CHAP. XVI. Of the Commerce of the Romans with Arabia, and the Indies. THE trade to Arabia Felix, and that to the Indies, were the two branches, and almost the only ones of their foreign commerce. The Arabians were possessed of immense riches, which they found in their seas and forests; and as they sold much and purchased little, they drew to themselves the gold and silver of the Romans.* Augustus being well apprized of that opulence, resolved they should be either his friends, or his enemies. With this view, he sent Elius Gallus from Egypt into Arabia. This commander found the people indolent, peaceable, and unskilled in war. He fought battles, laid sieges to towns, and lost but seven of his men by the sword; but the perfidy of his guides, long marches, the climate, want of provisions, distempers, and ill-conduct, caused the ruin of his army. He was therefore, obliged to be content with trading to Arabia, in the same manner as other nations; that is, with giving them gold and silver, in exchange for their commodities. The Europeans trade with them still in the same manner; the caravans of Aleppo, and the royal vessel of Suez, thither immense sums.‡ carry Nature had formed the Arabs for commerce, not for war; but when those quiet people came to be near neighbours to the Parthians and the Romans, they acted as auxiliaries to both nations. Elius Gallus found them a trading people; Mahomet happened to find them trained to war; he inspired them with enthusiasm, which led them to glory and conquest. The commerce of the Romans to the Indies was very considerable. Strabo § had been informed in Egypt, that they employed in this navigation one hundred and twenty vessels; this commerce was carried on entirely with bullion. They sent thither annually fifty millions of sesterces. Pliny | says, that the merchandizes brought from thence, were sold at Rome at cent per cent profit. He speaks, I believe, too generally; if this trade had been so vastly profitable, every body would have *Pliny, lib. 6. cap. 28. and Strabo, lib. 16. + Ibid. The caravans of Aleppo and Suez carry thither annually to the value of about two millions of livres, and as much more clandestinely ; the royal vessel of Suez carries thither also two millions. § Lib. 2. p. 81. || Lib. 6. cap. 23. been willing to engage in it, and then it would have been at an end. It will admit of a question, whether the trade to Arabia and the Indies was of any advantage to the Romans? They were obliged to export their bullion thither, though they had not, like us, the resource of America, which supplies what we send away. I am persuaded, that one of the reasons of their increasing the value of their specie, by establishing base coin, was the scarcity of silver, owing to the continual exportation of it to the Indies: and though the commodities of this country were sold at Rome at the rate of cent per cent, this profit of the Romans, being obtained from the Romans themselves, could not enrich the empire. It may be alleged, on the other hand, that this commerce increased the Roman navigation, and of course their power; that new merchandizes augmented their inland trade, gave encouragement to the arts, and employment to the industrious; that the number of subjects multiplied in proportion to the new means of support; that this new commerce was productive of luxury, which I have proved to be as favourable to a monarchical government, as fatal to a commonwealth; that this establishment was of the same date as the fall of their republic; that the luxury of Rome was become necessary; and that it was extremely proper, that a city which had accumulated all the wealth of the universe, should refund it by its luxury. Strabo says, *that the Romans caried on a far more extensive commerce to the Indies, than the kings of Egypt; but it is very extraordinary, that those people who were so little acquainted with commerce, should have paid more attention to that of India, than the Egyptian kings, whose dominions lay so conveniently for it. The reason of this must be ex plained. After the death of Alexander, the kings of Egypt established a maritime commerce to the Indies; while the kings of Syria, who were possessed of the more eastern provinces, and consequently of the Indies, maintained that commerce of which we have taken notice in the sixth chapter, which was carried on partly by land, and partly by rivers, and had been farther facilitated by means of the Macedonian colonies; insomuch that Europe had a communication with the Indies, both by Egypt, and by Syria. The dismembering of the He says, in his 12th book, that the Romans employed a hundred and twenty ships in that trade; and in the 17th book, that the Grecian kings scarcely employed twenty. latter kingdom, from whence was formed that of Bactriana, did not prove any way prejudicial to this commerce. Marinus the Tyrian, quoted by Ptolemy,* mentions the discoveries made in India by means of some Macedonian merchants, who found out new roads, which had been unknown to kings in their military expeditions. We find in Ptolemy,† that they went from Peter's tower, as far as Sera; and the discovery made by mercantile people of so distant a mart, situated in the north-east part of China, was a kind of prodigy. Hence, under the kings of Syria and Bactriana, merchandizes were conveyed to the west from the southern parts of India, by the river Indus, the Oxus, and the Caspian sea; while those of the more eastern and northern parts were transported from Sera, Peter's tower, and other staples, as far as the Euphrates. Those merchants directed their rout, nearly by the fortieth degree of north latitude, through countries situated to the west of China, more civilized at that time than at present, because they had not as yet been infested by the Tartars. Now while the Syrian empire was extending its trade to such a distance by land, Egypt did not greatly enlarge its maritime commerce. The Parthians soon after appeared, and founded their empire; and when Egypt fell under the power of the Romans, this empire was at its height, and had received its whole ex tension. The Romans and Parthians were tw rival nations, that fought not for dominion but for their very existence. Between the two empires deserts were formed and armies were always stationed on the frontiers; so that instead of there being any commerce, there was not so much as a communication between them. Ambition, jealousy, religion, national antipathy, and difference of manners, completed the separation. Thus the trade from east to west, which had formerly so many channels, was reduced to one; and Alexandria becoming the only staple, the trade to this city was immensely enlarged. We shall say but one word on their inland trade. Its principal branch was the corn brought to Rome for the subsistence of the people; but this was rather a political affair than a point of commerce. On this account the sailors were favoured with some privileges, because the safety of the empire depended on their vigilance.§ *Lib. 1. cap. 2. + Lib. 1. cap. 13. Our best maps place Peter's tower in the hundredth degree of longitude, and about the fortieth of latitude. § Suet. in Claudio, leg. 8. Cod. Theodosis. de Naviculiariis. CHAP. XVII. Of Commerce after the Destruction of the Western Empire. AFTER the invasion of the Roman empire one effect of the general calamity was the destruction of commerce. The barbarous nations at first regarded it only as an opportunity for robbery; and when they had subdued the Romans, they honoured it no more than agriculture, and the other professions of a conquered people. Soon was the commerce of Europe almost entirely lost. The nobility, who had every where the direction of affairs, were in no pain about it. The laws of the Visigoths permitted private people to occupy half the beds of great rivers, provided the other half remained frce for nets and boats. There must have been very little trade in countries conquered by these barbarians. In those times were established the ridiculous rights of escheatage, and shipwrecks. These men thought, that as strangers were not united to them by any civil law, they owed them on the one hand no kind of justice, and on the other no sort of pity. In the narrow bounds which nature had originally prescribed to the people of the north, all were strangers to them; and in their poverty they regarded all only as contributing to their riches. Being established, before their conquest, on the coasts of a sea of very little breadth, and full of rocks, from these very rocks, they drew their subsistence. But the Romans, who made laws for all the world, had established the most humane ones with regard to shipwrecks.+ They suppressed the rapine of those who inhabited the coasts; and what was more still, the rapaciousness of their treasuries. Lib. 8. tit. 4. § 9. Toto titulo ff. de incend. ruin. et naufrag. & cod. de naufragiis, leg. 3. ff. ad leg. Cornel. de sicariis. Leg. 1. cod. de naufragiis. CHAP. XVIII. A particular Regulation. THE law of the Visigoths made however one regulation in favour of commerce.* * It ordained that foreign merchants should be judged, in the differences that arose amongst themselves, by the laws and by judges of their own nation. This was founded on an established custom among all mixed people, that every man should live under his own law: a custom of which I shall speak more at large in another place. CHAP. XIX. Of Commerce after the Decay of the Roman Power in THE Mahometans appeared, conquered, extended, and dispersed themselves. Egypt had particular sovereigns; these carried on the commerce of India, and being possessed of the merchandizes of this country, drew to themselves the riches of all other nations. The sultans of Egypt were the most powerful princes of those times. History informs us with what a constant and well-regulated force they stopped the ardour, the fire, and the impetuosity of the crusades. CHAP. XX. How Commerce broke through the Barbarism of Europe. ARISTOTLE's philosophy being carried to the west, pleased the subtle geniuses, who were the virtuosi of those times of ignorance. The schoolmen were infatuated with it, and borrowed from that philosopher† a great many notions on lending upon interest, whereas its source might have been easily traced in the gospel; in short, they condemned it ab |