From Rome to Byzantium: Trade and Continuity in the First Millennium AD

Tom Green

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© Tom Green, 2010

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Cover image: The Temple of Apollo, Corinth (Public Domain: Ixnay, Wikimedia
Commons)

For My Parents

Contents
Preface
* Chapter 1: The Nature of Trade in the Roman Mediterranean, c. 200 BC-AD
600

* Chapter 2: Decline and Recovery: Byzantine Trade, c. 600-1150

* Chapter 3: Urban Change and Continuity in Roman and Byzantine Corinth

* Chapter 4: Appendix - The Rhodian Sea-Law

* Chapter 5: Bibliography and Further Reading

Preface
From Rome to Byzantium provides a detailed overview of trading activity in the
Roman and Byzantine Mediterranean, grounded in recent archaeological
research. It is argued in what follows that while state-sponsored trading was
undoubtedly important in both eras, ‘free trading’ led by consumer tastes and
competition over prices must have played a significant role too. It is also
contended that the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ of the seventh and eighth centuries saw
more continuity with the Roman past in terms of both commercial activity and
urban life than is often admitted. As such, the Byzantine economic and urban
revival of the ninth century needs to be at least partly seen in the context of the
‘legacy of Rome’ and cannot be considered an entirely unrelated phenomenon,
as it sometimes is.

This e-book edition of From Rome to Byzantium is issued under a Creative

Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England
& Wales Licence; in consequence, it is free to read and share. However, if you
enjoy it and find it useful, please consider buying a hard copy: http://imperium-
romanorum.blogspot.com/p/fromrome.html.

Tom Green

[email protected]
Chapter 1
The Nature of Trade in the Roman Mediterranean, c. 200 BC—AD 600

1. Approaches to Roman Trade

The role and character of trade within the Roman economy has long been a topic
of much controversy. Certainly there can be no question that pottery, wine and
other goods were somehow carried across the Mediterranean, as we cannot
explain the archaeological evidence recovered from surface survey and
excavations in any other way: artefacts indicative of such trade are found on a
significant proportion of Roman-era settlement sites. The mechanics and nature
of this transportation are, however, very much open to debate, as is the
importance and frequency of such wide-ranging contacts. The present chapter
offers a brief overview of this debate, looking in some detail at the character of
Roman trading activity from the Republican era through to Late Antiquity and
asking what the pattern of this trading indicates about the shifting currents of
prosperity.

A consideration of the latter question emerges naturally from the discussion of

the archaeological evidence for trade; however, on the former matter — the
nature of the trading — some background is perhaps needed before we can
proceed. On this opinion has been frequently split into two main schools
representing, to a large degree, the differing approaches to trade and the
economy of the economic historian and the archaeologist, with the views of the
former acting as the basis for the modern debate, against which the latter have
reacted. The viewpoint of the economic historian — often termed the ‘new
orthodoxy’ — has been prominently championed by A. H. M. Jones and Sir
Moses Finley amongst others. It takes as its starting point references in the
classical authors to the economy and derives from them a picture of the Roman
economic landscape in which the empire was self-sufficient, with each farm,
district and/or region growing and making nearly all that it needed. The main
basis of all wealth is thus considered to be agriculture and the vast majority of
the population was concerned with the growing of food.

This concept obviously has little room for inter-regional trade — or, indeed, non-
local manufacturing — as anything other than small-scale and insignificant to
the economy as a whole, dealing mainly with prestige goods for the elites as
transport costs were too high for anything but the carriage of luxury items. What
evidence there is for the transport of goods is, as such, not generally seen as
‘free’ trade but rather as part of either the state redistributive mechanisms
associated with the annona (the tax-in-kind that was used to feed and supply
Rome) and the lines of military supply, or as the result of elites moving goods
between estates or gifting them to other members of the elite.

This model of trade is, of course, one largely derived from historical and literary
sources, not archaeology. This does raise some methodological issues, as the
texts being used to construct this ‘new orthodoxy’ are often political or
philosophical works, which only make mention of economic matters in passing.
As such, it is certainly open to question whether their lack of interest in, and
knowledge of, trading (and other matters, such as technological innovation) is a
reflection of the economic realities, as seems to be assumed by the ‘new
orthodoxy’, or a result of the concerns of the authors and audiences of these
texts; such documents were, after all, written both by and for the status quo-
favouring elites. If we had texts composed by other social groups they might
paint a very different picture of the Roman economy and technological
innovation.

One way to try and circumvent these worries is, of course, to make use of non-
literary sources as a means of illustrating and developing the historical material.
Keith Hopkins has, for example, offered a slight modification of the ‘new
orthodoxy’ involving the application of archaeological data from coins and
shipwrecks, arguing that a model can be produced which suggests that Roman
taxation of the provinces from the second century BC through to the second
century AD stimulated a degree of inter-regional trading, as the provinces had to
sell their surpluses to Italy in order to obtain the coin needed to pay the taxes. In
other words, central taxation led to all Roman citizens, from peasants upwards,
being increasingly drawn into an integrated Roman economy. Certainly this
would help explain the significant numbers of coins and sherds of non-local
pottery found at many rural settlement sites across the Empire, which are so
inconvenient to the Finley model. Thus at Tarraco and its hinterland in eastern
Spain in the Republican period, the assemblages from rural settlement sites are
dominated by imported pottery. However, even with Hopkins’ modification the
picture is still one of relatively low-level trading in luxury items, as described in
the classical written evidence. The question therefore becomes one of whether
this scenario remains credible or not, if we use the archaeological material as a
source in its own right rather than as an after-thought or illustration.
2. Pottery and Patterns of Trade and Prosperity

In any discussion of Roman trade from an archaeological perspective, fine-ware

pottery and amphorae are usually dominant, as they are here. The reason for this
is that these items seem to have been produced and traded in vast quantities; they
are difficult to destroy, allowing for a better survival rate than either glass or
silver plate, which can be melted down; and it is relatively easy to trace the
source and chronology of the traded items. Obviously there are problems with
this focus, not least of which is a concern over whether these artefacts can be
assumed to be indicative of the main direction and force of commercial currents
within the Roman economy. However, whilst we certainly cannot deduce
anything about, for example, Roman wool trading from the distribution of fine-
ware pottery, the sheer quantity of this material and the fact that it cannot be
considered a rare or luxury item suggests that it can be reasonably used as an
index of trading routes and the likely movements of archaeologically invisible
goods, especially given that shipwreck evidence shows that pottery was hardly
ever the sole cargo on Roman ships.

In what follows the character and distribution of amphorae and fine-ware are
examined, to both investigate what these can tell us about patterns of trading and
prosperity within the empire and also to lay the essential groundwork for a
subsequent discussion of the nature of Roman trading.

2.1 Amphorae and the Pattern of Trading

Amphorae are perhaps particularly useful as evidence for trade given that they
were the trade packaging of the Roman period. They chiefly contained wine,
olive oil and fish sauce, which were essential parts of the Mediterranean
lifestyle. Indeed, this was true even of the farthest reaches of the empire, with
Gildas in sixth-century Britain identifying wine and oil as a crucial parts of
romanitas (_De Excidio Britanniae_, §7). There is, however, a problem when we
assume that the geographical and chronological origins of these foodstuffs were
the same as that of the amphorae that contained them. This has been made clear
from the early seventh-century shipwreck at Yassi Ada. Here we have a trading
ship heading south from the Black Sea (to Rhodes?) loaded with a cargo of
amphorae containing wine and olive oil, with a number of these amphorae
having inscriptions showing that they had been re-used over a considerable
length of time and by many different owners. Although very late, this does raise
questions with regards to the viability of using amphorae to identify commercial
currents. Indeed, it has been argued on the basis of this evidence that the origins
of amphorae can no longer be used as an indicator of either what was being
carried or where it originated, with amphorae perhaps being produced at one site
and then sold to others some distance away, for filling with the products of those
regions.

Certainly such a scenario of the production of amphorae away from the regions
where their contents was produced — in contrast to the general assumption that
amphorae were likely to have been made on the estates — gathers some support
from elsewhere in the Roman Empire. Thus the lack of amphorae kilns in
Morocco, where fish-oil production seems to have been a major activity, has
been seen in this light. Similarly in Spain we can see the production of amphorae
being undertaken by specialists, for example at the El Tejarillo kiln site (where
no fewer than twenty-five different types of stamps were found on the wasters)
and at the Bay of Cadiz, where there were huge heaps of wasters, with these
products then being sent elsewhere for filling. On the other hand, there is also
plentiful evidence for the production of amphorae as part of the estate economy,
as can be seen from the stamps on third-century Tripolitanian amphorae (and the
kilns close by a villa at Aïn Scersciara, Tripolitania) and from the wide scatter of
the small Gauloise 4 (Class 27) kilns throughout Languedoc and Provence.

These regional differences perhaps offers us an explanation, however. Both olive

oil and wine production were part of the normal villa estate economy, and the
North African and Gaulish amphorae — which seem to have also been produced
as part of the villa estate economy — are believed to have largely contained
these products. In contrast the production of fish-products, including the widely
used fish-oil, seems to have been a specialised industry separate from the villa
system, and this industry was mainly based in Morocco, Portugal and Spain: that
is, those regions where amphorae production doesn’t seem to have been linked to
the production of their contents. As such, the above differences can probably be
seen to reflect an underlying difference in the organisation of commodity
production rather than anything else, and in this context it does not seem
unreasonable to treat the origins of at least wine and olive-oil (but not fish-oil)
amphorae as indicative of the origins of the products they contained. Where,
though, does this leave the re-used wine and olive-oil carrying amphorae from
Yassi Ada? It is perhaps significant here that the shipment dates to Late
Antiquity and from a period of war with the Persians; in consequence, re-use
might well be explicable simply in terms of a decreased availability of new
amphorae due to conflict, without any more general applicability.
Given that amphorae can thus probably be reasonably safely used to reconstruct
the flow of the trade in some of the most important foodstuffs — wine and olive-
oil — in the Roman period, at least before the end of sixth century, we now need
to turn to look at the pattern and chronology of this trade, as indicated by these
vessels. In the second and first centuries BC the main trade seems to have been
defined by the export of wine from Italy to the provinces, in particular to
southern Gaul (where Italian imports replaced local products, such as those of
Marseilles) and up the Rhône, with Dressel 1 and Dressel 2-4 amphorae
dominating in the western Mediterranean and northern Europe, even reaching
North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

Taking the Dressel form 1 amphorae with Sestius stamps as an example, it

appears from a striking concentration and variety of these amphorae at the port
of Cosa (Tuscany) that they were made in a factory near the town, on the estate
of the Sestius family, and then were filled and exported, reaching sites as distant
as Spain, Austria and Athens and being particularly common in southern Gaul.
This is quite remarkable for the products of a single estate, and it is not hard to
see genuine ‘free’ trading in this distribution: the distribution and quantity of
Dressel form 1 amphorae generally, both on land and from wrecks, is
spectacular. Indeed, it has been calculated that up to forty million amphorae were
unloaded in Gaul from the vineyards of the Tyrrhenian coast between 130—
120/110 BC, with 24,000 found at one river site. Even more interesting is the
fact that the customers for all these imports were not elites and soldiers, but
rather local Gallic civilians, with the amphorae being found extensively diffused
and at some of the most isolated sites. Clearly this does not fit into the ‘new
orthodoxy’ model, revised or not, and this picture of an Italian domination of the
wine trade is confirmed by the evidence of wrecks. Of the 103 wrecks found
along the coast of Narbonnaise, over half belong to the second or first century
BC and the vast majority of these originated in Italy.

At the beginning of the Imperial period this focus moves away from Italy. Local
production in the provinces now dominates, with Spanish Oberaden 83
amphorae being found at a number of overseas sites in late first century BC
contexts, and Spanish olive-oil, fish products and wine reaching Italy in quantity
before the end of Augustus’ reign. In fact, Dressel 20 amphorae, which were
used from the time of Augustus to Gallienus to carry oil from the valley of the
river Guadaluivir (southern Spain), achieved a distribution almost as spectacular
as that possessed by the Dressel 1 amphorae, though the quantities involved are
smaller. From the mid-first century AD in the western Mediterranean, Spanish
(fish products and olive oil) and Gaulish (wine) amphorae clearly dominate,
reaching a peak in the mid-second century, when vast amounts of Spanish oil
appears to have been imported into Rome. In illustration of this we might cite
the fact that two thirds of the amphorae on the surface of the amphorae heap
which forms Monte Testaccio were Dressel 20, most of these dating 140—65
AD.

The third century, however, sees a decline in exports from Spain and Gaul in the
western Mediterranean, with amphorae-borne commerce moving its focus to
North Africa, whose products dominate the whole of the Mediterranean into the
fourth century (they had actually dominated at Rome from the second century).
From the late fourth century this pattern changes once again, with a steady influx
of eastern Mediterranean amphorae (Classes 43—46) into the west, dominating
the trade across the whole of the Mediterranean (and into the Atlantic) until the
seventh century. The exception to this seems to be North Africa and Italy, with
African amphorae and their contents continuing to dominate the regional market
in North Africa and also continuing to appear in large quantities in Italy, for
example at Vibo Valentia, southern Italy, where eastern Mediterranean amphorae
are rare but significant numbers of African amphorae are found into the seventh
century. However, not even Carthage was immune, with eastern Mediterranean
amphorae being found there from the late fourth century into the seventh
century, something which tends to confirm the impression gained from the
African Red Slip Ware industry that the Vandal conquest did not greatly disrupt
trade, with eastern imports actually increasing through the period, though the
trading pattern becomes more stable after the Byzantine re-conquest of Africa in
534.

This then is the pattern of trading in olive oil, wine and fish products that the
distribution of Roman-era amphorae reveals. Clearly this was trading on an
extremely large scale, penetrating to all levels of society within the empire. On
the whole it seems not unreasonable to take the origins of wine and olive-oil
amphorae as indicative of the prosperity of the regions they come from and their
role within the Roman economy, whatever its nature is taken as. A consideration
of this suggests a picture of shifting prosperity throughout the period, from Italy
in the Republican era, to Spain and Gaul, to North Africa, and finally to the Near
East in Late Antiquity.

2.2 Fine-ware and the Pattern of Trading

Fine-ware, unlike amphorae, were traded items in their own right. As such, their
viability as a guide to trade and prosperity does not suffer from the issues raised
above with regards to amphorae. Given this, it might be seen as particularly
significant that the pattern which emerges from a study of this material bears
close comparison with that deduced from the finds of wine and olive-oil
amphorae.

On the whole, the late Republican and early Imperial periods see largely local
and regional production of fine monochrome red-gloss tablewares, with the
finest of these being the samian or terra sigillata pottery from Gaul and Italy. As
we move through the Imperial period, however, we see an increasingly
dominance of western Mediterranean assemblages — as we also saw with the
olive-oil and wine industries — by North African products, in particular African
Red Slip Ware. Once again, the enormous quantities of this material found all
across the western Mediterranean and at all types of sites are suggestive of mass-
production and wide-ranging trading links. The centre of production for this
ware seems to have initially been the Carthage region, with Carthage acting as
both an important market and a centre for the exporting of this material to the
rest of the Mediterranean (other factories were rapidly established in parts of
Tunisia and eastern Algeria, but Carthage remained the gateway for African Red
Slip Ware). The enormous popularity of this pottery, despite the fact that it was
less sophisticated than the terra sigillata, may well be because it was cheaper to
market than the rival wares, given that it used clays of a simple composition for
the main fabric which didn’t require closely controlled firing; that it employed
simplified decoration; and that it developed low feet on the vessels, which
allowed for easier shipping of larger quantities of the product. That there was
indeed some competition between the terra sigillata industry and the African
Red Slip Ware industry can be seen in the fact that the earliest African Red Slip
Ware deliberately imitates the former, for example via polished surfaces.

The popularity of African Red Slip Ware continued growing through the second
and third centuries, so that in the mid-third century it dominated the entire
Mediterranean. Previously, fine-tableware in use in the eastern Mediterranean
had continued to be mainly sigillata wares, though in Greece and the Aegean the
local terra sigillata was replaced by Candarli-ware in the mid-second century.
From the mid-third century however these pottery industries rapidly disappear
and African Red Slip Ware dominates into the fourth century. The reason for this
mid-third century change in the eastern Mediterranean may simply be an
expansion of the trade in this presumably relatively cheap fine-ware, but it is
interesting to note that it does coincide with the introduction of African Red Slip
Ware ‘C’ ware. This was the finest African Red Slip Ware, in circulation from c.
220 to c. 500, which seems to have consciously attempted to replicate
contemporary silver-and bronze-ware. It might well be suspected that the
adoption of African Red Slip Ware in the east might be seen as a function both
of its relative cheapness and the fact that, in the mid-third century, it was being
deliberately sold as an affordable substitute for the silver vessels that adorned the
tables of the rich (see further below).

From the fourth century onwards, the phenomenal success of African Red Slip
Ware resulted in the emergence of imitators. The closest copies come from
Egypt, but the most important of these imitations were Cypriot Red Slip Ware
and Phocaean Red Slip Ware, both of which begin production in the fourth-
century and last through until the mid-seventh century. Phocaean Red Slip Ware
is the most interesting of the two, not least because it was mass-produced in west
Turkey and shows the most independence from African Red Slip Ware of all the
imitation red-slipped wares. In terms of fabric and technique, Phocaean Red Slip
Ware seems to have been a continuation of the Candarli-ware tradition, and only
the earliest examples (to c. 420) imitate the shape and decoration of African Red
Slip Ware. The major market for Phocaean Red Slip Ware from the mid-fourth
century seems to have been the new Imperial capital, Constantinople, and the
initial fortunes of this ware seem to be linked to those of the city, with
Constantinopolitan silver and gilded vessels providing the models for Phocaean
Red Slip Ware just as Roman ones did for African Red Slip Ware, something
which is perhaps suggestive of the Phocaean Red Slip Ware industry being, at
least initially, state-directed whilst also filling a specific consumer need.

However, whatever its initial origins and motivation, in the course of the fifth
century Phocaean Red Slip Ware takes over as the dominant form of fine-ware
found on eastern Mediterranean sites — where African Red Slip Ware had
previously been found in large quantities — with the related Cypriot Red Slip
Ware also becoming more popular than African Red Slip Ware; the only
exception to this is in Egypt, where we actually see an increase in African Red
Slip Ware finds and local imitations of these continued to be made. From this
point, Phocaean Red Slip Ware remained the dominant form of fine-ware in the
Eastern Empire until the seventh century, although both African Red Slip Ware
and Cypriot Red Slip Ware see a revival in the mid-late sixth century. Such a
situation is difficult to explain solely in terms of centrally-directed trade, and it
parallels the increasing dominance at this time of east Mediterranean olive-oil
and amphorae, noted above. The notion of a central state-control of the trade
becomes even more problematical from the mid-fifth to mid-sixth centuries,
when Phocaean Red Slip Ware spreads out from the eastern Mediterranean to be
found in Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, Portugal and western Britain — areas
previously the preserve of African Red Slip Ware, such as Forms 103—104 —
where it would seem to have been traded as part of an eastern Mediterranean
package of goods, including wine, olive-oil and probably silks.

We thus seem to see in the evidence from fine-ware a very similar pattern of
shifting production and thus, potentially, prosperity, from Italy and Gaul, to
North Africa and then to the eastern Mediterranean, as was observed from the
trade in wine and olive-oil. The fine-ware can also help us better understand the
end of this sequence. In the seventh century we see a further superseding of
pottery types, with African Red Slip Ware and Phocaean Red Slip Ware in the
eastern Mediterranean being replaced by the Egyptian Red Slip Ware types A
and C and the Cypriot Red Slip Ware (in Jordan we also see the emergence of
high-quality imitations of African Red Slip Ware stamped vessels). Thus in
Antioch African Red Slip Ware and Phocaean Red Slip Ware were both imported
until the early seventh century, when they are replaced by Egyptian Red Slip
Ware ‘C’ ware. Although both African Red Slip Ware and Phocaean Red Slip
Ware continue in production for a time, with African Red Slip Ware vessels
being produced and used in the Carthage region and Italy until the end of the
seventh century, it seems clear that their importance outside their own local
markets saw considerable restriction in favour of locally made copies of both,
with the sole exception of Cyrenaica, where African Red Slip Ware dominated
through the seventh century.

Exactly why this decline in the main mass-produced fine-wares occurred is

debatable, though Caroline Williams has suggested that it may have been
motivated by a desire to ensure a more reliable supply of goods, due to the
disruption of sea connections in the seventh century associated with the Persian
and Arab conquests in the region. It has to be said that a decline in demand is
indisputably implausible, given that Egyptian Red Slip Ware A and C continue to
be found in Palestine and Egypt into the early eighth century and certainly at
Antioch the Egyptian ‘C’ ware seems to replace Phocaean Red Slip Ware and
African Red Slip Ware. In other words, the demand for fine slipped tableware
obviously continued beyond the end of the use of the main mass-produced
versions of this. Neither does there seem to have been an interruption in
production in the early seventh century, as is evidenced from the continued
presence of these wares in their home regions — and, for African Red Slip Ware,
Italy and Cyrenaica — up to the end of the seventh century. However, one other
element of the ‘decline’, aside from the insecurity of the seventh century, may
just possibly (though by no means certainly) be that Egyptian and Cypriot Red
Slip Ware vessels were somehow more desirable than African Red Slip Ware and
Phocaean Red Slip Ware, perhaps once more on the basis of cost. This, after all,
would seem to be partly how African Red Slip Ware ended the dominance of
terra sigillata in the late first to mid-third centuries, and some support for this
suggestion can be had from the fact that, in many areas of Egypt, African Red
Slip Ware seems to have been imported as a luxury item whilst Cypriot Red Slip
Ware appears to have captured the ‘mass market’, judging from the distribution
of the different fine-wares.

2.3 Conclusion on Patterns of Trading and Prosperity

The broad coincidence over which areas are the chief foci for trade in the Roman
period, as evidenced by fine-ware and amphorae, is intriguing and arguably
important. Indeed this coincidence seems to be present despite the fact that the
evidence from Carthage and Yassi Ada indicates that the fine-ware and
amphorae could often not be exported together but rather followed separate trade
routes: thus eastern amphorae are found in quantities at Carthage whilst
Phocaean Red Slip Ware is not, something which indicates the existence of
multiple trade routes, as does the varying fortunes of the various individual
amphorae types.

This similarity strongly argues that we are getting a reliable picture of the
changing trade patterns and prosperity of various regions, with first Italy, then
Spain and Gaul, then North Africa, and then the east Mediterranean seem to be
the most vital centres of both fine-ware and produce production. This impression
is furthered by the fact that field survey shows that periods of heightened pottery
production and olive-oil and wine export coincide closely with periods of rural
prosperity in the same areas. Thus Italy, from the first century bc to the first
century AD, sees its pottery, wine and marble exported all over the western
Mediterranean, whilst field survey reveals that rural settlement was at its most
extensive and prosperous. The same pattern is also to be found from the late first
century AD through the second century in Spain and Gaul; through the third and
fourth centuries in North Africa; and through the fifth and sixth centuries in the
Near East, with heightened exports from Gaza and the Antioch region coinciding
with the best evidence for settlement and prosperity in the Negev and the Syrian
limestone massif. The converse is true too, so that as the fifth and sixth centuries
see a gradual and noticeable shrinkage in north African exports, so too do we
find a decline in rural and urban settlement there.

What can we conclude from this? First, and foremost, it seems clear that pottery
is indeed a reliable indicator of the shifting trends in regional prosperity.
Furthermore, Bryan Ward-Perkins has suggested that the pottery and produce
industries may lie at the heart of this shifting. It may well be that overseas
demand for a local product of a particular region — be it because it was of a
better quality, cheaper, of more reliable supply, or that it offered something new,
such as an affordable alternative to metal-ware — led to increased prosperity for
that region, with a shifting of demand to other areas resulting in a concomitant
decline in prosperity as external resources cease to arrive in the region. In
illustration of this he points to the opening up of marginal land on the Syrian
limestone massif, a region which can only sustain a small population at the
‘margins of prosperity’. The fact that this region is, despite this, densely settled
and very prosperous in Late Antiquity, can be explained by the known and
demonstrable demand for Antiochene amphorae and olive-oil, the presence of
Late Antique olive-presses in the villages of the massif, and the possibility of
planting trees in the tiny but numerous pockets of soil found there — in other
words, taken together the evidence strongly suggests that increased demand
opened up this region to the specialized cultivation of the olive. Regional
prosperity in the Imperial era may thus, to some degree, actually reflect
consumer demand and trading patterns, rather than vice versa.

The implications of all this for the nature of Roman trade are, of course,
important, though necessarily open to argument. Why demand might shift from
one region to another is an imponderable given the present state of our
knowledge, but it has to be admitted that changing consumer priorities, and
perhaps even ‘fashions’, may have a role here, suggesting in turn that the fine-
ware and amphorae distribution reflects something closer to modern ‘free’
trading than simply or purely state-and elite-controlled exchange.

3. The Nature of Roman Trade

In light of the above survey of the pottery evidence for trade and prosperity, we
must return to the question of what, exactly, the nature of all this trading actually
was. Two non-market factors have been proposed by those who wish to
minimize the free-trading aspect of the Roman economy: reciprocal exchange of
luxuries between estate owners, and distribution motivated by the concerns of
the state. The first of these certainly happened but it is incomprehensible that it
was a major factor of trade, given the staggering quantities of pottery found all
across the Mediterranean and the fact that these must only represent a small
amount of that which was originally transported. Indeed, this is corroborated by
the fact that not only fine-wares were carried around the empire but also some
coarse-wares, which are not readily susceptible to elite-exchange interpretations.

The second deserves more serious attention. This is that the distribution of this
material in the Roman world was, to a large extent, dictated by the state and its
provisioning of the army and the cities. Thus the very large quantities of
amphorae found in Rome are seen as travelling there with the annona, some as
part of this (the annona included not only grain but also oil, wine, fat and fruit)
and some being carried with it by the private merchants who were in the service
of the state, these being encouraged to carry the annona by a waiving of port-
charges for their own goods. Similarly the amphorae found at forts and around
the arteries of supply to the German Limes (with inscriptions relating to
merchants) are interpreted as being there due to military provisioning in the
same manner. A comparable Late Antique example of such ‘tied’ trade might be
the provisioning of the Church, with Gregory of Tours refering to Gaza wine in
sixth-century Gaul (_History of the Franks_, VII.29).

Certainly the notion that trade was stimulated by the state is probable, as is the
notion that merchants would trade their own goods along the trade routes
established for the state supply. Thus the Tunisian amphorae and African Red
Slip-Ware industries both seem to export a large proportion of their product to
Rome. In a similar fashion Phocaean Red Slip-Ware (also known as Late Roman
‘C’) can be seen to rise to dominance on the back of Constantinople in the fourth
and fifth centuries, which it may well have been set up to supply. Indeed, this
state involvement in trade does, in some cases, go much further than this. Thus,
for example, Proconnesian marble looks to have been widely sold via regular
commerce, in order to produce capitals and chancel screens in places such as the
Negev desert, but both the production and distribution of this commodity looks
to have been under state control. Similarly, the export of fine-wares and
amphorae to western Britain in Late Antiquity provides a very good example of
state directed and controlled trading. Here it would seem that the Imperial
requirement for tin (used to produce bronze coinage) in the late fifth and early
sixth centuries was the primary motivation for merchants making the 10,000 km
round-trip to trade with the Cornish — that this was directed trading, not simply
commerce, is made clear by the fact that there was clearly no attempt made to
trade with the regions between Portugal and Cornwall.

Despite all this, there are good reasons to believe that Imperial trade did involve
a significant element of ‘free trade’ and that this extended beyond the Imperial
lines of provision. The most persuasive evidence for this comes from the
distribution and changing focus of the pottery industries, as discussed in the
previous section. For example, though African Red Slip Ware and Phocaean Red
Slip Ware clearly benefited greatly from the fact that they provisioned the
capitals, the distribution of both of these wares is enormous and spreads across
the entire Mediterranean. This distribution must surely represent commercial
trading on a wide scale motivated by consumer demand — there is no other
cogent explanation. This is driven home by the fact that the focus of this fine-
ware trade seems to have shifted first from terra sigillata to African Red Slip
Ware, then from African Red Slip Ware to Phocaean Red Slip Ware, and finally
from Phocaean Red Slip Ware to Cypriot and Egyptian Red Slip Ware: in each
instance it can be argued that the change that occurred was due to a probably
cheaper product being preferred over a more expensive one, or the adoption of
design elements by the industries that made their wares more attractive to
consumers than those from elsewhere.

An example of this postulated consumer driven change comes from African Red
Slip Ware ‘C’ ware, discussed briefly above. This was the finest African Red
Slip Ware and circulated from c. 220 to 500. It seems to have been produced in
Central Tunisia using a smoother, purer fabric and moulds and it consciously
apes contemporary silver-and bronze-ware in terms of its thinness, the choice of
shapes (for example, large platters and small bowls with wide rims) and the
decoration of these pieces. That this was a conscious decision to imitate the
metal dishes and so forth is confirmed by the fact that the changes in the style of
the ‘C’ ware mirrors those in the metal-ware. Thus, in the fifth century, higher
foot-rings make a return as they do on the silver and bronze vessels, and feather
rouletting is introduced in the late fourth century in line with developments in
the decoration of silverware. A few relief-decorated vessels may even have been
cast directly from metal originals. The fact that just after this ware is introduced,
African Red Slip Ware is exported in quantity to the eastern Mediterranean is
surely highly significant, and it might be suggested from the above that fine-
ware was being deliberately marketed from the mid-third century as an
affordable substitute for the silver vessels that adorned the tables of the rich.
Certainly, for some reason, the mid-third century sees fine-wares appearing in
regions such as Palestine where very little fine-ware had previously been found,
and in the established markets of the western Mediterranean we see an expansion
of the area served by this pottery, as in Portugal. All of these coincidences are
perhaps best explained as being, in some senses, consumer driven. People
wanted fine-wares and were willing to shop around for them — thus on the Nile
Delta, Cypriot Red Slip Ware seems to have been preferred over African Red
Slip Ware due to it being cheaper (given the solely elite usage of the latter),
whilst elsewhere in Egypt local copies of African Red Slip Ware were made
because it was too expensive to import the real thing due to overland transport
costs.

Something very similar can be seen with the amphorae. Although a number of
reasons have been invoked for the decline of the Italian Republican wine trade,
including the reliance of slave labour, it is surely not a coincidence that the
Spanish Dressel 20 amphorae that dominate the western Mediterranean in the
early years of the Imperial period are lighter than those from Italy which they
replaced/dominated, or that the North African amphorae which in turn
replace/dominate the Spanish amphorae are lighter still. Quite simply, the lighter
the vessel, the cheaper it is to transport a litre of wine and thus the cheaper the
wine can be sold.

Consequently it seems clear that both fine-wares and amphorae contents were
most likely being sold via ‘free trading’, with the rise and fall of specific types
being relate to either consumer taste or the savings that some types offered over
their rivals, and perhaps even ultimately causing and explaining the pattern of
empire-wide shifts in prosperity that can be observed. The amphorae evidence
from Carthage supports the above suggestions: the fact that we find evidence of
olive oil and wine being imported into Carthage — the heart of African olive-oil
production — from the late fourth century surely indicates that consumer choice
and taste was dictating the trading that took place, rather than simply foodstuffs
following Imperial supply routes.

This conclusion can be further strengthened by looking at the post-Roman

western Mediterranean, where it is most interesting to note that Tunisian wine
amphorae and African Red Slip Ware continue to appear in Italy and Rome right
up until the end of the seventh century, well after any imperial traffic had died
away. This continued trading surely underlines the fact that trading was
commercial and not utterly dependent on Imperial supply or control. Similarly,
the Yassi Ada ship is generally interpreted according to the ‘tramp steamer’
model, that is to say that the amphorae aboard (see above) look like the contents
of a commercial ship trading along the coast, not a vessel carrying the annona.
This is reinforced by the fact that it was travelling away from Constantinople
and its cargo seems to consist solely of amphorae alone, rather than amphorae
being carried as a private venture alongside imperial foodstuffs.

Therefore, whilst it is clear that the state lines of supply were important in the
trading pattern within the Roman Empire, we should not underestimate the
amount of ‘free’ trade that also occurred: it is very hard to explain the fine-ware
and amphorae distribution, and the changes to this, without recognizing that
commercial concerns must have been one of the driving forces. Such may well
also ultimately lie behind the otherwise perplexing shifts in rural and urban
prosperity that occur throughout this period. The necessity of recognizing the
reality of a role for ‘free’ trading is perhaps further underlined by the fact that,
although Late Antique Constantinople was supplied with corn from Egypt,
Phocaean Red Slip Ware, Cypriot Red Slip Ware and African Red Slip Ware (as
well as local fine-wares) continued to dominate assemblages in this region.
There is very little evidence for the annona bringing with it Egyptian Red Slip
Ware, as the ‘new orthodoxy’ model would suggest that it ought to have done.

4. Conclusion

To conclude, the evidence discussed in the previous sections clearly indicates

that pottery can be used to reconstruct the shifting patterns of Roman trading and
prosperity, from Italy in the late Republican period, to Spain and Gaul, then
North Africa, and finally to the Near East in Late Antiquity. Furthermore, the
character of this evidence means that the ‘new orthodoxy’ interpretation of the
nature of the Roman economy is no longer sustainable. The quantity of the fine-
ware and amphorae sherds which have been retrieved from excavation and
surface-survey is unambiguous: inter-regional trading must have been a very
widespread phenomenon, and one which affected all levels of society, with this
material being found on all types of sites in all areas. This interpretation of the
distribution of the ceramic evidence can, in fact, be further confirmed by the fact
that between 20% and 40% of the pottery used at sites such as Carthage,
Knossos and Ostia was imported. This was inter-regional trading on a grand
scale.

All this is not, of course, to deny that state had a role to play in trading, nor that
the Roman economy had a fundamentally agricultural base, though the latter
could well have been over-emphasised in the past; see, for example, Ken Dark’s
recent suggestion that the Late Roman economy can actually be classified as
proto-industrial, if not even industrialized in some areas. Rather it is to explain
the fact that many rural sites are found with imported pottery and coins on them,
when they are supposedly only concerned with producing enough food to live on
and pay their taxes. Recognizing the need for such an explanation can, in turn,
perhaps help us elucidate and understand the pattern of shifting prosperity
revealed above.
Chapter 2
Decline and Recovery: Byzantine Trade, c. 600—1150

1. Late Antiquity and the ‘Dark Ages’, c. 600—800

Up until the end of the sixth century, trade in the eastern Mediterranean seems to
have remained very much inter-regional in character — indeed, up until the last
third of the sixth century fine-ware, wine and olive-oil from the eastern
Mediterranean was exported as far afield as Portugal, Brittany and western
Britain. Such wide-ranging trade had, in fact, been the general pattern within the
Mediterranean basin throughout the Imperial era. However, with the seventh
century came numerous changes in the economic and trading life of this region.
The following study is concerned primarily with trading within the eastern
Mediterranean, and particularly within the surviving portions of the Roman
Empire (known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire) from c. AD 600
to c. 1200.

The first two centuries of this period are generally seen as a time of increasing
localisation and decline, and this localisation took a number of forms. On the
one hand, local pottery industries which had always co-existed with the pan-
Mediterranean African Red Slip-Ware and Phocaean Red Slip-Ware industries
— such as those producing the painted wares of Egypt and Palestine — came
more to the fore in the seventh century. On the other hand, local imitation Red
Slip Wares (Egyptian, Cypriot, and Jordanian) rose to dominance in the eastern
Mediterranean, supplanting Phocaean Red Slip Ware and African Red Slip Ware.
Finally, in Constantinople itself we even seem to see something entirely new.
Here the seventh century sees the pottery market shifting not from the Phocaean
Red Slip Ware (which seems to have largely evolved to serve the new Imperial
city in the fourth century) to a Late Roman-style ware, but rather to locally
produced lead-glazed wares. In the late sixth and seventh centuries at Saraçhane
these are found alongside Phocaean Red Slip Ware, but over the course of the
seventh and eighth centuries they totally supersede the Late Roman wares as the
standard form of fine-ware. This is a most singular development, as lead glazed
pottery was never common in the Roman world, appearing only intermittently
from the late first century (though some glazed ware is known from late sixth-
century Corinth). Whatever its antecedents may have been, this type of pottery
actually came to dominate the Byzantine fine-ware pottery market throughout
the middle and late Byzantine periods.

This localization is not restricted to fine-wares but also is apparent in the

distribution and character of amphorae (which are indicative mainly of olive-oil
and wine trading). At Sardis, in Turkey, the seventh century amphorae found
there were all local to the region, whilst in southern Italy the Tunisian amphorae
seem to give way to local products in the period under study here. Nonetheless,
localisation does not, necessarily, mean the end of trade. We have evidence for at
least some continuation of pan-Mediterranean trade in the first half of the
seventh century in the ‘Life of John the Almsgiver’, Patriarch of Alexandria
from 610—20, which refers to a merchant from Alexandria who specialized in
trade with Gaul (chapter 36), and ships which sail with grain to or from Sicily
and even western Britain (chapters 8, 11). Indeed, the shipwreck at Grazel in
France, which probably dates to the 630s, would perhaps seem to represent this
type of continuing trade, carrying metal-ware to the west. Similarly Tunisian
wine amphorae and African Red Slip Ware continued to appear in Italy and
Rome until the end of the seventh century, whilst Phocaean Red Slip Ware Form
9 continues to be found across the eastern Mediterranean until the mid-seventh
century — these items do not simply disappear at the start of this century. The
situation in Antioch is, perhaps, particularly instructive. Here importation of
fine-ware does not simply cease, despite the fact that the early seventh century
saw the end of African Red Slip Ware and Phocaean Red Slip Ware here. Instead
these wares are replaced by imports of Cypriot Red Slip Ware and Egyptian Red
Slip Ware type C. Indeed, both Cypriot fine-ware and Egyptian types A and C
continue to be found in the Aegean, Egypt and Palestine into the early eighth
century. Although they represent more localized wares, they are still traded quite
widely within the eastern Mediterranean.

If the course of seventh century thus saw the gradual but effective death of pan-
Mediterranean trade, there is still good evidence for regional trading networks
continuing to operate. Further to that cited above we might also point to the
Yassi Ada shipwreck, an archaeological site which testifies admirably to
continued local trading, representing an unfortunate end to a c. 626 trading
voyage along the coast from the Black Sea towards Rhodes(?), with the contents
of the ship demonstrating that production of standard types of pottery, metal-
ware and glass continued. We might also assign the ‘Rhodian Sea-Law’ to the
seventh century (it is dated broadly c. 600—800: a translation of this is provided
in the Appendix). This text is probably derived in the main from local customs
and concerns itself with the regulation of sea-traffic and the relationship between
merchants who supply cargoes and the captain and crew of the ships which carry
them. The very fact that it was felt worthwhile to codify these relations must
surely be indicative of ship-borne trade continuing to a fairly substantial degree
within this period. Indeed, it is clear from the ‘Rhodian Sea-Law’ that pirates
were still operating, and that merchants were still hiring ships to carry their
cargoes, with wine, corn, oil, silk and linen all mentioned as cargoes by the text.

Thus trading continued, but it changed and seems to have become chiefly
regional rather than pan-Mediterranean in character. Furthermore, it cannot be
denied that it seems to have continued to decline both in volume and distance
throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, with even the ‘regional’ networks
probably eventually giving way to much more localised exchange. This is, in
fact, what we see in some of the changes referred to above. Thus the African
imports to Italy did not continue into the eighth century, giving way to very local
production as seen in the amphorae kiln found at Misenum on the Bay of Naples.
Similarly, at Constantinople African Red Slip Ware, Phocaean Red Slip Ware
and Cypriot Red Slip Ware were totally superseded by the local glazed-wares by
the eighth century. Indeed, even Cypriot Red Slip Ware and Egyptian Red Slip
Ware imports into Palestine and Egypt disappear after the early eighth century.
This end to long-and even medium-distance trade in the eighth century can
perhaps also be seen to lie behind the almost total absence of eighth-century
amphorae from eastern Mediterranean sites. Amphorae were primarily the
‘trade-packaging’ of Antiquity, used largely for the bulk shipping of wine and
olive-oil. When this ceased, the very reason for their existence disappeared —
indeed, the initial decline in long-distance trading, and thus amphorae
production, might be seen in the re-use of amphorae (presumably due to the lack
of availability of new vessels) at Yassi Ada.

As to why this contraction and then virtual collapse of the Mediterranean and
regional trading networks occurred, it was suggested in the previous chapter that
at least the initial move away from pan-Mediterranean trade was begun simply in
order to ensure a more reliable supply of goods, in the context of the disruption
of the sea connections caused by the military challenges to Byzantine rule in the
seventh century by the Persians and Arabs; certainly the appearance of local
fine-wares throughout the seventh century indicates that there was no immediate
decline in the demand for and production of fine-wares which might have
instead caused such regionalisation. Whether this can be taken further is open to
debate, however. Whilst some have suggested that the physical contraction of the
Byzantine Empire to just the areas of Constantinople, Asia Minor and the coastal
fringes of Greece and southern Italy by c. 700, with the rest of the empire falling
into Arabic hands, led to the final destruction of even the regional commercial
networks as they weren’t able to function across political borders, this is
dubious. Certainly this might help explain the localisation of trade within the
Byzantine Empire. However, it fails to explain the localisation which occurred
outside of the imperial borders, such as the fact that Egyptian Red Slip Ware
ceased to be exported to Palestine in the eighth century, both areas having been
under Arab control since the first half of the seventh century, or the fact that we
continue to find Cypriot Red Slip Ware in Egypt after the Arab conquest. As
such, there seems little reason to go beyond the first explanation offered, that is
to say that the various conquests, military actions and other disruptions of the
seventh century simply made anything other than local trading unreliable, costly
and thus commercially unattractive. Of course, the general ‘decline’ of towns
through the seventh century — particularly within the Byzantine Empire — also
needs to be recognised as playing a potential role here, given that this
phenomenon would have deprived non-local trade of the population centres it
needed to survive. However, too much can perhaps be made of the evidence for
this ‘decline’. After all, the commercial colonnades in Corinth, Antioch and
Constantinople all seem to have survived in use beyond the eighth century, and
the amphorae at Sardis were all locally-produced at the time that the shops
collapsed in the early seventh century, suggesting that, here at least, localisation
preceded the decline and destruction of the urban centres.

Whatever the case with regards to the above, the eighth century seems to have
been a period of extremely limited trading, although this is far from saying that
all commercial activities ceased. Glazed pottery continued to be produced in the
Constantinople region and amphorae in the Bay of Naples. Similarly, not only
were the colonnaded commercial streets at Corinth, Constantinople and Antioch
kept clear (the latter was built over in the tenth century, not Late Antiquity as is
sometimes claimed) but there was clearly some reason that the Agora was also
kept clear in not only Corinth but also Constantinople and Athens too. Finally,
although coinage was certainly rarer in the eighth century than at any other time,
David Metcalf has estimated that from the late eighth century to the early ninth
century there were over ten million low-denomination coins in circulation within
the Byzantine Empire. These must clearly have been used for some purpose —
the Byzantine economy manifestly had not been reduced to simply one of pure
barter and ad hoc local exchange, a point reinforced by Florin Curta’s recent
survey of low denomination Byzantine coinage throughout the seventh and
eighth centuries.
The message is clear: long-distance and regional trade had ceased, and many
towns had arguably become little more than administrative fortresses, but
commerce was not completely dead. The evidence for silk production and
trading amplifies this. As with other goods, the indications (from the seals of the
kommerkiarioi) are that the seventh century saw increasing localisation of the
production and trading of raw silk and silk-garments, but that this industry
continued into the eighth and ninth centuries. Whilst the industry, as a result of
the Arab invasion of Asia Minor in the eighth century, moved away from the
regions of conflict into the Balkans, it clearly continued to exist despite this
dislocation (though control passed out of the hands of the kommerkiarioi in
730/31). Indeed, the fact that we find kommerkiarioi of cities (Constantinople,
Thessalonica and Mesembria) from the late seventh century through until the
early ninth century is surely indicative that the silk was being traded through
these cities at that time.

To conclude, the overall pattern in the seventh and eighth centuries is

indisputably one of economic contraction and a decline in inter-regional trading.
This was not, however, a sudden decline, nor a complete one. Instead the
evidence suggests a gradual replacement of pan-Mediterranean trading by inter-
regional networks, which then contracted into the early eighth century until most
trading involved simply local transactions. Why this occurred is open to debate,
but it must be remembered that even at its nadir, in the eighth century, there is
still evidence for both trading in silks and commercial activity — of some sort
— in the towns of the Byzantine Empire.

2. Byzantine Revival and the Return of Inter-Regional Trade, c. 800—950

From the early-mid ninth century there was a recovery in Byzantine commerce.
At Corinth, for example, we find substantial numbers of ninth-and tenth-century
coins appearing, with the topography of these coin finds being indicative of the
city expanding eastwards. This recovery seems to begin both here and in Thebes
with the coinage of Theophilus (829—42), and it has been argued that the
economy was being deliberately stimulated by an Imperial reform of the coinage
and the establishment of provincial mints. Given that the coins are of low-
denomination and represent perhaps millions of coins in circulation in Corinth
alone in the ninth century, it is certainly difficult to avoid treating these coins as
evidence of a massive revival in commerce, with the origins of the coins
indicating trade with Constantinople and Sicily/southern Italy. Indeed, the
success and scale of this revival can be readily observed from David Metcalf’s
tally of the Corinthian numismatic evidence, showing 157 coins from the reign
of Theophilus; 288 from the reign of Basil; 957 from the reign of Leo VI; and
2284 from Constantine VII and his family. Indeed, Metcalf has suggested that,
for the empire as a whole, the minimum low-value coinage in circulation in the
reign of Basil I (867—86) might be taken as around fifty millions. Given this,
the reality of a ninth-century recovery can hardly be doubted, though it clearly
was more significant in some places that others — in Thebes, for example, it
seems to have failed in the mid-ninth century, and in Athens the economy (as
represented by coin finds) doesn’t seem to have taken off properly until the reign
of Basil I.

This increasingly vital ninth-century economic climate is also reflected in the

‘Book of the Prefect’, generally considered to have been an edict of Leo VI (886
—912) sent to the Prefect of Constantinople in 912. This paints a picture of
Constantinople as a highly prosperous city, with the goods on sale ranging from
food items (such as bread, meat and vegetables) via candles, soap and perfume,
through to rich silks, linen and gold jewellery. The organisation of these trades
and where they were permitted to operate was clearly strongly regulated by the
Imperial authorities — thus the perfumeries had to locate between Hagia Sophia
and the Imperial Palace, whilst pork butchers must sell in the Forum Tauros and
wax-chandlers must not work on the public streets. Most interesting of all are the
regulations relating to the silk trade and ‘aliens’. The former had previously been
closely regulated by the Imperial authorities but by the reign of Leo VI the
Imperial monopoly has ceased, to be replaced by ‘free trade’ of sorts, with
producers and merchants meeting to negotiate the sale of the silk as two cartels.
This freeing up of the silk-trade might be linked with the reform of the coinage
as another attempt to stimulate the Byzantine economy.

With regards to ‘aliens’ at Constantinople, an entire chapter of the ‘Book of the

Prefect’ relates to ‘Merchants of goods imported from Syria and Baghdad’,
where it is stated that goods arriving from these areas must be deposited in bulk
in a warehouse where the Prefect will direct the purchase of them by Byzantine
merchants acting together as a cartel. The implication is that, in the reign of Leo
VI, inter-regional (indeed, international) trade was once again a significant
element in the commercial life of Constantinople. Elsewhere in the ‘Book of the
Prefect’ we find a number of references forbidding the sale of, for example,
purple silk and cloaks worth over ten numismata to non-Constantinopolitans,
and raw silk to ‘Jews or trade-folk who would resell it outside the city’,
obviously implying that such trade would exist without this regulation. Similarly
it is stated in chapter four that the sale of silk goods (and dyes) to non-
Byzantines has to be certified by the Prefect, and some of the duties of his
Imperially-appointed Deputy included checking what ‘foreigners’ were leaving
the city with, and ensuring that non-Byzantine merchants didn’t remain in the
city longer than three months.

All told, it seems clear that there were sufficient non-Byzantine merchants
operating in Constantinople c. 900 to require regulation of their activities,
something which implies the re-emergence of the regional and inter-regional
commerce which had disappeared in the seventh century. The evidence from
Corinth in particular suggests that this recovery was a rapid affair, with trading
links being established not only with the near-east but also with areas such as
Sicily. The numismatic evidence also indicates significant trading now taking
place between the Grecan cities (such as Corinth and Athens) and the Aegean
islands, as well as with Arabic Crete in the ninth century. Indeed, in the tenth
century we see a major resurgence in the importation and use of elephant ivory
amongst the Byzantine elites, suggesting trading links that end ultimately in both
Africa and India.

To this positive picture we can add the evidence for Byzantine trade with the Rus
(Russians) from the late ninth century onwards, with Byzantine coins, amphorae,
and silks appearing in Kievan Rus from this time. Again this trade seems to have
been largely carried out at Constantinople, with the Rus trading slaves and
probably honey, furs and wax there from 907. One might also point to the
evidence of glazed white-ware pottery and tiles of the ninth and tenth centuries
that appear in Constantinople and Corinth (again testifying to trade between the
two), and also in Bulgaria and the Crimea. So, for example, A1 Polychrome
ware, a fine white ware decorated by painting directly onto the pot before
glazing, seems to have been made in the region of Constantinople, with the
capital as its major market, but it is also found both at Corinth and at Patleina,
Bulgaria, perhaps used — like some of the Late Roman slip-wares — as an
affordable alternative to gilded and silver metal-ware; powdered gold and silver
is certainly used to decorate the earliest and rarest examples. This is not, of
course, to say that commerce had fully recovered, or that regional and inter-
regional trade dominated once more as they did in the sixth century, but rather
that such a recovery seems to be visible both in the documentary and
archaeological record.

3. Economic Growth and the Expansion of Trade, c. 950—1150

If the ninth and earlier tenth centuries showed a revival in trading in the
Byzantine Empire, the later tenth and eleventh centuries maintained and built
upon this, with a firm move away from merely local commerce to inter-regional
trade. In Corinth coin numbers continue to increase, and in the eleventh century
both the Agora and Lechaion Road are built over by industrial and commercial
properties, such as glass and ceramic factories, something which can be more
easily seen as evidence for prosperity and vitality than ‘decline’, despite the
assertions of the official excavation report. However, one of the most significant
pieces of evidence for increased trading is the re-emergence of trade amphorae
in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Thus at Otranto (southern Italy) in the
eleventh century we see amphorae once again being made, and this — combined
with the presence of Byzantine finds there — should surely be interpreted as a
revival by the Byzantines (continued by the Normans) of the maritime wine
trade of this region. The vitality of this re-emerging maritime trade might be
further evidenced by the fact that traditional amphorae forms were superseded in
favour of continuously changing new types from the eleventh century onwards.

The notion that Islamic merchants were increasingly travelling to and from the
Byzantine Empire also finds confirmation in finds of this period, in particular
from the Serçe Limani shipwreck of c. 1025. From the equipment of the ship it
seems probable that it was, at the time it sank off of the south-west coast of
Turkey, in the hands of Islamic traders and was carrying a cargo of broken glass
(for recycling) and Byzantine wine (although it has been suggested that the glass
was being carried from Syria to an unknown Byzantine port, the fact that the
ship contained Byzantine wine amphorae might well indicate travel in the
opposite direction). On the other hand, the Cairo Geniza documents indicate that
such trading was, in the eleventh century at least, still something of a rarity. On
the basis of these documents, it appears to have been far more common for
Byzantine merchants to travel themselves to the ports of Syria, Egypt and
Tunisia than for the Islamic merchants to venture into the empire, and one might
well wonder whether the restrictions placed on their purchases and freedom
described in the ‘Book of the Prefect’ might have had something to do with this.
In fact, it is clear from the Geniza documents that the custom of Byzantine
merchants — along with those from Italy — was of the first importance to these
markets, and as such Byzantine inter-regional trade with the Islamic world must
have been of significant volume. Indeed, these documents help balance out the
image of Byzantine trade offered by the ‘Book of the Prefect’, demonstrating
that Byzantine merchants didn’t simply wait as cartels at Constantinople for
‘foreign’ goods to come to them but rather set out beyond the borders of the
empire in search of them, although the documents do confirm the effectiveness
of the Imperial edict against the sale of raw silk to ‘aliens’ — the documents
only ever mention finished silk from Byzantium being traded, never raw silk.

In consequence it seems clear that, in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, the
Byzantine economy continued to prosper and commerce was most definitely
occurring on an inter-regional basis. Further illustration of this can be had from
the eleventh century, when the ‘romanizing’ Russian elites imported significant
quantities of luxuries such as fabrics, jewellery, pottery, glassware, pepper, olive
oil, wine and fruit. Similarly the evidence of Byzantine pottery confirms a
continuing growth in trading and exchange. At Corinth from the late tenth
century, for example, we see the appearance of Green and Brown painted ware,
which is of Persian inspiration, and in the late eleventh century we also find
Sgraffito and Lustre wares appearing, with these Persian imports being rapidly
copied by local potters. The presence of the original Persian pottery in cities
such as Corinth obviously testifies to international trading, whilst the Byzantine
borrowing of these pottery styles is indicative further of a tolerance of, and
desire for, exotic artefacts amongst the population at large. Indeed, in the twelfth
century Sgraffito rapidly becomes the favourite Byzantine form of ceramic
ornamentation. What is particularly noticeable, however, is that, compared to the
white glazed vessels of the ninth and tenth centuries, these Byzantine vessels
have a much wider distribution. Thus these ‘orientalised’ wares are found in
Anatolia, the Grecian mainland, Egypt and Italy, and this regional and supra-
regional distribution of Byzantine pottery is not restricted to ‘orientalised’ wares.
For example, Aegean ware, which appears from the late twelfth century, has
been found on Cyprus and other Aegean islands, and at Constantinople, Corinth,
Athens, Thessalonica, Pergamon, Antioch, Caesarea (Palestine) and Jaffa, as
well as on rural sites near Sparta and in East Phokis. As such it clearly had an
exceptionally wide distribution, was not limited to urban or coastal sites, and
seems to have been transported around the eastern Mediterranean by merchant
vessels, such as those wrecked at Skopelos in the Northwest Aegean and at
Kastellorizo off the coast of Lycia. We thus here have evidence of trading on a
much larger scale than had been seen since the end of Late Antiquity.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion, it is tempting to compare the Byzantine development of trade in

the Middle Ages with that in Antiquity. In general we see a gradual decline in
commerce and an increasing localisation of trade from the sixth century through
to the eighth, with towns shrinking in scale or disappearing entirely. The eighth
century, though clearly seeing some trade, appears to be the low-point in terms
of commercial activity. However from the ninth century we see an effective
reversal of the Late Antique situation, with commerce once again picking up,
regional trade re-emerging and towns reviving (with Corinth, at least, seeing
definite expansion). This trend continues and increases throughout the tenth
century and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries we can clearly see
considerable inter-regional trading occurring, with towns such as
Constantinople, Athens and Corinth taking a leading role in this. As such we
seem to have arrived, in some senses, in the twelfth century at a similar point to
that which we started at in the sixth.

Of course it will not do to push this point too far. The Mediterranean is no longer
a ‘Roman lake’, and medieval towns are not classical cities, though the products
being traded in them are not too dissimilar from those traded in the time of
Justinian. Thus we have wine and olive oil being transported across the sea,
sometimes using amphorae (though these have changed shape and are over time
replaced by other non-ceramic containers); fine-ware travelling all around the
eastern Mediterranean (though it is now glazed rather than red-slipped); and silk
being exported to places as far away as Kiev and Alexandria (though it is now
generally produced within the empire, rather than being bought in from Persia).
In terms of the pottery industry the changes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
might also be compared with those seen in the first to third centuries, when
products with more restricted distributions (terra sigillata in Antiquity, white
glazed wares in the medieval period) are replaced by vessels with a much wider
distribution (African Red Slip Ware in Antiquity, Sgraffito ware in the medieval
period).

Finally the role of the state in the stimulation of trade must be noted. Whilst it
was argued in the preceding chapter that trade was largely ‘free’ in Antiquity, the
pan-Mediterranean trade in pottery and wine/olive-oil can certainly be partly
ascribed to state concerns. Thus the dominance of African Red Slip Ware and
Phocaean Red Slip Ware can be seen to stem, to some degree, from their role as
chief suppliers to the Imperial capital (indeed, Phocaean Red Slip Ware seems to
have been set up specifically to serve the new capital at Constantinople), and the
expansion of these wares into the Atlantic probably results from an Imperial
need for tin. Similarly, whilst there is considerable evidence for significant and
probably consumer-driven trading in the Byzantine Empire, it does appear to be
the case that the reinvigoration of trade from the ninth century onwards was in
some ways a deliberate Imperial move, as evidenced in the reform of the coinage
and the freeing up of the silk trade.
Chapter 3
Urban Change and Continuity in Roman and Byzantine Corinth

Corinth was one of the great cities of Greece, the capital of the Roman province
and later Byzantine theme of Achia, and the see of an archbishop. The American
School at Athens undertook the excavations of the central area of Corinth in the
first half of the last century, providing us with a valuable (if variable) source of
evidence for examining the transition of Corinth from classical to medieval city,
and this provides the basis for the following discussion.

The basic architectural form of Corinth was well established by the second
century AD. The centre of public and private business was located in the Agora,
in a broad low hollow approached from the north by the main avenue of the city,
the colonnaded road to Lechaion. The Agora itself was split into the Upper and
Lower Agora, divided by the Central Shops and the Bema. The Upper Agora
was the centre of local and provincial government. The Lower Agora, in
contrast, was bounded by shops on the north, south and west; the Julian Basilica
on the east; temples and monuments on the west, in front of and behind the
shops; and the Propylaia at the head of the Lechaion Road. The Propylaia steps
led down onto the Lechaion Road, which was around seven metres wide, paved
with limestone and lined with colonnades and pavements. To the west of this,
above the shops, was a great Basilica whilst on the east was the public water
supply, the Fountain of Peirene, the colonnaded court of the Peribolos of Apollo,
and a luxurious complex of baths. To the west of the road and its adjoining
buildings were the Northern Market, the so-called Temple of Apollo, the Odeion
and the Theatre.

Late Antiquity witnessed a number of alterations to the settled pattern of the city.
One of the most significant of these was the reduction in the defended area of the
city by two-thirds in the early fifth century, a development that was seen at many
Late Antique urban sites. This was obviously a fundamental change for the city,
particularly for those areas now outside of the circuit of the walls. Within the
city centre there seem to have been similarly great changes, some undoubtedly to
be related to earthquake damage sustained in this period. These largely
concerned the public, monumental features of the city — specifically their loss,
decay and reuse. Thus on the south side of the Upper Agora the colonnade of the
South Stoa seems to have disappeared in the early fourth century. The loss of
these colonnades must have required fundamental reconstruction of the buildings
and it has been suggested that this complex, which housed the local
administration, was split into individual units with individual roofs, thus
completely changing the look of this important area of the classical city. By the
end of the sixth century it seems clear that the whole complex was in decay, if
not ruins, with a large room to the west of the Council chamber being partially
filled with earth by the fifth century and the South Basilica falling into disuse in
the late fourth century.

Similarly the large Basilica above the Lechaion Road seems to have been
levelled by the end of the fourth century, as was Temple E. The Julian Basilica,
on the other hand, saw a change in usage, being repaired in the late fourth
century and remodelled in the fifth, although whether it served as a church as
some believe is to be debated. Alterations in function can also be seen at the
‘Southeast’ building on the Upper Agora — which seems to have been converted
into a prominent high-status dwelling in the fourth century — whilst the Baths
on the east of the Lechaion Road saw a luxurious house built in their courtyard
(this continued in use into the seventh century, long after the final phase of the
latrines and baths themselves) and the Peribolos of Apollo may have been
converted into a monastery.

Other monuments and buildings within the city seem to have been repaired
without having their function changed. This certainly seems to be the case with
the public water-source, the Fountain of Peirene, and with the Propylaia, in both
cases the repairs taking place in the sixth century. The shops facing onto the
Lechaion Road are similarly rebuilt, whilst other building are even constructed
anew. Examples of the latter include the late fourth century demolition of the
Central Shops and their replacement by a grand staircase linking the Lower and
Upper Agora (with the rooms flanking the Bema being converted into fountains),
and the building of the Hemicycle on the Lechaion Road (built in the early fifth
century with a probable inn behind it, and destroyed in the sixth century).
Additionally, statues continued to be put up through the fifth and sixth centuries,
with the last being planned as late as the second half of the seventh century.

Thus we have three different pictures. One shows a relatively vital city, where
new public buildings and monuments are built whilst others are maintained and
repaired (admittedly using material from other buildings, but this is common
practice in Late Antiquity and should not be seen as a sign of decay). Another
paints a picture of fundamental change. In this, the administrative heart of the
city is removed and private residences take over the archives and baths complex
of the city. The final one is related to the above and shows what might be termed
‘decline’. Thus the new inn behind the Hemicycle collapses in the sixth century;
the Bema ceases to be kept clear and is covered by a layer of earth in the sixth
century; both the pagan temples of the Agora and the floor of the Agora itself are
stripped of their marbles for re-use as building materials; and graves and tombs
appear in the Agora and surrounding buildings.

The last of the signs of ‘decline’ points us to one final fundamental change seen
in Corinth in this period that has not yet been mentioned — the appearance of
the church in the town. Though we might rightly be somewhat sceptical of
claims that the Julian Basilica became a church, the despoiling of/failure to
repair the temples of central Corinth and the presence of a Christian cemetery on
the south side of the upper Agora indicate that it was a major force for change.
Indeed, a large fifth century complex on the east flank of the defunct South
Basilica has recently been suggested as a Christian Basilica, a notion supported
by the presence of Christian supplications in the Northwest Shops, whilst the
Peribolos of Apollo may have been reused as a monastery. Whilst the building of
a church was a normal activity in Late Antique towns, the burials within both the
Agora and buildings such as the Fountain of Peirene indicate a major change in
attitudes towards the Agora and the city in general.

How then should we interpret all of this? The changes and decline described
above have previously been blamed upon earthquakes, plagues and invasions,
but it must be recognised that there was, in addition to these very real disasters, a
clear change in the way that people felt about the city. This change was most
probably brought about largely by the increasing influence of the church
combined with the decline of self-governance. Thus whilst earthquakes and
invasions would almost certainly have played a role, the failure to
maintain/repair the Basilicas, the South Stoa, the temples and so forth must have
been deliberate decisions, like the decision to strip the marble from the pavement
of the Agora and not to clean the Bema. In contrast, the Lechaion Road, with its
colonnades, and the Fountain of Peirene were both maintained right through Late
Antiquity and beyond, as too was the Lower Agora, which seems to have
remained relatively clear unlike the Upper Agora (see below). There are clearly
choices being made here. The best explanation is surely that commerce (as
represented by the shops and the public square, which was probably maintained
for commercial reasons rather than anything else) and a public water-supply
were clearly valued in the Late Antique city, in a way that other aspects of the
classical city seem no longer to have been.

After Late Antiquity there comes the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ of the seventh and
eighth centuries. As with other cities — including Constantinople — our
information on the development of the city in this period is scanty at best. One
thing we can be fairly certain of it that the central regions of Corinth were no
longer the political heart of the city. The ‘administrative’ zone of the Upper
Agora was destroyed by the end of the sixth century. Eric Ivison has suggested
that burial evidence indicates that control had shifted to the Acropolis in the late
sixth century. Here he sees metal-work and pottery testifying to the presence of a
Byzantine administrative citadel held by a garrison including ‘Slavic’ soldiers
until at least the second half of the seventh century (when the coin sequence
ceases, as it does in most other Byzantine cities — as such this shouldn’t be
taken as necessarily the end of occupation at this site). Certainly a citadel is
suggested, but there is no real need to see it as a political centre as well as a
military one. An alternative location for the city administration might well be in
the north, around the harbour of Lechaion, a plausible location for where the
building materials stripped from around the Agora were taken, perhaps.

Within the main town we have a limited amount of direct evidence for continuity
in urban life in the seventh century, including the final early seventh century
phase for the house in the Baths and a base for a statue in honour of Constans II
erected around 662 in the Agora. Of these, the latter is most interesting, as it
implies at least some continuity in the notion of the Agora as a public and
monumental square. Additionally we continue to find graves within this central
district, which presupposes the continued habitation of the city, though (once
again) not respect for traditional classical notions of what a city was. The best
evidence for continued activity is more indirect however, and is based in the
ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. For example, in the Lower Agora twelfth-
century coins were found just above the Roman pavement level, indicating that
this public square was kept deliberately open and clean right into the twelfth
century, and thus throughout the ‘Dark Ages’. The same would also seem to be
true for the Lechaion Road and the public water supply, the Fountain of Peirene,
a feature whose maintenance through to the tenth century seems to presuppose
continued occupation. With regards to the Lechaion Road, it seems clear that
both the road and its shops continued into the tenth century, and probably the
eleventh (with Marlia Mango arguing for continued maintenance), whilst the
building of a seven metre wide ramp up to the Propylaia in the mid-tenth century
(proven by underlying coins) demonstrates that both the road and the Lower
Agora were extensively used and — crucially — unblocked up to this point.
Similarly it seems that the Northwest Shops were still viable in the ninth century,
with at some point between Antiquity and the tenth century one of the vaulted
rooms here being converted into an apartment.

Consequently it appears fairly certain that at least parts of the main city survived
the ‘Dark Ages’ and that the town was not completely abandoned for the citadel
on the Acropolis, despite the predictably fragmentary nature of the evidence for
the seventh and eighth centuries and assertions to the contrary, a position
strongly supported by Florin Curta’s recent re-examination of the the seventh-
and eighth-century numismatic evidence from the centre of Corinth (which
demonstrates that it would be wrong to conclude that Corinth was nothing more
than a ‘deserted village’ in the ‘Dark Ages’). Of course this is not to say that
there was no discontinuity. The house in the Baths seems to have been destroyed
and buried in this period, and sixth and seventh century burials were disturbed
by those of the ninth century and later, indicting perhaps a break in knowledge of
the burial grounds within the city itself.

Turning to the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, Corinth once again appears
clearly in the archaeological and historical record. The literary and historical
sources depict it as a place of real importance, the residence of the strategos (a
high-ranking noble official), the capital of the theme of Morea, and a great
citadel. Increasing numbers of coins in the ninth and tenth centuries have been
used by David Metcalf to argue for the sustained and growing prosperity of
Corinth in this period, with the topography of these coin finds being indicative of
the city expanding eastwards. This recovery seems to really begin both here and
in Thebes with the coinage of Theophilus (829—42), and it has been argued that
the economy was being deliberately stimulated by an Imperial reform of the
coinage and the establishment of provincial mints. Whatever the case may be,
the growth in prosperity can be clearly seen in the fact that the Corinthian
numismatic evidence reviewed by Metcalf shows 157 coins from the reign of
Theophilus; 288 from the reign of Basil; 957 from the reign of Leo VI; and 2284
from Constantine VII and his family. Indeed, the coins we have show extensive
trade contacts, not only with Constantinople and Athens but also with Sicily.

It is thus clear that the city was, like the empire as a whole, thriving in this
period. For Corinth the administrative and military functions of the city
undoubtedly had a role to play in this, but we should not underestimate the role
also played by the development of silk, pottery and glass industries in the city,
particularly from the tenth century onwards but with this beginning in the ninth.
The main result of this increased economic activity in the central excavated area
of the city seems to have been another change in the form of the city. Though the
Late Antique buildings (a monastery?) in the Peribolos of Apollo were probably
in use until the late eleventh century, the Fountain of Peirene did see a change in
usage, with a church constructed here in the tenth century. The courtyard of the
Fountain was subsequently used as a cemetery and to the east of this the
remaining classical walls were remodelled from the tenth century to create a
luxurious and imposing residence.

Other changes to the centre of Corinth include the building of another church in
the tenth century, at the Bema; the conversion of the central part of the
Northwest Shops into what has been seen as a ‘Governor’s Palace’, though this
can be questioned; the construction of a wine-press in the tenth century within
the area of South Stoa colonnade; and the development of an industrial area in
the north of the Western Terrace. The most significant change seems, however,
to have come between the mid-eleventh century and the mid-twelfth century,
when almost the entire area of the ancient classical Agora was covered over with
buildings (mainly commercial and industrial, including glass and ceramic
factories), streets and small squares, focussed on an open market at the centre of
the old Agora. At the same time the Lechaion Road became extremely narrow,
lost its columns and was lined with commercial establishments including a small
bath. These two key areas of the classical town had been protected — kept clean,
open and monumentally adorned — from the decline suffered by the rest of the
city through Late Antiquity and the ‘Dark Ages’, but for some reason this ends
by the twelfth century.

All told, the city of Corinth undergoes major changes from the fourth to the
twelfth centuries. In many ways it was not unusual. The abandonment of
Basilica, administrative buildings and pagan temples has been recorded at many
sites, most notably Ephesus. Similarly the reduction of the walled area and the
removal of political and military centres to a separate site are also common, as is
an obvious decline in the evidence for urban life in the seventh and eighth
centuries. More significantly, the preservation of the Agora until the eleventh or
twelfth century is a feature that Corinth shares with Sparta and Athens, whilst
the preservation of the colonnaded street beyond Late Antiquity is something
found in other major cities too, such as Scythopolis (new porticoes with shops
built in the eighth century), Antioch (preserved until the tenth century) and
Constantinople (preserved until the early thirteenth century).
Despite not being a unique situation, the preservation of both the Agora and the
colonnaded street is highly intriguing, particularly given that the main political
focus had shifted to the Acropolis and the harbour area. It seems possible that
the explanation for the selective abandonment of buildings in Late Antiquity
might be extended here too. Despite the removal of the political focus and the
decay of many buildings in the seventh century, the Agora and the colonnaded
street continued to be adorned and kept open because, it was suggested above,
they were considered to be necessary and advantageous. The eleventh century
end to this preservation might then be seen as the end to their utility. In Corinth,
as in Athens and Sparta, the period after the ninth century saw a great increase in
prosperity and involved the city in industrial activity. Presumably the building
over of the Agora by commercial and industrial properties represents these
activities becoming more important to the life of the city than the continued
preservation of such a large, public open space, overcoming a previous
reluctance to change (a similar interpretation of the changes to the Lechaion
Road is also permissible, with the nature of its ‘decline’ being a change which
Hugh Kennedy has interpreted in other circumstances as actually being a
positive measure of prosperity and commercial activity).

It seems, then, that the development of Corinth in the Byzantine period, whilst
obviously being affected by earthquakes (which damaged and destroyed
buildings), security threats (which led to the partial retreat to the Acropolis) and
the empire-wide downturn of the seventh century (which led to serious decay in
not only provincial towns but also in the Imperial capital), was also affected by
the perceived needs of the inhabitants of the town. Pagan monuments were
allowed to decay whilst the church was allowed to effectively take over the
Upper Agora, and the Lower Agora was maintained — probably as a
commercial area — as long as the space was not needed for anything else, or
could not be more profitably utilised to the same end. Similarly, the only
plausible explanation for the continued maintenance of the Fountain of Peirene
was that the city obviously felt the need for it to be so maintained. The
excavation of the central area in the 1930s might have benefited from modern
excavation techniques to help elucidate further the development of this area, and
it is to be regretted that the excavations have not been more extensive.
Nevertheless, what material we do have paints a fascinating picture of a town in
transition, and challenges some commonly held views with regards to when,
exactly, various key elements of the classical city finally disappeared in Greece,
such as the common opinion that colonnaded streets disappeared in Late
Antiquity or the subsequent ‘Dark Ages’.
Chapter 4
Appendix - The Rhodian Sea-Law

The ‘Rhodian Sea-Law’ is a text of considerable interest for the present work,
given that it appears to have its origins in the seventh-or eighth-century
Byzantine Empire. The fact that it was felt worthwhile to codify the relationship
between merchants who supply cargoes and the captain and crew of the ships
which carry them in this ‘Sea-Law’ is, of course, strongly indicative of ship-
borne trade continuing to be an important element in the economy at this time.
The following translation of the ‘Rhodian Sea-Law’ is that of Walter Ashburner,
taken from his edition and translation of 1909 (The Rhodian Sea-Law, Oxford).

The Chapters of the Rhodian Law

1. A master’s pay two shares;

2. A steersman’s one share and a half;

3. A master’s mate’s one share and a half;

4. A carpenter’s one share and a half;

5. A boatswain’s one share and a half;

6. A sailor’s one share;

7. A cook’s (?) half a share.

[_The first seven chapters regulate the shares which the various classes of
mariners take in the profits of the maritime adventure._]

8. A merchant may have on board two boys; but he must pay their fare.

9. A passenger’s allowance of space is three cubits in length and one in breadth.

10. A passenger is not to fry fish on board; the captain must not allow him.

11. A passenger is not to split wood on board; the captain must not allow him.
12. A passenger on board is to take water by measure.

13. Women on board are to have a space allowance of one cubit; and a boy … of
half a cubit.

14. If a passenger comes on board and has gold, let him deposit it with the
captain. If he does not deposit it and says, ‘I have lost gold or silver’, no effect is
to be given to what he says, since he did not deposit it with the captain.

15. The captain and the passengers and the crew, who are on board together, are
to take an oath upon the evangels.

16. A ship with all its tackle is to be valued at fifty pieces of gold for every
thousand modii of capacity, and so is to come into contribution. Where the ship
is old, it is to be valued at thirty pieces of gold for every thousand modii. And in
the valuation a deduction is to be made of one third, and the ship is to come into
contribution accordingly.

17. The law ordains: let them not write moneys lent at sea to be repaid out of
property on land without risk. If they do write them, let them be invalid under
the Rhodian law. But where loans are made on fields or on hills to be repaid out
of property on land without risk, let them write them down in accordance with
the Rhodian law.

18. A man borrows money at interest and for eight years pays the legal interest.
After eight years it happens that there is a destruction or fire or inroad of
barbarians. Let interest cease to be payable in accordance with the Rhodian law.
If the man does not pay legal interest, the written contract prevails in accordance
with the former agreement, as the writing bears on its face.

19. Captains in actual command, where they contribute not less than three-
fourths in value of the ship, wherever they are dispatched, may enter into
agreements how they are to borrow money and send it on board ship either for
the season or for a voyage, and what they have agreed upon is to prevail; and he
who lent the money is to send a man to receive payment (?).

Chapters of Rhodian Law by way of Excerpt Concerning Maritime Affairs

1. Concerning thefts of a ship’s anchors.

2. Concerning thefts of anchors and other tackle.

3. Concerning a theft wrought by a sailor.

4. Concerning plundering of a ship by thieves or pirates.

5. Concerning injuries inflicted by sailors while fighting.

6. Concerning homicide committed by sailors while fighting.

7. Concerning sailors who in a fight put out an eye or cause scrotal hernia.

8. Concerning captain and sailors who take some one else’s stock and run away
with the ship.

9. Concerning deliberations about jettison by captain and passengers.

10. Concerning injury to ship or wreck.

11. Concerning the hiring of ships by merchants.

12. Concerning every deposit whether given in a ship or in a house.

13. Concerning disputes about a deposit of gold.

14. Concerning denial by a depositary of the deposit.

15. Concerning a merchant or passenger or slave who has been received in

deposit remaining on shore, while the ship starts off to escape pillage or an
attack of pirates.

16. Concerning money lent out to be carried over sea.

17. Concerning loans of gold and silver made on the footing of a share in profits.

18. Concerning a man borrowing money for a fixed time and going abroad.

19. Concerning a man hiring a ship and giving an earnest.

20. Concerning a man hiring a ship and their agreeing in writing or coming to
terms without writing.
21. Concerning disputes between two captains in partnership.

22. Concerning a merchant hiring the whole cargo-space of the ship.

23. Concerning agreements between captain and merchant about cargo.

24. Concerning agreements between captain and merchant and the giving of half
the freight and a subsequent change of intention.

25. Concerning a merchant not keeping to the time provided by the contract.

26. Concerning a ship wrecked while the sailors are sleeping on shore.

27. Concerning a ship which is wrecked on its way to be loaded by a merchant

or partnership.

28. Concerning a ship which is wrecked from the fault of a merchant or partner.

29. Concerning a ship which is wrecked before the time fixed by the contract has
arrived or after the time has arrived.

30. Concerning a ship with cargo which breaks to pieces, while the merchant is
saved with gold on him.

31. Concerning disaster to ship and salvage of cargo in part.

32. Concerning a ship hired or sailing in partnership and wrecked on its way
through the strait.

33. Concerning a ship which is wrecked after unloading.

34. Concerning a ship which carries silk and injury wrought to the cargo from a
storm or from bilge.

35. Concerning a ship which loses its mast.

36. Concerning a ship which in sailing runs down another ship.

37. Concerning a ship which is wrecked while the goods of the merchants or
passengers are saved.
38. Concerning a ship loaded with corn and caught in a gale.

39. Concerning the loss of a ship which is loaded and salvage of the cargo.

40. Concerning a ship which is wrecked while ship and cargo are saved in part.

41. Concerning a ship which is destroyed while the goods of passengers are
either saved or lost with it.

42. Concerning a ship which springs a leak while carrying cargo.

43. Concerning a ship which makes jettison of freight and tackle.

44. Concerning a ship which loses its mast or its tillers in a gale.

45. Concerning a man who brings something safe from the open sea to land from
a ship which is wrecked.

46. Concerning a man who saves the long-boat from a ship which has broken off
from it.

47. Concerning a man who saves something from the depths from a ship that is
wrecked.

Beginning of the Law

1. A ship is lying in harbour or on a beach and is robbed of its anchors. The thief
is caught and confesses. The law lays down that he be flogged and that he make
good twice over the damage he has done.

2. The sailors of ship A by direction of their captain steal the anchors of ship B,
which is lying in harbour or on a beach. Ship B is thereby lost. If this is
conclusively proved, let the captain who directed the theft make good all the
damage to ship B and its contents. If any one steals the tackle of a ship or any
article in use on board, i.e. ropes, cables, sails, skins, boats, and the like, let the
thief make them good twice over.

3. A sailor by the captain’s order robs a merchant or passenger. The sailor is

detected and caught. Let the captain make good the damage twofold to those
who were robbed, and let the sailor receive a hundred blows. If the sailor
commits the theft of his own accord and is caught or convicted by witnesses, let
him be well beaten, especially if the thing stolen is money, and let him make
good the loss to the person robbed.

4. The captain brings the ship into a place which is infested by thieves or pirates,
although the passengers testify to the captain what is at fault with the place.
There is a robbery. Let the captain make the loss good to the sufferers. On the
other hand, if the passengers bring the ship in in spite of the captain’s protests
and something untoward happens, let the passengers bear the loss.

5. If sailors set to fighting, let them fight with words and let no man strike
another. If A strikes B on the head and opens it or injures him in some other way,
let A pay B his doctor’s fees and expenses and his wages for the whole time that
he was away from work taking care of himself.

6. Sailors are fighting and A strikes B with a stone or log; B returns the blow; he
did it from necessity. Even if A dies, if it is proved that he gave the first blow
whether with a stone or log or axe, B, who struck and killed him, is to go
harmless; for A suffered what he wished to inflict.

7. One of the captains or merchants or sailors strikes a man with his fist and
blinds him, or gives him a kick and happens to cause a hernia. The assailant is to
pay the doctor’s bill, and for the eye twelve gold pieces, for the hernia ten. If the
man who gets kicked dies, his assailant will be liable to trial for murder.

8. The captain to whom the ship is entrusted sets sail and runs away into another
country with gold by will of the sailors. All their possessions, movable,
immovable, and self-moving, as many as belong to them, are to be seized.
Unless the amounts which these fetch in a sale make up the equivalent of the
ship and the profits of the time (during which they were absent), let the sailors
with the deputy captain be let out and make up the full amount of the loss.

9. If the captain is deliberating about jettison, let him ask the passengers who
have goods on board; and let them take a vote what is to be done. Let there be
brought into contribution the goods; the bedclothes and wearing apparel and
utensils are all to be valued; and, if jettison takes place, with the captain and
passengers the valuation is not to exceed a litra; with the steersman and mate, it
is not to exceed half a litra; with a sailor, it is not to exceed three grammata.
Slaves and any one else on board who is not being carried for sale are to be
valued at three minas; if any one is being carried for sale, he is to be valued at
two minas. In the same way if goods are carried away by enemies or by robbers
or … together with the belongings of sailors, these too are to come into the
calculation and contribute on the same principle. If there is an agreement for
sharing in gain, after everything on board ship and the ship itself have been
brought into contribution, let every man be liable for the loss which has occurred
in proportion to his share of the gain.

10. If the captain and crew are negligent and there is an injury or wreck, let the
captain and crew be responsible to the merchant for making the damage good. If
it is through the merchant’s negligence that ship and cargo are lost, let the
merchant be responsible for the loss caused by the shipwreck. If there is no
default either of the captain or crew or merchant, and a loss or shipwreck occurs,
what is saved of the ship and cargo is to come into contribution.

11. The merchants and the passengers are not to load heavy and valuable cargoes
on an old ship. If they load them, if while the ship is on its voyage it is damaged
or destroyed, he who loaded an old ship has himself to thank for what has
happened. When merchants are hiring ships, let them make precise inquiry from
the other merchants who sailed before them before putting in their cargoes, if the
ship is completely prepared, with a strong sailyard, sails, skins, anchors, ropes of
hemp of the first quality, boats in perfect order, suitable tillers, sailors fit for their
work, good seamen, brisk and smart, the ship’s sides staunch. In a word let the
merchants make inquiry into everything and then proceed to load.

12. If a man makes a deposit in a ship or in a house, let him make it with a man
known to him and worthy of confidence before three witnesses. If the amount is
large, let him accompany the deposit with a writing. If the man who agreed to
take charge of the deposit says that it is lost, he must show where the wall was
broken through or how the theft took place and take an oath that there was no
fraud on his part. If he does not show it, let him restore the goods safe as he
received them.

13. If a passenger comes on board and has gold or something else, let him
deposit it with the captain. If he does not deposit it and says ‘I have lost gold or
silver’, no effect is to be given to what he says. But the captain and the sailors,
all those on board together, are to take an oath.

14. A man receives a deposit and then denies it. Evidence is taken in the matter.
In due course the deposit is found on him after he had taken an oath or denied
his liability in writing. He is to make good the deposit twice over and suffer the
penalty of his perjury.

15. A ship carries passengers or merchants or slaves whom the captain has taken
in deposit. The captain comes to a city or harbour or shore, and some leave the
ship. Robbers give chase or pirates make an attack and the captain gives the
signal and gets away. The ship is saved with the property of the passengers and
merchants that is on board. Let each receive back his own goods, and let those
who went out receive back their respective goods and chattels. If any one is
minded to pick a quarrel with the captain for leaving him on shore in a place
infested by robbers, no effect is to be given to what he says because it was only
when they were pursued that the captain and crew fled. If a merchant or
passenger had somebody else’s slave in deposit and left him in any place, let him
make the loss good to his master.

16. Captains and merchants and whosoever borrow money on the security of
ship and freight and cargo are not to borrow it as if it was a land loan … if the
ship and the money are saved … lest a plot be laid against the money from the
dangers of the sea or from pirates … let them pay back the loan from the
property on land with maritime interest.

17. A gives gold or silver for the service of a partnership. The partnership is for a
voyage, and he writes down as it pleases him till when the partnership is to last.
B, who takes the gold or the silver, does not return it to A when the time is
fulfilled, and it comes to grief through fire or robbers or shipwreck. A is to be
kept harmless and receive his own again. But if, before the time fixed by the
contract is completed, a loss arises from the dangers of the sea, it seemed good
that they should bear the loss according to their shares and to the contract as they
would have shared in the gain.

18. A man borrows money and goes abroad. When the time agreed upon has
expired, let them recover from his property on land according to law. If they
cannot recover the debt, the capital of their loan shall be unconditionally
repayable, but the interest shall be maritime interest for so long as he is abroad.

19. If a man hires a ship and gives earnest-money and afterwards says ‘I have no
need of it’, he loses his earnest-money. But if the captain acts wrongfully, let him
give back to the merchant double the earnest-money.
20. Where a man hires a ship, the contract to be binding must be in writing and
subscribed by the parties, otherwise it is void. Let them also write penalties if
they wish. If they do not write penalties, and there is a breach, either by the
captain or by the hirer—if the hirer provides the goods … let him give the half of
the freight to the captain. If the captain commits a breach, let him give the half-
freight to the merchant. If the merchant wishes to take out the cargo, he will give
the whole freight to the captain. These penalties shall be exacted as in cases
where A brings a suit against B.

21. Two persons make a partnership without writing. Both the parties confess
‘we made a partnership on another occasion without writing and kept faith one
to the other and paid the tax on all occasions as if for a single capital’.
Something happens to one of the ships, either while it is in ballast or when it is
loaded. What is saved is to contribute one-fourth part to the sufferer, since they
do not bring forward a contract in writing but formed a partnership by word of
mouth only. But let contracts in writing subscribed by the parties be firm and
valid, and let the part saved contribute to the part lost.

22. Let the captain take nothing but water and provisions and the ropes which
ships have need of, where the merchant loads the whole ship according to their
written contract. If the captain is minded to put in other cargo after this, if the
ship has room, let him put it in; if the ship has no room, let the merchant before
three witnesses resist the captain and sailors; and, if there is jettison, it will rest
with the captain; but if the merchant does not prevent it, let him come to
contribution.

23. If there is a contract in writing between captain and merchant, let it be

binding; but if the merchant does not provide the cargo in full, let him provide
freight for what is deficient, as they agreed in writing.

24. The captain takes the half-freight and sails and the merchant wishes to
return. They made and subscribed a contract in writing. The merchant loses his
half-freight by reason of his hindrance. Where there is a contract in writing and
the captain commits a breach, let him return the half-freight and as much again.

25. If the limit of time fixed by the contract passes, let the merchant provide the
sailors’ rations for ten days. If the second limit also passes, above all things let
the merchant make up the full freight and go away. But if the merchant is willing
to add so much to the freight, let him give it and sail as he pleases.
26. If one of the crew or captains sleeps off the ship and the ship is lost whether
by day or night, all the damage regards the members of the crew or captains who
slept off the ship, while those who remained on board go harmless. Those who
were negligent must make good to the owner of the ship the damage which was
done by reason of their negligence.

27. A ship is on its way to be freighted by a merchant or a partnership. The ship

is damaged or lost by the negligence of sailors or of the captain. The cargo
which lies in the warehouse is free from claims. If evidence is given that the ship
was lost in a storm, what is saved of the ship is to come into contribution
together with cargo and the captain is to retain the half-freight. If one of the
partners denies the partnership and is convicted by three witnesses, let him pay
his share of the contribution and suffer the penalty of his denial.

28. If a ship is hindered in the loading by a merchant or partner, and the time
fixed for loading passes, and it happens that the ship is lost by reason of piracy
or fire or wreck, let him who caused the hindrance make good the damage.

29. If the merchant does not provide the cargo at the place fixed by the contract,
and the time fixed for loading passes, and a loss happens by reason of piracy or
fire or wreck, all the injury to the ship regards the merchant. But if the days of
the allowed time have not passed when something of this sort happens, let them
come to contribution.

30. If the merchant loads the ship and there is gold with him and the ship
happens to suffer one of the maritime risks and the cargo is lost and the ship
goes to pieces, let what is saved from the ship and the cargo come to
contribution, but let the merchant take his gold with him on paying a tenth. If he
was saved without clinging to any of the ship’s spars, let him pay the half-fare in
accordance with the contract; if he had to cling for safety to one of the spars, let
him pay one-fifth.

31. If the merchant loads the ship and something happens to the ship, all that is
saved is to come into contribution on either side; but the silver, if it is saved, is to
pay a fifth; and the captain and the sailors are to give help in salving.

32. If a ship is on its way to be loaded, whether it is hired by a merchant or goes

in partnership, and a sea-disaster takes place, the merchant is not to ask back the
half-freight, but let what remains of the ship and the cargo come to contribution.
If the merchant or the partner has also given an advance, let their agreement
made in writing prevail.

33. If the captain puts the cargo in the place fixed by the contract and the ship
comes to grief, let the captain recover the freight in full from the merchant, but
the goods which have been unloaded into warehouses are safe from those which
are on board the ship with the ship, but let what are found on the ship together
with the ship come into contribution.

34. If a ship is carrying linen or silk, let the captain supply good skins, in order
that in a storm no harm may be done to the freight by the dashing of the waves.
If the water rises in the hold, let the captain say so at once to those who have the
cargo on board, in order that it may be brought up. If the passengers make it
manifest to the captain and for all that the cargo is injured, the captain is
responsible together with the sailors. If the captain declares beforehand together
with the sailors that the water is rising in the ship and the goods must come up,
but those who loaded the goods neglect to bring them up, let the captain and
sailors go harmless.

35. If a ship makes jettison of its mast, whether it breaks of its own accord or is
cut, let all the sailors and the merchants and the goods and the ship so far as
saved come into contribution.

36. If a ship in sail runs against another ship which is lying at anchor or has
slackened sail, and it is day, all the collision and the damage regards the captain
and those who are on board. Moreover let the cargo too come into contribution.
If this happens at night, let the man who slackened sail light a fire. If he has no
fire, let him shout. If he neglects to do this and a disaster takes place, he has
himself to thank for it, if the evidence goes to this. If the sailsman was negligent
and the watchman dozed off, the man who was sailing perished as if he ran on
shallows and let him keep harmless him whom he strikes.

37. If the ship comes to grief and the property of the merchants or passengers is
saved while the ship is lost, let the debentures which are saved provide one-
fifteenth, but let not the merchant and the passengers give the ship to the captain.

38. If a ship loaded with corn is caught in a gale, let the captain provide skins
and the sailors work the pumps. If they are negligent and the cargo is wetted by
the bilge, let the sailors pay the penalty. But if it is from the gale that the cargo is
injured, let the captain and the sailors together with the merchant bear the loss;
and let the captain together with the ship and the sailors receive the six-
hundredths of each thing saved. If goods are to be thrown into the sea, let the
merchant be the first to throw and then let the sailors take a hand. Moreover
none of the sailors is to steal. If any one steals, let the robber make it good
twofold and lose his whole gain.

39. A ship with a cargo of corn or wine or oil is in full sail. By wish of the
captain and crew who slacken sail, the ship goes into a place or on a beach
against the wish of the merchant. It happens that the ship is lost, but the cargo or
goods are saved. The merchant is to suffer no harm from the loss of the ship,
since he did not wish to go into that place. If while the ship is in full sail, the
merchant says to the captain ‘I want to go into this place’, and the place is not
comprised in the charter-party, and it happens that the ship is lost while the
goods are saved, let the captain have his ship made good by the merchant. If it is
by wish of both parties that the ship is cast away, let everything come to
contribution.

40. A ship is wrecked, and part of the cargo and the ship is saved. The
passengers have on them gold or silver or whole silks or pearls. Let the gold that
is saved provide a tenth, and the silver contribute a fifth. Let the whole silks, if
they are saved dry, contribute a tenth, as being equal to gold. If they are wetted,
let an allowance be made for the abrasion and the wetting, and let them come
into contribution on that footing. Let the pearls according to their valuation
contribute to the loss like a cargo of gold.

41. If there are passengers on board and the ship is injured or destroyed, but the
goods of the passengers are saved, let the passengers make a payment towards
the loss of the ship. If passengers two or three lose their gold or their goods, let
them receive from all according to their capacity towards the loss together with
the contribution of the ship.

42. If a ship springs a leak while it is carrying goods and the goods are taken out,
let it lie with the captain, whether he wishes to carry the goods in the ship to the
trading-place agreed upon, if the ship is repaired. If the ship is not repaired but
the captain takes another ship to the trading-place agreed upon, let him give the
whole freight.

43. If a ship is caught in a storm and makes jettison of its cargo, and breaks its
sailyards and mast and tillers and anchors and rudders, let all these come into
contribution together with the value of the ship and of the goods which are
saved.

44. A ship has a cargo, and in a gale the mast is jettisoned or the tillers broken or
one of the rudders lost. If it happens that the cargo gets wet from the gale, there
is every necessity that these should come to contribution. But if the cargo is hurt
more from the bilge and not from the gale, let the captain take the freight and
hand the goods over dry and in quantity as he took them.

45. If in the open sea a ship is overset or destroyed, let him who brings anything
from it safe on to land receive instead of reward the fifth part of that which he
saves.

46. A boat breaks the ropes and gets off from its ship and is lost with all hands. If
those on board are lost or die, let the captain pay their annual wages for the full
year to their heirs. He who saves the boat with its rudders will give them all back
as he in truth finds them and receive the fifth part of what he saves.

47. If gold or silver or anything else is raised from the sea from a depth of eight
fathoms, let the salvor receive one-third. If it is raised from a depth of fifteen
fathoms, let the salvor receive one-half by reason of the danger of the sea. Where
things are cast from sea to land and found there or carried to within one cubit of
the land, let the salvor receive one-tenth part of what is salved.
Chapter 5
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