ODD PAPERS

Southland Times, Issue 21337, 7 March 1931, Page 11

ODD PAPERS

ANCIENT COMMERCE

(By

“Q.R.S.”)

The expedition by Alexander the Great into the East enlarged the sphere of navigation and geographical knowledge among the Greeks. He sailed down the Indus and returned by sea to Greece. The revolution he produced in commerce was remarkable. Probably the lengthened opposition offered by Tyre, after the other cities of Phoenicia had submitted at his approach, led him to realize the vast resources the Tyrians possessed as a maritime power, especially from their commerce with the East Indies. In order to assault the city, Alexander united the island (on which it was built) to the mainland by a causeway, which still remains. Having taken Gaza —one of the strong cities of Palestine —his army marched, in seven days, through the desert to Pelusium—the frontier town of Egypt on the East—which at once yielded, when the dominion of Egypt passed from the Persians to the Greeks. Being resolved to make the Empire he there proposed to establish the centre of commerce and seat of dominion, he founded Alexandria, near the mouth of the river Nile in order that by the Mediterranean sea and the Arabian Gulf, it might command the commerce of both the East and West. Not only during the Greek Empire in India and the East, but through all the changes in these countries until the discovery of navigation by the Cape of Good Hope, commerce continued to flow in the channel his sagacity had marked out for it. Although he undoubtedly aspired to the sovereignty of India, Alexander did not advance further East than the banks of those rivers that fall into the Indus. Resolved to penetrate further into a country where the arts, from early cultivation, had arrived at such perfection, be determined to examine the course of navigation from the mouth of the Indus to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, with the view of establishing a communication between them. He accordingly proposed to remove the contracts with which the jealous aversion of the Persians to intercourse with foreigners had obstructed the entrance to the Euphrates; to carry the commodities _of the East up that river, and the Tigris which unites with it, into the interior of the Asiatic dominions, whilst, by way of the Red Sea and the Nile, they might be conveyed to Alexandria and distributed to the rest of the world. This voyage, considered by Alexander one of the most extraordinary events of his reign, was successfully achieved by the fleet under the command of Marchus. So ignorant were the Greeks who formed this expedition, since they never before had sailed beyond the bounds of the Mediterranean where the ebb and flow of the tide are scarcely perceptible, that, when they first observed this phenomenon at the mouth of the Indus, they regarded it as a sign by which the gods manifested their displeasure against their enterprise. They had never lost sight of land during the voyage, and were consequently unable to avail themselves of the periodically favourable winds of the Indian Ocean. They spent no less than two months on this voyage. Probably navigation by this course was discontinued amidst the revolutions in the East that were frequent at a later period, but the Indian trade carried on at Alexandria continued to increase under the Grecian dynasty that ruled over Egypt until its conquest by the Arabs.

The Romans were even slower than the Greeks in adding to what was already known of the science of navigation. Their dream of universal dominion was the chief motive of the enterprise which led them to distant countries. The practice of navigation, like that of trade and commerce, was considered fit only for such citizens as were not of a rank to be admitted into their legions. The Romans, when they subdued Carthage, Greece and Egypt, did not imbibe the commercial spirit of the conquered nations. The stupendous works which they left behind them in the countries to which they penetrated were probably executed by the conquered inhabitants under their direction, and the wealth which flowed to Rome from these territories represented the spoil of the Roman victories rather than the result of their commerce. The trade that had previously existed in the Roman provinces remained in the hands of the conquered nations and continued to be carried on in the usual channels, although it naturally flowed in the direction of Rome, the capital of the known world. The vigour and intelligence of the power which centred in Rome acted beneficially on commerce, which was carried on without the restrictions often established by national hostilities or jealousies. For the first time in the world’s history, the industry of mankind and the consumption of its fruits may be said to have been regulated by an imperial policy.

The taste for luxuries of the East soon produced an effect on navigation. The extension of the trade with India at length made sailors acquainted with the winds, which, in the ocean that separates the African from the Indian Continent, blow (with little variation) during one half of the year from the East, and during the other from the West. This was the cause of the greatest advance in practical , navigation made by any nation since the Phoenicians. In sailing from Egypt to India, the jfilots abandoned the old practice of coasting. As soon as the western monsoon set in, they took their departure from Ocelis, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and, returning with the eastern monsoon, finished their voyage within the year. The uniform direction of the wind supplied the place of the compass, and relieved them from depending so much as formerly on the uncertain guidance of the stars. The coast of Malabar, to which they sailed, seems to have been the farthest limit of ancient navigation in that quarter. Such fragmentary knowledge as the ancients had of the immense countries extending further east might have been obtained from a few adventurers, but it is probable that, during the Roman intercourse with India, no traveller penetrated beyond the Ganges, the spices and other commodities which became a valuable part of the commence between East and West being brought to the port of Musiris in canoes by the natives of further India, and sold to Egyptian and Roman merchants, who were well satisfied to acquire them so easily and without risk. It has been credibly stated that 120 ships sailed annually from the Red Sea to India, and that the commerce with that country drained the Roman Empire every year of more than £400,000.