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CHAP. VI.: Of the Commerce of the Ancients. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. VI.

Of the Commerce of the Ancients.

THE immense treasures of Semiramis,‡ which could not be acquired in a day, give us reason to believe, that the Assyrians themselves had pillaged other rich nations, as other nations afterwards pillaged them.

The effect of commerce is riches; the consequence of riches, luxury; and that of luxury, the perfection of arts. We find that the arts were carried to great perfection in the time of Semiramis∥ which is a sufficient indication, that a considerable commerce was then established.

In the empires of Asia, there was a great commerce of luxury. The history of luxury would make a fine part of that of commerce. The luxury of the Persians was that of the Medes, as the luxury of the Medes was that of the Assyrians.

Great revolutions have happened in Asia. The north east parts of Persia, viz. Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactria, &c. were formerly full of flourishing§ cities which are now no more; and the north of this †† empire, that is, the isthmus which separates the Caspian and the Euxine seas, was covered with cities and nations, which are now destroyed.

Eratosthenes‡ and Aristobulus learnt from Patroclus* , that the merchandizes of India passed by the Oxus into the sea of Pontus. Marcus Varro∥ tells us, that the time when Pompey commanded against Mithridates, they were informed, that people went in seven days from India to the country of the Bactrians, and to the river Icarus, which falls into the Oxus; that by this method, they were able to bring the merchandizes of India across the Caspian sea, and to enter the mouth of Cyrus; from whence it was only five days passage to the Phasis, a river that discharges itself into the Euxine sea. There is no doubt but it was by the nations inhabiting these several countries, that the great empires of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, had a communication, with the most distant parts of the east and west.

An entire stop is now put to this communication. All these countries have been laid waste by the§ Tartars, and are still infested by this destructive nation. The Oxus no longer runs into the Caspian sea; the Tartars, for some private** reasons, have changed its course, and it now loses itself in the barren sands.

The Jaxartes, which was formerly a barrier between the polite and barbarous nations, has had its course turned †† in the same manner by the Tartars, and it no longer empties itself into the sea.

Seleucus Nicator formed† the project of joining the Euxine to the Caspian sea. This project, which would have greatly facilitated the commerce of those days, vanished at his‡ death. We are not certain it could have been executed in the isthmus which separates the two seas. This country is at present very little known; it is depopulated, and full of forests: however, water is not wanting, for an infinite number of rivers roll into it from mount Caucasus; but, as this mountain forms the north of the isthmus, and extends like two arms∥ towards the south, it would have been a grand obstacle to such an enterprise, especially in those times when they had not the art of making sluices.

It may be imagined, that Seleucus would have joined the two seas in the very place where Peter I. has since joined them, that is, in that neck of land where the Tanais approaches the Volga; but the north of the Caspian sea was not then discovered.

While the empires of Asia enjoyed the commerce of luxury, the Tyrians had the commerce of œconomy, which they extended throughout the world. Bochard has employed the first book of his Canaan, in enumerating the colonies which they sent into all the countries bordering upon the sea: they passed the Pillars of Hercules, and made establishments* on the coast of the ocean.

In those times their pilots were obliged to follow the coasts, which were, if I may so express myself, their compass. Voyages were long and painful. The laborious voyage of Ulysses has been the fruitful subject of the finest poem in the world, next to that which alone has the preference.

The little knowledge, which the greatest part of the world had of those who were far distant from them, favoured the nations engaged in the œconomical commerce. They managed trade with as much obscurity as they pleased: they had all the advantages which the most intelligent nations could take over the most ignorant.

The Egyptians, a people who by their religion and their manners were averse to all communication with strangers, had scarcely at that time any foreign trade. They enjoyed a fruitful soil, and great plenty. Their country was the Japan of those times; it possessed every thing within itself.

So little jealous were those people of commerce, that they left that of the Red Sea to all the petty nations that had any harbours in it. Here they suffered the Idumeans, the Syrians, and the Jews to have fleets. Solomon† employed in this navigation the Tyrians, who knew those seas.

Josephus‡ says, that his nation, being entirely employed in agriculture, knew little of navigation: the Jews therefore traded only occasionally in the Red Sea. They took from the Idumeans, Eloth and Eziongeber, from whom they received this commerce; they lost these two cities, and with them lost this commerce.

It was not so with the Phœnicians; theirs was not a commerce of luxury; nor was their trade owing to conquest: their frugality, their abilities, their industry, their perils, and the hardships they suffered, rendered them necessary to all the nations of the world.

Before Alexander, the people bordering on the Red Sea traded only in this sea, and in that of Africa. The astonishment, which filled the globe at the discovery of the Indian Sea under that conqueror, is of this a sufficient proof. I have observed,* that bullion was always carried to the Indies, and never any brought from thence; now the Jewish fleets, which brought gold and silver by the way of the Red Sea, returned from Africa, and not from the Indies.‡

Besides, this navigation was made on the eastern coast of Africa; for the state of navigation at that time is a convincing proof, that they did not sail to a very distant shore. I am not ignorant, that the fleet of Solomon and Jehosaphat returned only every three years; but I do not see that the time taken up in the voyage is any proof of the greatness of the distance.

Pliny and Strabo inform us, that the junks of India and the Red Sea were twenty days in performing a voyage, which a Greek or Roman vessel would accomplish† in seven, In this proportion, a voyage of one year, made by the fleets of Greece or Rome, would take very near three, when performed by those of Solomon.

Two ships of unequal swiftness do not perform their voyage in a time proportionate to their swiftness. Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness. When it becomes necessary to follow the coasts, and to be incessantly in a different position, when they must wait for a fair wind to get out of a gulph, and for another to proceed; a good sailor takes the advantage of every favourable moment, while the other still continues in a difficult situation, and waits many days for another change.

This slowness of the Indian vessels, which in an equal time could make but one third of the way of those of the Greeks and Romans, may be explained by what we every day see in our modern navigation. The Indian vessels, which were built with a kind of sea-rushes, drew less water than those of Greece and Rome, which were of wood and joined with iron.

We may compare these Indian vessels to those at present made use of in ports of little depth of water. Such are those of Venice, and even of all * Italy in general, of the Baltic, and of the province of † Holland. Their ships, which ought to be able to go in and out of port, are built round and broad at the bottom; while those of other nations, who have good harbours, are formed to sink deep into the water. This mechanism renders these last mentioned vessels able to sail much nearer to the wind; while the first can hardly sail, except the wind be nearly in the poop. A ship that sinks deep into the water, sails towards the same side with almost every wind: this proceeds from the resistance which the vessel, whilst driven by the wind, meets with from the water, from which it receives a strong support; and from the length of the vessel, which presents its side to the wind, while from the form of the helm the prow is turned to the point proposed; so that she can sail very near to the wind, or, in other words, very near the point from whence the wind blows. But when the hull is round and broad at the bottom, and consequently draws little water, it no longer finds this steady support; the wind drives the vessel, which is incapable of resistance, and can run then but with a small variation from the point opposite to the wind. From whence it follows, that broad-bottomed vessels are longer in performing voyages.

1. They lose much time in waiting for the wind, especially if they are obliged frequently to change their course. 2. They sail much slower, because, not having a proper support from a depth of water, they cannot carry so much sail. If this be the case at a time when the arts are every where known, at a time when art corrects the defects of nature, and even of art itself; if at this time, I say, we find this difference, how great must that have been, in the navigation of the antients?

I cannot yet leave this subject. The Indian vessels were small, and those of the Greeks and Romans, if we except their machines built for ostentation, much less than ours. Now, the smaller the vessel, the greater the danger it encounters from foul weather. A tempest that would swallow up a small vessel, would only make a large one roll. The more one body is surpassed by another in bigness, the more its surface is relatively small. From whence it follows, that in a small ship, there is a less proportion, that is, a greater difference, as to the surface of the vessel, and the weight or lading she can carry, than in a large one. We know that it is a pretty general practice, to make the weight of the lading equal to that of half the water the vessel is able to contain. Suppose a vessel will contain eight hundred tons, her lading then must be four hundred; and that of a vessel, which would hold but four hundred tons of water, would be two hundred tons. Thus the largeness of the first ship will be to the weight she carries, as 8 to 4; and that of the second as 4 to 2. Let us suppose then, that the surface of the greater is to the surface of the smaller, as 8 to 6: the surface* of this will be to her weight as 6 to 2, while the surface of the former will be to her weight only, as 8 to 4. Therefore, as the winds and waves act only upon the surface, the large vessel will, by her weight, resist their impetuosity much more than the small.

[‡ ]Diodorus, lib. ii.

[∥ ]Ib.

[§ ]Pliny, lib. vi. cap. 16. & Strabo, lib. xi.

[†† ]Strabo, lib. xi.

[‡ ]Strabo, lib. xi.

[* ]The authority of Patroclus is of great weight, as appears from a passage in Strabo, lib. ii.

[∥ ]See Pliny, lib. vi. cap. 17. See also Strabo, lib. xi. upon the passage by which the merchandises were conveyed from the Phasis to the Cyrus.

[§ ]There must have been very great changes in that country since the time of Ptolemy, who gives us an account of so many rivers, that empty themselves into the east side of the Caspian sea. In the Czar’s chart we find only the river of Astrabat; in that of M. Bathalsi there is none at all.

[** ]See Jenkinson’s account of this, in the Collection of Voyages to the North. Vol. iv.

[†† ]I am apt to think, that from thence the lake Aral was formed.

[† ]Claudius Cæsar, in Plin. lib. vi. cap. 11.

[‡ ]He was slain by Ptolemy Ceraunus.

[∥ ]See Strabo, lib. xi.

[* ]They founded Tartessus, and made a settlement at Cadiz.

[† ]Kings, lib. i. c. 9. Chron. lib. ii. c. 8.

[‡ ]Against Appian.

[* ]Chap. 1. of this book.

[‡ ]The proportion betwixt gold and silver, as settled in Europe, may sometimes render it profitable to take gold instead of silver into the East-Indies; but the advantage is very trifling.

[† ]See Pliny, lib. vi. cap. 22. and Strabo, lib. xv.

[* ]They are mostly shallow; but Sicily has excellent ports.

[† ]I say the province of Holland; for the ports of Zealand are deep enough.

[* ]That is, to compare magnitudes of the same kind, the action or pressure of the fluid upon the ship, will be to the resistance of the same ship as, &c.