Part 9 (1/2)
[*]Plato, probably echoing thoughtful Greek opinion, considered it bad for manufacturers to be either too wealthy or too poor; thus a potter getting too rich will neglect his art, and grow idle; if, however, he cannot afford proper tools, he will manufacture inferior wares, and his sons will be even worse workmen then he.
Such comment obviously comes from a society where most industrial life is on a small scale.
78. The Commerce of Athens.--Part of Athenian wealth comes from the busy factories, great and small, which seem everywhere; still more riches come in by the great commerce which will be found centered at the Peiraeus. Here is the s.p.a.cious Deigma, a kind of exchange-house where s.h.i.+p masters can lay out samples of their wares on display, and sell to the important wholesalers, who will transmit to the petty shopkeepers and the ”ultimate consumer.”[*]
[*]Of course a very large proportion of Greek manufactures wares were never exported, but were sold direct by the manufacturer to the consumer himself. This had various disadvantages; but there was this large gain: ONLY ONE PROFIT was necessary to be added to the mere cost of production. This aided to make Greece (from a modern standpoint) a paradise of low prices.
There are certain articles of which various districts make a specialty, and which Athens is constantly importing: B?tia sends chariots; Thessaly, easy chairs; Chios and Miletos, bedding; and Miletos, especially, very fine woolens. Greece in general looks to Syria and Arabia for the much-esteemed spices and perfumes; to Egypt for papyri for the book rolls; to Babylonia for carpets. To discuss the whole problem of Athenian commerce would require a book in itself; but certain main facts stand out clearly. One is that Attica herself has extremely few natural products to export--only her olive oil, her Hymettus honey, and her magnificent marbles--dazzling white from Pentelicos, gray from Hymettus, blue or black from Eleusis. Again we soon notice the great part which GRAIN plays in Athenian commerce. Attica raises such a small proportion of the necessary breadstuffs, and so serious is the crisis created by any shortage, that all kinds of measures are employed to compel a steady flow of grain from the Black Sea ports into the Peiraeus. Here is a law which Domsthenes quotes to us:--
”It shall not be lawful for any Athenian or any metic in Attica, or any person under their control [i.e. slave or freedman] to lend out money on a s.h.i.+p which is not commissioned to bring grain to Athens.”
A second law, even more drastic, forbids any such person to transport grain to any harbor but the Peiraeus. The penalties for evading these laws are terrific. At set intervals also the Public a.s.sembly (Ecclesia) is in duty bound to consider the whole state of the grain trade: while the dealers in grain who seem to be cornering the market, and forcing up the price of bread, are liable to prompt and disastrous prosecution.
79. The Adventurous Merchant Skippers.--Foreign trade at Athens is fairly well systematized, but it still partakes of the nature of an adventure. The name for ”skipper” (naukleros) is often used interchangeably for ”merchant.” Nearly all commerce is by sea, for land routes are usually slow, unsafe, and inconvenient[*]; the average foreign trader is also a s.h.i.+powner, probably too the actual working captain. He has no special commodity, but will handle everything which promises a profit. A war is breaking out in Paphlagonia. Away he sails thither with a cargo of good Athenian s.h.i.+elds, swords, and lances. He loads up in that barbarous but fertile country with grain; but leaves enough room in his hold for some hundred skins of choice wine which he takes aboard at Chios.
The grain and wine are disembarked at the Piraeus. Hardly are they ash.o.r.e ere rumor tells him that salt herring[+] are abundant and especially cheap at Corcyra; and off he goes for a return cargo thereof, just lingering long enough to get on a lading of Athenian olive oil.
[*]Naturally there was a safe land route from Athens across the Isthmus to Corinth and thence to Sparta or towards Ellis; again, there would be fair roads into B?tia.
[+]Salt fish were a very usual and important article of Greek commerce.
80. Athenian Money-changers and Bankers.--An important factor in the commerce of Athens is the ”Money-changer.” There is no one fixed standard of coinage for Greece, let alone the Barbarian world. Athens strikes its money on a standard which has very wide acceptance, but Corinth has another standard, and a great deal of business is also transacted in Persian gold darics. The result is that at the Peiraeus and near the Agora are a number of little ”tables” where alert individuals, with strong boxes beside them, are ready to sell foreign coins to would-be travelers, or exchange darics for Attic drachmae, against a pretty favorable commission.
This was the beginning of the Athenian banker; but from being a mere exchanger he has often pa.s.sed far beyond, to become a real master of credit and capital. There are several of these highly important gentlemen who now have a business and fortune equal to that of the famous Pasion, who died in 370 B.C. While the firm of Pasion and Company was at its height, the proprietor derived a net income of at least 100 minae (over $1,800 [1914] or $30,248.07 [2000]) per year from his banking; and more than half as much extra from a s.h.i.+eld factory.[*]
[*]These sums seem absurdly small for a great money magnate, but the very high purchasing power of money in Athens must be borne in mind. We know a good deal about Pasion and his business from the speeches which Deosthenes composed in the litigation which arose over his estate.
81. A Large Banking Establishment.--Enter now the ”tables”
of Nicanor. The owner is a metic; perhaps he claims to come from Rhodes, but the shrewd cast of his eyes and the dark hue of his skin gives a suggestion of the Syrian about him. In his open office a dozen young half-naked clerks are seated on low chairs--each with his tablet spread out upon his knees laboriously computing long sums.[*] The proprietor himself acts as the cas.h.i.+er. He has not neglected the exchange of foreign moneys; but that is a mere incidental. His first visitor this morning presents a kind of letter of credit from a correspondent in Syracuse calling for one hundred drachmae. ”Your voucher?” asks Nicanor. The stranger produces the half of a coin broken in two across the middle. The proprietor draws a similar half coin from a chest. The parts match exactly, and the money is paid on the spot. the next comer is an old acquaintance, a man of wealth and reputation; he is followed by two slaves bearing a heavy talent of coined silver which he wishes the banker to place for him on an advantageous loan, against a due commission. The third visitor is a well-born but fast and idle young man who is squandering his patrimony on flute girls and chariot horses. He wishes an advance of ten minae, and it is given him--against the mortgage of a house, at the ruinous interest of 36 per cent, for such prodigals are perfectly fair play. Another visitor is a careful and competent s.h.i.+p merchant who is fitting for a voyage to Crete, and who requires a loan to buy his return cargo. Ordinary interest, well secured, is 18 per cent, but a sea voyage, even at the calmest season, is counted extra hazardous.
The skipper must pay 24 per cent at least. A poor tradesman also appears to raise a trifle by p.a.w.ning two silver cups; and an unlucky farmer, who cannot meet his loan, persuades the banker to extend the time ”just until the next moon”[+]--of course at an unmerciful compounding of interest.
[*]Without the Arabic system of numerals, elaborate bookkeeping surely presented a sober face to the Greeks. Their method of numeration was very much like that with the so-called Roman numerals.
[+]”Watching the moon,” i.e. the end of the month when the debts became due, appears to have been the melancholy recreation of many Athenian debtors. See Aristophanes's ”Clouds,” I. 18.
82. Drawbacks to the Banking Business.--Nicanor has no paper money to handle, no stocks, no bonds,--and the line between legitimate interest and scandalous usury is by no means clearly drawn. There is at least one good excuse for demanding high interest. It is notoriously hard to collect bad debts. Many and many a clever debtor has persuaded an Athenian jury that ALL taking of interest is somewhat immoral, and the banker has lost at least his interest, sometimes too his princ.i.p.al. So long as this is the case, a banker's career has its drawbacks; and Demosthenes in a recent speech has commended the choice by Pasion's son of a factory worth 60 minae per year, instead of his father's banking business worth nominally 100. The former was so much more secure than an income depending on ”other people's money!”
Finally it must be said that while Nicanor and Pasion have been honorable and justly esteemed men, many of their colleagues have been rogues. Many a ”table” has been closed very suddenly, when its owner absconded, or collapsed in bankruptcy, and the unlucky depositors and creditors have been left penniless, during the ”rearrangement of the tables,” as the euphemism goes.
83. The Potter of Athens.--There is one other form of economic activity in Athens which deserves our especial notice, different as it is from the bankers' tables,--the manufacture of earthen vases.
A long time might be spent investigating the subject; here there is room only for a hasty glance. For more than two hundred years Attica has been supplying the world with a pottery which is in some respects superior to any that has gone before, and also (all things considered) to any that will follow, through night two and a half millenniums. The articles are primarily tall vases and urns, some for mere ornament or for religious purposes,--some for very humble household utility; however, besides the regular vases there is a great variety of dishes, plates, pitchers, bowls, and cups all of the same general pattern,--a smooth, black glaze[*]
covered with figures in the delicate red of the unglazed clay. At first the figures had been in black and the background in red, but by about 500 B.C. the superiority of the black backgrounds had been fully realized and the process perfected. For a long time Athens had a monopoly of this beautiful earthenware, but now in 360 B.C.
there are creditable manufactories in other cities, and especially in the Greek towns of Southern Italy. The Athenian industry is, however, still considerable; in fifty places up and down the city, but particularly in the busy quarter of the Ceramicus, the potters'
wheels are whirling, and the glazers are adding the elegant patterns.