Aspects of Trade on the Judaean Coast in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods

ARAM, 8 (1996), 101-109 101

ASPECTS OF TRADE ON THE JUDAEAN COAST IN THE HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN PERIODS

JOAN M. FRAYN

The aspects of Judaean trade on which I would like to comment are first, the effects on trade of the nature of the coastline and its ports, secondly the rela- tion between the road system and the ports. The third point concerns the pro- portion of trade bound for Egypt and the western Mediterranean which was carried by sea in comparison with that which travelled over land. In discussing this we shall have to pay some attention to the seasonal nature of the coasting trade and of the supply of agricultural produce. Moving south along the Mediterranean coast we find: Ptolemais or Akko, Dora, Caesarea, Jaffa, Ashkelon and Gaza. This is a low-lying sandy coast, with few natural havens, but there is no doubt that each of these towns in its time offered harbour facilities to coasting vessels. There were other small anchorages or harbours on this coast, such as Tel Michal, which has recently been excavated.1 This site is about 6 km north of the Yarkon River and a Roman fortress was built there in the first century BC, probably to control the threat of piracy from Jaffa. Subsequently the trade from the port of Tel Michal was transferred to nearby Apollonia, where an underwater survey in 1990 revealed a harbour and anchorage, with piers and warehouses. This harbour seems to have been in extensive use during the Byzantine period and later. In describing these harbours it is tempting to devise a Greek vocabulary based on the usage of contemporary writers, and to try to distinguish between the ºrmos, the limßn, the prósormos, the Àƒormov and the ênórmisma. How- ever, these words seldom seem to be used with great precision except by his- torians describing sea-battles. In general the ºrmos is the “safe haven”, the inner harbour, often circular in shape, within which ships would be safe from the weather, while the limßn includes the open water outside, and the harbour installations, and sometimes the whole of a seaport town. But a limßn can be kleistóv, as in Thucydides 7, 38, 2. Also, as in Acts 27: 12, it can be âneuqé- tou pròv paraxeimasían, “unsuitable for wintering”. It can also refer to a point at which tax is levied, as can the Latin portus. What most merchants and ship-owners would be seeking would be a safe inner harbour large enough to contain a number of coasting vessels in bad weather. This would have been

1 Z. Herzog, “Archaeology and History at Tel Michal”, in I. Malkin, and R.L. Hohlfelder, (ed.), Mediterranean Cities, (London 1988) 102 ASPECTS OF TRADE ON THE JUDAEAN COAST difficult to find in Judaea itself before the Herodian harbour at Caesarea was built. Jaffa continued through many vicissitudes to serve as a commercial port until 1965, after which it remains as a yachting basin and a small fishing har- bour. Josephus’ description of it2 points to some of the difficulties: “There is no natural harbour at Joppa, which ends in an uneven beach straight for most of its length but curving gently at both ends, where the marks of Androm- eda’s chair are still shown as proofs of the antiquity of the legend. Beating full on this shore and dashing the waves high against the opposing rocks, the north wind makes the anchorage more dangerous than a landless sea.” (trans. G. A. Wil- liamson). Supporting services and warehouses in the city would also be needed. These were often on a small scale, as for example in Jaffa, where the size of the Roman town could not have permitted much storage of commodities or any- thing more than a local market. However, as we note from the stone mould for casting lead weights found there with a Greek inscription mentioning the ago- ranomos, Judah ben Tosomenos, AD 102, there must have been a considerable turn-over of goods in the market in the reign of Trajan. It suggests that there was a revival of trade and a Jewish presence after the destruction of Jaffa by Vespasian. It is a busy urban area today, and only limited excavation has been able to take place. What we do have, however, is the recent very detailed account of the Jaffa-Jerusalem roads.3 The number of roads and the settle- ments on them are evidence of the importance of Jaffa as a centre of trade by sea, especially during the Roman and Byzantine periods, as well as of the prosperity of agriculture and horticulture in the hinterland. Herod rebuilt the harbour at Caesarea for prestige purposes, we are told. Do we underestimate him or his advisers? Any extensive work of this kind, if suc- cessful, will bring prestige, but in view of the nature of this coast and its other harbours, was there not some very practical purpose behind the work carried out at Caesarea? That it ultimately replaced Dor may have been partly for a political reason in that, as Dor was not under Herod’s jurisdiction, any further development there was not for him to undertake. However, it is suggested that the finds made in the Main Bay and the South Bay at Dor show that it spe- cialised in the transport of building stone.4 This view is supported by the num- ber of quarries and the amount of quarrying in the vicinity5 where at least 40% of the population are thought to have been engaged in this trade. The changes in use of the other harbours indicated the extent of silting and the shifting posi- tion of sand-dunes and their contours in relation to warehouses, quays, inland

2 A. J. 15, 333. 3 M. Fischer, B. Isaac, and I. Roll, Roman Roads in Judaea II. 4 Kingsley and Raveh, 80-81. 5 Safrai, 212-213 and 422. J.M. FRAYN 103 transport and coastal settlements. The need for another secure harbour, with provision for general trade requirements and storage seems clear. Ya’akov Nir6 estimated the amount of sand on the Caesarea sand field as about 60 million cubic metres. The ultimate cause of the flooding and destruction of the harbour at Caesarea appears to have been seismic disturbance and, later, subsidence. Until at any rate the end of the first century AD merchandise from Petra, which may have included spices and perfumes from Arabia coming through Nabataea, made its way to Egypt via Gaza. Benjamin Isaac7 calls the Petra – Gaza road “the earliest Roman road known in the region and one of the earli- est east of Byzantium”. The direction of this trade is made clear by the road system, which to a large extent the Romans inherited from previous regimes. The Via Maris followed the coast from Akko to Gaza with routes from further east via Hebron and Beer-sheba, and also with Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea, a centre of balsam cultivation. Ultimately all the east-west routes gave access to the King’s Highway, leading from Damascus via Nabataea to the Red Sea, and part of this road was followed by the Via Nova Traiana. The modern town of Gaza, also known as Azza, is on the coast road, which though it does not exactly correspond to the Via Maris, performs the same function, but it is four kilometres from the coast. The position is summarised by D. A. Dorsey8: it was “due to the wide strip of sand dunes that lined most of the coast of Philis- tia. To avoid these coastal sand dunes the highway of necessity would have kept 4-6 kilometers from the shore as it proceeded through the southern coastal plain.”. The Canaanite city, which was on the north bank of the Wadi Ghazzeh, was about 6 km south of Gaza Town. It is called Tell el Ajjul, and it has been excavated. We are however concerned with the later city and its out- let to the sea. In studying the trade of Gaza we have to contend with two disadvantages: the city of the Roman period has not been excavated, and there is no certainty where the port lay at that time in relation to the present town. There were two different cities of Gaza in the late Republic and early Empire: that which was destroyed by Alexander Jannaeus in 96 BC, and the New Gaza which suc- ceeded it. It has been suggested that the new city was on the coast on the har- bour site, but it seems probable that it would have been built on or near the Via Maris to take advantage of the traffic on its way to and from Egypt and from other coastal towns such as Ashkelon. The arguments in favour of the coastal site assume that at this period most of the trade coming into Gaza from the east was leaving it by the sea, and this is by no means certain, though it is assumed by Glucker.9 It is more likely that this would be the case with local commodi-

6 The Harbours of Caesarea Maritima I, (ed. A. Raban), (Oxford 1989), 23. 7 Roman Frontier Studies, (1979), 892. 8 Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel, 59. 9 (Oxford, 1987) 86 ff. 104 ASPECTS OF TRADE ON THE JUDAEAN COAST ties such as wine and agricultural produce. Merchandise which was already being transported by camels or other draught animals may have continued by land to avoid delays caused by shipping arrangements and the cessation of activity in the winter months, and by inclement weather at any time. Although the freight contract in P. Oxy. 3111, of the 3rd century AD, is concerned with vessels conveying freight up the Nile, the provisions about not sailing at night or during a storm, but dropping anchor in the most secure harbour (J.R. Rea) may well have applied to other shipping routes and formed part of standard practice. The olive harvest is in October, and this would mean that the fruit and the fresh oil was available for transport in the winter. As the Elder Pliny so wisely says (15, 3, 1): “Age makes the oil unattractive: it is not the same as it is with wine. The extreme limit of age for olive oil is one year.”. On the other hand, goods intended for Italy and the West, as well as often those for the northern Levantine coast, would have been conveyed by sea. All this activ- ity would make Gaza Town a busy emporium and would explain the impor- tance of an inland road junction, which seems to have become a permanent feature of the topography. The port was clearly separate from the inland city in the 4th century AD. It went over to Christianity “in a body”10, was made a bishopric, and renamed Constantia after the Emperor’s sister.11 At this time it was known as Maioumas, a local name which could be transliterated into Greek, and only means “seaport”. Later12 the citizens of Gaza brought a case against the inhab- itants for the return of the harbour to the city. Not only was the port separate, but it was probably somewhat inadequate, though perhaps no more so than several of the harbours on this coast. Meyer (107) who saw it at the beginning of the present century writes: “The harbor accommodation is wretched. A road was built in 1902 connecting the port with the city; but this is already in bad need of repair (1906). Only a few rocks mark the site of the port on the flat, sandy coast.”. Recently at the west end of the Gaza road a bathing beach has been maintained for the U.N. personnel. Meyer’s description of the har- bour, together with the nature of the coastline of the whole area suggests that most of the trade with Egypt passed along the road and not by sea at all. According to Avi-Yonah the Madaba map itself is based upon a road map. It shows Gaza Town and part of “Maioumas also Neapolis”, but not the sea coast itself. Avi-Yonah dates the Madaba map to the 6th century AD. The question of trade routes between Gaza and Egypt needs more consider- ation. Further north on this coast, vessels could put in at several ports, and deliver goods or take on other consignments. But south of Gaza there were fewer ports, and those which did exist seem to have poor communication with

10 Meyer, Gaza, 60. 11 Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iv, 38. 12 Meyer, Gaza, 60. J.M. FRAYN 105 sources of supply in the hinterland. Much of this area was also drier, with less possibilities of cultivation. On the other hand, a camel or donkey caravan could make the journey from one village, town or Bedouin encampment to another, picking up cargo on the way. There is a good example of this from the Zenon archive in Business Papers of the 3rd Century BC.13 This relates to a caravan of four camels which in 259 BC was moving from Pelusium via Gaza up the coast of Palestine to Sidon and then inland into the Galilee. As stated in line 3, it started off from Egypt with the camels kenaí, unladen, but picked up some freight, namely a load of bricks consigned to Gaza (lines 2-5). Carrying occasional loads like this must have been quite usual, as otherwise the caravan would have proceeded at a loss, for the ∂mporov would have been paying the camel-drivers and feeding the animals throughout the journey. It seems also that it would in some cases have paid the merchant to have his camels laden when passing through customs posts. The list of tolls for Palmyra14 refers to camels kenaí and ∂ngomoi, and there they both pay the same basic toll. The caravan above-mentioned was travelling in all more than 400 miles, and it seems unlikely that such journeys were undertaken without contacts along the way, and hope of profit on the whole undertaking. The Zenon archive is full of meetings and encounters, sometimes with Zenon’s own assistants, sometimes with others in the ports and markets through which the various journeys took place. An example of this is in the Cairo collection.15 In a letter to Zenon, Her- acleitos mentions the trading activities of Apollophanes, Krotos, Dionysodorus and Menokles. They are to be found respectively in Sidon, Joppa, Heracleia and Tyre. Although such travelling merchants would not have been able to adhere to a strict timetable, whether moving about by land or sea, it would seem that some report of their movements would have circulated in the local markets and emporia. In a later example of AD 10716 we find a Roman soldier stationed at Bostra saying (lines 36-7): “âpò Pjlousíou gàr kaqˆ™méran ∂rxontai pròv ™m¢v ∂mporoi”, “merchants from Pelusium come to us everyday…”. The frequency of this traffic may have been connected with the fact that this was a military base, but there was probably a regularity of trade on many routes. Safrai17 reproduces the market tables for Central Italy as an analogy to the schedules of the travelling fairs described in Talmudic litera- ture. It is an analogy and not an exact parallel, as the arrangements were in detail very different, but it emphasises that there were patterns in this kind of trade, and the importing of the goods would often be a first step towards hold- ing a market or fair.

13 (ed W.L. Westermann and E.S. Hasenoehrl), (New York, 1934), no. 2. 14 OGIS 629, 166, AD 137 15 ed. C.C. Edgar, 59093. 16 Michigan Papyrus, 5903, from Karanis. 17 Economy of Roman Palestine, 250 106 ASPECTS OF TRADE ON THE JUDAEAN COAST

And what was being bought and sold? Sperber18 lists the exports from Palestine to Egypt in the 1st to 4th centuries AD as: linen, tar, bitumen, bal- sam, gum arabic, wine and oil. But Egypt would have been only one of the destinations, and there was also a coasting trade. In the opposite direction were carried some of the same items, as well as materia medica and fish. The vari- ety in these lists and the fact that some of the same commodities appear on both, makes them typical of a coastal trade. Demand is local and supply oppor- tunistic. As regards cargoes, the wreck of a Roman ship found in the harbour at Cae- sarea in 1976 is discussed by M. Fitzgerald and A. Raban. They suggest (190) that “the bulk cargo contained in the dolia of the Caesarea ship might have been either salt from the Dead Sea or spices from the Indian Ocean that came over caravan routes partially controlled by Herod.”. The alternative suggestion made is that the ship was carrying building materials such as pozzolana for the concreting of the harbour and came from Puteoli. These alternatives convey some impression of the variety of cargoes traded from Judaean harbours dur- ing the Empire. They remind us of the advice to the Italian ship’s captain19 “en saperdas advehe Ponto, castoreum, stuppas, hebenum, tus, lubrica Coa. tolle recens primus piper et sitiente camelo.” (Text: J. R. Jenkinson 1980)

“Go and fetch kippers from Pontus, plus beaver-musk, oakum, ebony, frankincense, slippery silk. Be the first to snatch that new load of pepper before the camel’s had a drink.” (trans. Niall Rudd).

This is a light-hearted comment; for a more serious account of Rome’s trade we can go the the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Ch. 18 is an elab- orate lament for the fall of Rome, the new Babylon, but verses 11 to 13 read more like an extract from the customs tariff at a frontier. Here we also encounter the rather rare Greek word gómov, which we met in ∂ngomov, describing the laden camels. Now the merchants are lamenting because tòn gómon aût¬n oûdeìv âgoráhei oûkéti' The cargo is divided into categories, as in tariffs or official decrees: first, gold, silver, precious stones and pearls. Then linen, purple, silk and scarlet. The next category is citron-wood and all kinds of furnishings. This section is followed by the spices, cinnamon and car- damum, and the aromata. Then come the staples of ancient diet, wine, olive oil and grain. Not all these items found their way to the coast of Judaea, for in total there was a great variety of cargoes in the Near East, some of which might be regarded as luxuries, and some not. Some goods were brought from

18 “Objects of Trade between Palestine and Egypt in Roman Times”, 147 19 Persius, Satires 5, 134-7 J.M. FRAYN 107 beyond Rome’s eastern frontier, and may have changed hands many times before reaching Levantine ports, but they did not all come from any great dis- tance. Balsam, which provided perfume and perfume bases from its juice and from its wood, was readily available in Judaea itself and must have been widely exported from there. Spices and perfumes were not the only cargo transported either by ships or camel trains, and in terms of bulk could not com- pete with timber, minerals or building materials for shipping space: they must often have constituted a secondary cargo, or a valuable make-weight. How were the spices and aromata carried? Powdered spices being con- veyed by sea would have been contained in wooden boxes or chests, the cistae or cistellae frequently mentioned in Roman literature, and sometimes, as in Plautus, Rudens 4, 4, 65ff., found in the sea. A. J. Parker20 specifically men- tions “chests” among items found in Roman shipwrecks. Oils and unguents would travel in pottery or glass containers, or in the alabastra in which they would subsequently be sold. But they could be carried by camel or donkey on overland journeys in goatskins21. Unprocessed material such as berries and leaves would have been transported in jars or tied in bundles. When we read in Galen, 14, 64, that whole cinnamon trees were transported in a glwttok- wmíon, four and a half cubits long, this may have been a special method applied to materia medica when it was uncertain what part of the plant was required, or when more than one part was to be used. For small quantities of spices, aromata and cosmetics for individual use we have examples of the wooden containers, as found in the merchant ship recently excavated at Ma’agan Micha’el, which is dated to 400 BC.22 There is a four-inch heart-shaped box, made of olive wood, with three spaces for either cosmetics or jewellery; and two violin-shaped wooden containers for similar items. A secondary cargo found in the wreck of a Roman ship off the coast of Tuscany is described by A. J. Parker.23 This find consists of 136 small cylin- ders with lids, fitted into larger metal or wooden containers in groups of three. They may have been a set of trade samples belonging to a mercator or a nego- tiator. Recently much has been made of the effect on Rome’s “balance of pay- ments” of the amount of luxury goods imported from the East. The use of the term “balance of payments” in relation to Roman trade probably reflects mod- ern problems rather more than the situation in the ancient world. The arrange- ments for most of the journeys we have been considering here must have been local and financed by individuals rather than the state. When and where the payments were made, and whether transactions involved currency or barter is

20 IJNA, 1992, 21, 2, 94 21 Tax Law of Palmyra, 1b, 23 and 29. 22 E. Linder, Biblical Archaeology Review, (1992), 18, 6, 24-35. 23 Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces, (Oxford, 1992) 340. 108 ASPECTS OF TRADE ON THE JUDAEAN COAST in many cases uncertain. It may be that we should not expect to find the finan- cial details of long-distance trade in Roman literature, for the tradition of the Roman aristocracy had been to avoid involvement in commercial activities. Cicero24 strongly criticizes the seaport towns: “Est autem maritimis urbibus etiam quaedam corruptela ac mutatio morum; admiscentur enim novis sermonibus ac disciplinis, et inportantur non merces solum adventiciae sed etiam mores, ut nihil possit in patriis institutis manere inte- grum. iam qui incolunt eas urbes, non haerent in suis sedibus, sed volucri semper spe et cogitatione rapiuntur a domo longius, atque etiam cum manent corpore, animo tamen exulant et vagantur…..”25 “There is however also in coastal cities a certain debasement of moral stan- dards. For the inhabitants are exposed to new forms of speech and culture, and not only foreign merchandise is brought in, but also alien behaviour, so that nothing in their ancestral traditions remains unassailed. Now those who inhabit such cities do not stay in their places of abode, but are always being carried away far from home by fleeting hopes and ideas. Even when they remain there physically, they are exiles and wanderers at heart.”

Here Cicero appears to be condemning not just luxuria in choice of foodstuffs and apparel, but sea-going trade of all kinds. Whether this debasement of moral standards which he deplores would arise from the traffic of the small harbours in Judaea, or only in the great coastal cities of the Empire, such as Puteoli and Alexandria, we do not know. Those who wrote in these terms in the late Repub- lic and early Empire were conscious of the dawning of a new era of world trade, involving a wider exchange of ideas as well as commodities. The contrast between the life and thought of the small towns and villages in the hinterland and those on the coast may have been more striking in Italy at the time of Cicero than it would have been in the Near East. In and beyond the countries of the eastern Mediterranean overland commerce, as well as trading by sea, had been well established on imperial road-systems for centuries. The cities on the cara- van routes offered as much opportunity for cultural and commercial exchange as the seaports did elsewhere. We must therefore be cautious in accepting contem- porary accounts of the “deterioration in morals caused by ancient trade”, and see these comments within the whole context to which they belong. We have only been concerned here with the trade that reached the Judaean coast, and mainly with the transport and sale of local produce, and the trade with Egypt. Conclu- sions arising from this would not necessarily be valid in relation to other forms of commerce, such as that in gems and precious metals, though again the state- ments of ancient writers and any figures quoted would have to be studied in par- ticular environments and with regional differences in mind.

24 De Re Publica, 2, 4. 25 Teubner 1969, K. Ziegler. J.M. FRAYN 109

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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