaves.-But it is now time to pass to a more detailed account of the articles of commerce themselves. The most important of them were the slaves. Of these some of course were born in the house (uerna, ancilla, οἰκέτης, οἰκέτις) of mothers who were already house-slaves, and had for fathers either the master or another slave. By law every such child was a new slave for the master. But the household of slaves was also, and perhaps mainly, added to by purchase. All slaves were valued as representing so much capital, as well as for the service they rendered. Hardly a household existed without one, and no person of the slightest consequence would go out into the street unattended by one or more slaves. There were also grades of slaves, the more important having at their beck and call under-slaves, uicarii. They also varied in standing and cost according to the purpose for which they were bought. For instance, the beautiful boy-slave (puer delicatus; Stat. Siluae II. i. vi., laments for the death of such), as a luxury of the rich, sometimes, if not always, used for immoral purposes (cf. μαλακοί, 1 Corinthians 6:9), was exceedingly costly. But the rough farm labourer class of slave could be obtained cheap. Town service was much more highly appreciated by the slave class than country service, and a refractory town slave could think of no greater punishment than to be sent to his master’s country estate (Horace, Sat. II. vii. 118). The slave born in the house grew up with the master’s lawful children, and thus a close relationship was established between them, a sign of which is the fact that the house-slave referred to his master by his ‘Christian’ name, praenomen. The earliest purchased slaves were obtained directly through war, for the word mancipium comes from manu capere, but later through the medium of the slave market, a regular institution of all the ancient States; slaves reached this slave market generally as booty taken in war. Every successful war in which Rome took part brought in a number of captives as an essential part of the booty. After a victory or the capture of a town, thousands of captives were sold by the quaestor, either on the spot or at the nearest market. Another source of slaves was the robbery of defenceless persons committed by pirates and highwaymen, but this source had greatly dried up by the 1st cent. a.d. Different nationalities were associated with different aptitudes and held in various esteem. Phrygians, like Onesimus (in Philemon), were little esteemed, and were commonly employed to wait at table. Many interesting facts with regard to slaves must be omitted here, as we are concerned with them merely as articles of merchandise.
(b) Wild beasts.-The purchase of beasts for gladiatorial shows has some interest owing to the (metaphorical) expression of St. Paul (ἐθηριομάχησα, 1 Corinthians 15:32) and the experience of Ignatius, who was condemned to face the beasts in the arena at Rome (Ignatius, Ep. ad Rom.; Irenaeus, adv. Haer. v. xxviii. 4). Beasts wild and tame were exhibited, or hunted by trained men. The wild beasts fought with one another or with men. The animals appearing in such exhibitions were elephants, lions, panthers, leopards, and bears from foreign parts, especially from Africa, besides stags, boars, and bears from Europe. Later in becoming known to the Romans were the hippopotamus, crocodile, rhinoceros, anthropoid ape, Gallic lynx, giraffe, tiger, zebra, elk, and bison. Governors levied these contributions on the subjects of Rome, as is shown by the reiterated appeals of Caelius in Rome (Cic. ad Fam. viii.) to Cicero in Cilicia, to send him panthers for a show which he wished to give. The variety of the beasts shown is surpassed by the vast and incredible numbers in which they are said to have appeared. Augustus records that 3,500 African beasts were killed at his shows; at the dedication of the Colosseum in a.d. 80, 9,000 tame and wild beasts were killed, while in a.d. 107, after Trajan’s second Dacian triumph, the number totalled 11,000. Details of all the means of acquiring these animals would be of the greatest interest, but they have not come down to us.
16. Food supply
(a) Bread.-Something must be said of the Roman food supply. The corn was separated from the chaff either by animals, commonly horses, or by threshing machines worked by animals (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:9-10, 1 Timothy 5:18), or by flails. On the threshing floor carefully prepared for the purpose, the corn was shaken out from the husk. The chaff of far (spelt) adhered so closely to the grain that it could be separated only by pounding. If the wind was not strong enough to blow away the chaff, a wicker basket (πτύον, uannus, Matthew 3:12) was used for winnowing. The staple food of the early Roman was porridge (puls) made of pounded far. The pounding process gave rise to the name pistor, which thus came to have the meaning ‘baker.’ Triticum (tritticum), ‘winter wheat,’ was grown in dry soils; of this, a variety siligo was the source of the finest flour. Barley (hordeum) was little used as human food except by slaves and gladiators. Millet (panicum or milium) was grown chiefly in Campania, and oats (auena) were sown only for green fodder (for which the general word was farrago). Other crops grown for fodder were lucerne, vetches, and tares. Peas and beans of various types were largely cultivated, especially lupines. The production of bread was long, as in Britain and elsewhere, a purely household matter. For boulangerie one depended on the work of the slaves at home; for pâtisserie one had to resort to the shops, probably most of them Greek. The handmill or quorn (mola), worked by women, was a feature of every house; the larger houses had mills worked by asses or mules. Water-mills were also known. The loaves were for the most part much smaller than those to which we are accustomed in Britain, being more like large rolls. Leaven (ζύμη. Latin fermentum) was usually employed in baking, unleavened bread being regarded as less health-giving. The resulting paste (φύραμα, massa, 1 Corinthians 5:6, etc.) was formed on the baking-board, either by hand or in a mould.
(b) Olive-oil.-The use of butter seems to have been very rare, except for medicinal purposes. Its place as a food was taken by olive-oil. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the olive in the ancient world. The extent to which it was grown in Mediterranean lands is vividly shown by a map published in Deissmann’s St. Paul: a Study in Social and Religious History, London, 1912. In Italy the olive area commonly begins where the uppermost part of the vineyard stops, on the mountain slopes. St. Paul refers in a well-known simile to the difference between the wild olive (ἀγριέλαιος, oleaster) and the cultivated olive (ἐλαία, olea) and to the grafting (Romans 11:17-24) of the former on the latter, a process probably less frequent than the reverse. The cultivated olive was introduced by Greek colonists to Italy. The Sabine country provided the largest yield, and the best oil came from Venafrum (modern Venafro) in Samnium. Young trees were not removed from the seed-plots till they were five years old. They attain considerable age, and do not bear to their full capacity for a number of years. Olive-growing was therefore a trade for the capitalist, who could wait for his returns. Before the fruit was fully ripe it was picked, and the first process in the obtaining of the oil was to separate the pulp from the kernel. This was done by putting the olives into the oil-mill (trapetum), by which they were crushed. The pulp when separated was put into the oil-press (ληνός, torcular), and crushed there to obtain the oil. It was caught in a cistern (lacus) and afterwards strained of its impurities. Then it was ready for the large earthenware jars (dolia) in the oil-cellar.
(c) Wine.-The culture of the vine was of the highest importance, wine being then, as now, the staple drink of the Mediterranean peoples. Corn-growing in Italy had been largely abandoned in favour of the cultivation of the olive and the vine. Wine was rare and costly in early times in Italy; even in the 3rd cent. b.c. it was poor in quality, and till near the end of the Republic Greek wines, especially those of the aegean islands, Chios, Cos, Lesbos, Rhodes, and Samos, held almost undisputed place among the citizens of the Italian cities. Even in Italy, however, the vineyard was the source of greatest profit to the agriculturist. We first hear of Falernian wine under Julius Caesar, but only as two-fifths of the total supply provided at a Gargantuan banquet to the Roman people. Under the Empire, the vine-growers of Latium and Campania had so perfected their vintages that they were sought for even in India. In Pliny’s time (died a.d. 79) two-thirds of eighty well-known brands were Italian; of these the best were the Alban and Caecuban from Latium, and the Massic and the Surrentine (the latter recommended by physicians, e.g. Caelius Aurelianus, de Celeribus vel Acutis Passionibus, ii. 37). Columella, the agricultural writer of the 1st cent. a.d., shows that a profit of rather over 6 per cent was obtained from a vineyard of about 4 acres, but there is evidence in a favourable locality of as much as ten times that percentage.
(d) Vegetables and fruit.-Root-crops were not very commonly raised except in Cisalpine Gaul, where the turnip was used, as to-day, for the winter food of cattle. Flax (λίνον, linum) yielded large profits; hemp (cannabis) required a rich soil. Of fruit trees the lemon and the orange, now so characteristic of Italy, were unknown. Peaches and apricots were introduced in the course of the 1st cent., the pistachio nut in its first third, and about the time of the destruction of Pompeii the first melons aroused the interest of students and growers. Every town was surrounded by orchards and kitchen-gardens. The flower-gardens produced little but several varieties of lilies, roses, and violets, grown both for natural use and for the manufacture of perfumes. Each town was supplied with vegetables from its own environs, but these were sometimes also exported further a field; for example, Pompeii exported cabbages, figs, and onions, and Rome obtained peaches from Verona, asparagus from Ravenna, and roses from Paestum. It was in the forum holitorium that fruit and vegetables were purchased at Rome. Varieties of fruit not already mentioned, which could be obtained there, were apples (Italian, African, Syrian), pears (Italian, Greek, and African), plums, quinces, medlars, chestnuts, grapes, walnuts, hazel-nuts, filberts, almonds, pomegranates, cherries. Of dried fruits, damsons, Carian figs, dates, and raisins (from Spain) were on sale. Of vegetables, in addition to those mentioned above, the following were to be found in the Roman market: squills, garlic (still so characteristic of Southern Europe), leeks, celery, artichokes (e.g. from Carthage and Cordoba), endives, elecampane, radishes, cucumbers, gourds, lettuce, cress, mallow, sorrel (cf. the soupe à l’oseille of modern France), roe, mustard, anise, fennel, coriander, cummin, dill, etc.
(e) Fish.-Fish was the real delicacy of the ancient table. This is seen in the history of the word ὄψον (opsonium), which originally indicated any sort of relish taken with bread, and latterly meant ‘fish’ exclusively (cf. John 6:9; John 6:11; John 21:9-10; John 21:13). At first little fishing seems to have been engaged in, but in the 1st cent. b.c. there were many aristocratic fish-breeders, who in their private ponds fed various sorts of rare fish for the enjoyment of the table. Among the fish eaten by the Romans were the sturgeon, bass, mullet, seamullet, the ‘ruminating’ parrot fish, pearl fish, turbot, eel, conger-eel, murry (a sea-eel), sheath fish, trout, salmon-trout, pike, prickly flounder. The common people esteemed the mackerel, the anchovy, the tunny, and the sand-smelt. Certain of the latter were used in making sauces. The pearl fish was common in the Mediterranean; the sheath fish was obtained in the Nile, Danube, Moselle, and Dnieper; the best murries were obtained from Tartessus, Messana, and the Carpathian Sea; the best turbots were caught off Ravenna; most eels were caught at Verona. The common fish abounded in the Italian seas.
(f) Meat.-In the meat-market (macellum, μάκελλον, 1 Corinthians 10:25; cf. Ital. macelleria) were to be found beef, goat’s flesh, lamb, mutton, and pork. Pork was especially in demand, particularly for roasting on festal days. The parts of the animal most appreciated were the womb, udder, liver, ham, and toes, and there was also a great sale for salt beef and various kinds of sausages. A considerable portion of the meat sold in the meat-market had been sacrificed to gods by their priests. The inferior parts of the animal might then be burnt, but what the priests did not require for personal consumption was sold in the meat-market (cf. Acts 15:29; Acts 21:25, 1 Corinthians 8 [whole chapter] 1 Corinthians 10:19, Revelation 2:14; Revelation 2:20). Salt- and smoked-meat were imported into Rome from Gallia Cisalpina, the Pyrenees, the Cantabri, and the Sequani. In addition to domestic animals, game, whether obtained from hunters or from zoological gardens, was also sold, wild boar, sometimes served whole (as at Queen’s College, Oxford, to-day), hare, venison, dormouse. Nor was poultry overlooked. Birds of various sorts were obtained in all parts of the Roman world, and preserved in aviaries for the table: pigeons of costly and rare types, fattened birds, particularly the diseased goose liver become abnormally large (cf. the modern pâté de foie gras), also the ptarmigan, woodcock, francolin or black partridge, fieldfare (fattened on pounded figs), partridge, quail, peacock, Guinea-fowl, pheasant, black grouse, capercailzie, crane, stork, and flamingo.
It is enough to mention milk and various kinds of cheese, of which the Alpine was the most famous (smoked cheese being also in demand), and honey.
17. Markets and retail dealers.-The various kinds of food were to be obtained in the large fora, or markets, but probably most of the business done in them was wholesale, at least in the great cities. From the fora retail dealers in all kinds of food obtained their supplies. Marquardt (Privatleben der Römer, p. 448 ff.) divides these retail dealers into ten classes: (a) corn-dealers, bakers, and millers; (b) greengrocers; (c) fruiterers; (d) butchers, game-dealers, and poulterers; (e) fishmongers; (f) wine-merchants; (g) oil-dealers; (h) honey-dealers; (i) salt-merchants; (j) cooks and innkeepers.
18. Textile fabrics
(a) Production of wool.-We pass now to textile fabrics. By far the most important were those made from the wool of sheep, the earliest use of which is prehistoric, like the arts of spinning and weaving. Great care was shown in the breeding of sheep, and the varieties of wool, which was in some cases prepared on the spot, and in others exported as rough material, were very numerous. Different breeds of sheep were valued according to the fineness or thickness of their wool, or according to their colour. Cross-breeding was freely employed to improve the quality of any particular wool. The best Italian wool was that from Tarentum, and the epithet Tarentine thus became a trade description for fine wool. On being obtained, commonly by shearing, sometimes by plucking, the wool was prepared for the spinner. Almost all the processes connected with wool were carried out by the women of the household from the beginning down to the Middle Ages. It was the Roman matron’s proudest boast that she lanam fecit. In fact, a very large amount of the clothing used by the Romans and the ancients generally was made in the house. Costly carpets, hangings, coverlets, etc., were naturally manufactured by experts in factories. With the progress of time factories got more and more of the manufacture of clothing also to do. The wool was washed in hot water with soap, then spread out to dry, then picked and carded. All these processes were a necessary preparation for spinning and weaving.
(b) Fulling.-Fulling (cf. Mark 9:3) was a very important trade in ancient times, both in the preparation of a new fabric and in the cleaning of soiled clothes. Only the simplest washing was done at home, except in very large houses. A number of gilds of fullers, as of other trades, are mentioned. It appears that water, for which they paid specially, was a necessary part of their equipment, and that they did not employ ‘dry-cleaning,’ at least exclusively. Soap, ‘fuller’s earth,’ and sulphur were also used. Cutting and pressing concluded their work.
(c) Preparation of stuffs.-The same processes essentially were employed with flax (linen, Revelation 15:6; cf. Acts 10:11, Luke 24:12, John 19:40, etc.), cotton, hemp, and other vegetable stuffs, as also with silk, etc. Flax was treated much as it is to-day. Rough linen was used for bath-towels, ordinary towels, etc., while it is generally believed that fine linen is indicated by the word βύσσος. Cotton, or tree-wool, as the Greeks, like the Germans, call it, came from a plant which was in ancient times indigenous only in East India and Upper Egypt, and it seems to have been prepared specially on the spot. Of its preparation we in consequence know almost nothing. Greeks and Romans did not use hemp for weaving, but the Thracians are recorded by Herodotus to have done so. The fibres of the wild mallow were woven into garments probably only on the banks of the Indus, but these garments were known to the Romans for a long period. Silk as a material for clothing has been referred to above (13 (c)). Of skins used by the ancients, goatskin was the most important. Especially in Spain, Africa (near the Syrtes), Phrygia, and Cilicia it was the custom to shear the long-haired goats and to weave rough material out of the hair. From the chief place of manufacture (Cilicia) fabrics of such material were known among the Romans as cilicia (St. Paul’s ‘tents’ may have been made of this stuff, Acts 18:3), while the Greeks gave them the name of σάκκος. Out of it were made cloaks, towels, bed-covers, hangings, shoes, and sacks.
19. Sewing.-Sewing did not in ancient times play the part with which we are now familiar. It was mostly in the addition of extra parts to a garment already woven practically complete that sewing was employed. The modern practice of weaving a whole bale of cloth, out of which a number of different garments are to be cut, was not known to the ancients. Among the Romans the use of the needle would appear to have been commonest with leather; otherwise it is difficult to understand how sutor (‘sewer’) came to mean ‘shoemaker.’ Needles of various sizes and thimbles were in use. An important part of ancient industry was the manufacture of cushions and bolsters, which were more extensively used than among ourselves, not only for sofas and beds, but also for seats of all kinds. The covers were of linen, wool, or leather, and the stuffing, which was in early times, and later also among humble people, straw, consisted at a later period also of rushes, seaweed, tufts of reeds, and soft leaves of plants, the commonest being flocks of wool, cotton, and feathers. Horsehair was never used. Embroidery of various kinds was practised, especially in Phrygia. For the making of felt, sheep-wool in particular was used.
20. Dyeing.-Dyeing was well understood from an early period, especially in purple, and this process seems from the first to have been carried out, not at home, but in the factory. The characteristic word for ‘to dye’ is βάπτειν (cf. tinguere) from the dipping of the garment in the dye (cf. Revelation 19:13), and for ‘the dye’ φάρμακον (medicamen, medicamentum). As a rule, the stuff was dyed not as a fabric, but previously to weaving. The Egyptians, however, followed a practice akin to modern cotton-printing. The chief demand, of course, in all dyeing was that the dye should be lasting and proof against washing. Alum and other substances were used in dyeing, and animal and vegetable, but not mineral, dyes. They distinguished between herbal and snail dyeing. From the former were obtained madder, saffron, weed, woad, litmus, gall-nuts, etc.; from the latter, purple and scarlet. The most important, the subject of constant mention, is dyeing with purple. Purple (or rather violet-) dyeing, properly so called,-that is, dyeing with the juice of certain kinds of snails,-was a discovery of the Phoenicians, especially those of Tyre, whose products remained by far the best (and the dearest). Phœnician purple was always understood to have been produced in this way, while imitations from other countries were sometimes made from plants. Thus it is that the Latin and Greek words for shell-fish, with their derivatives, are very often used for purple-dyes. Three different types of shell-fish (murex, πορφύρα, purpura) were employed, one obtained at Tarentum and other places in the Adriatic for Tarentine purple, another obtained off the African coast for Gaetulian or African purple, and the third off the Phœnician coast for Phœnician purple. Πορφύρα, though properly the name of only one shell-fish, came to be used quite generally for purple, and from it the derivatives came: e.g. παρφυρόπωλις (purpuraria), Acts 16:14, applied to Lydia of Thyatira, means a dealer in purple dyed wool and fabrics of all sorts. The name of another shell-fish, murex, was similarly used to describe purple in general. The means by which the dye was obtained need not be here described in detail. Several varieties of purple were produced by the mixture of the juices of various shell-fish. Tyrian (and Laconian) purple was always double-dyed (διβαφον). The wool was first dipped in one dye (pelagium), while the latter was still half-boiled, and then dipped in another (bucinum). The colour thus gained was like that of coagulated blood, blackish and shining, especially in sunlight. In addition to the genuine purple, brighter dyes were produced by the weakening of it through the use of various other substances.
Something must be said of dyeing with other materials. Crimson dye was obtained from the insect kermes (coccum), the female coccus of the kermes oak, in form like a berry, native of the northern shores of the Mediterranean. This dye is alluded to in the adjective κόκκινος (Matthew 27:28, Hebrews 9:19, Revelation 17:3-4; Copyright Statement
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