200 Bc - Ad 400)

ARAM, 13-14 (2001-2002), 171-191 P. ARNAUD 171 BEIRUT: COMMERCE AND TRADE (200 BC - AD 400) PASCAL ARNAUD We know little of Beirut's commerce and trade, and shall probably continue to know little about this matter, despite a lecture given by Mrs Nada Kellas in 19961. In fact, the history of Commerce and Trade relies mainly on both archaeological and epigraphical evidence. As far as archaeological evidence is concerned, one must remember that only artefacts strongly linked with ceramics, i.e. vases themselves and any items, carried in amphoras, (predominantly, but not solely, liquids, can give information about the geographical origin, date and nature of such products. The huge quantities of materials brought to the light by recent excavations in Beirut should, one day, provide us with new evidence about importations of such products in Beirut, but we will await the complete study of this material, which, until today by no means provided glo- bal statistics valid at the whole town scale. The evidence already published still allows nothing more than mere subjective impressions about the origins of the material. I shall try nevertheless to rely on such impressions about that material, given that we lack statistics, and that it is impossible to infer from any isolated sherd the existence of permanent trade-routes and commercial flows. The results of such an inquiry would be, at present, worth little if not con- fronted with other evidence. On the other hand, it should be of great interest to identify specific Berytan productions among the finds from other sites in order to map the diffusion area of items produced in Beirut and the surrounding territory. Of course, only items definitely produced in this area could be considered. But few of these items can be surely identified as such productions, except “carrot-like” amphoras, which are likely to have contained wine, and have been seldom de- scribed, and probably, much earlier, some stamped amphoras naming some Abdes.2 Furthermore even when the origin of ceramics is clearly identified, it does not necessarily allow any reconstruction of trade-patterns, as they by no means provide information about the identity and origin of the merchants. 1 We would like to refer to this lecture Mrs Nada Kallas who collected part of the evidence hereafter mentioned, in the Masters Study she wrote under our direction: Berytus dans la méditerranée occidentale aux époques hellénistique et romaine (Nice,1996). 2 A sample found in our excavation BEY-027, unfortunately out of context, should be read as follows: “In the year 124 / In the month of Gorpiaïos. / Of Abdès”. If related to the Seleucid era, it should date from 198 BC. Relating to the Beirut era, which starts in the year 81/80 BC (H. Seyrig, “Sur les ères de quelques villes de Syrie”, Syria, 37 (1950), pp. 5-50, esp. p. 38), the dating should be summer AD 43. 172 BEIRUT: COMMERCE AND TRADE (200 BC - AD 400) Large merchant vessels could go directly from one point to another, but small coasters, much adapted to actual conditions of sailing in the Aegean Sea, where islands and rocks are numerous and make night-sailing dangerous, used to exchange parts of the cargo and load new items, in several places. The wreck usually called “Kyrenia II” provides interesting information about such a practice,3 because it was typically the kind of vessel which could have reached Berytus from the Aegean and Cyprus, even after the Hellenistic period. This small merchant-ship, shorter than 14 m in length, was crewed by no more than four persons. It sank in the surroundings of Larnaka, at Kyrenia, by the end of the fourth century BC, probably after some act of piracy (eight swords were found under the hull). The cargo was composed of: – 404 amphoras. Among these, 343 were Rhodian wine-amphoras, loaded in Rhodes which appears to be the last step of the ship. The rest of amphoras came from Samos or were of undetermined origin. – 29 basalt grain-millstones – 10,000 almonds It has been stated that the ship started its last trip from Athens, ran through the Cyclades, where it probably put in at several places. The last step was Rhodes. The cargo was therefore made of items from several origins loaded in several harbours when part of the cargo was sold. The same items can reach the same harbour in the same quantities either directly from another harbour or through several middlemen and trade-places. As commerce is concerned, it can make little difference, for the one who sells part of the cargo must also buy some goods to complete it, but it is obvious that the trade-patterns involved are entirely different. Unless a large sequence of wrecks has been excavated along a certain portion of coastline, it is very hard to have any idea of the reality of trade and commerce. Even then, we should still lack evidence from ships sunk in deep waters and high sea, which, until today, remain, for technical reasons, largely unexplored. Now, we know almost nothing of ancient wrecks in the surroundings of Beirut, and still lack even the harbour's dumps, which should provide much statistical evidence related specifically to Beirut's commerce and trade activities. Little reliable information is therefore to be expected from archaeological evidence, at least at the present time. Epigraphical and literary evidence gives us a firmer ground, especially as far as trade, more than commerce itself, is concerned. But it remains very frag- mentary. We can examine the Beritan Diaspora and consider that, unless any explicit reason is mentioned for the presence of such people abroad, commerce or trade can provide acceptable explanation for such a presence. This topic has 3 M. L. Katzew & S. W. Katzel, “Last harbour for the oldest ship”, National Geographic, 146 (1974), p. 622. P. ARNAUD 173 already been examined in the past but new evidence can be gathered and gives way to some confrontation with places such as Tyre, Arados or Sidon, in order not to consider Berytus as a whole. Within these limits, we can consider evidence for each of the three main periods hereafter considered, I mean, Hellenistic and Roman-Republican, Ro- man-Imperial, and Late Roman – Early Byzantine, and try to answer two ques- tions: – Whith which countries was Berytus, directly or undirectly, connected? – Is Berytus original or prominent in trade and commerce activities, as com- pared with other harbours from the Phoenician coast? 1. WINDS, CURRENTS, SAILING AND TRADE-ROUTES Commerce and trade, in Antiquity, as in more recent periods, are basically linked with sailing. R. Duncan-Jones4 as shown clearly, on the ground of evidence drawn from prices given in Diocletian's Prices Edict (ch. 35), that the cost of goods' transportation was far cheaper than river-transportation, the lat- ter being in turn far cheaper than land-transportation. Recent editions of the Aezani copy, and overall of the Aphrodisias copy of the Edict5 and new evidence about the actual size of the modius kastrensis, the volume unit com- monly used by Edict,6 allow the reconstruction of the following transportation- cost table, given in % of the actual cost of one modius kastrensis of wheat, per 100 Roman miles: land transportation (chariot) 55 land transportation (camel) 43,95 land transportation (donkey) 43,95 riverborne traffic (upstream) 107 lagoon traffic 7,5 riverborne traffic (downstream) 5 seaborne traffic (Alexandria-Rome) 1,3 Seaborne transport therefore appears to be five to ten times cheaper than riverborne traffic and 50 times cheaper than land-transportation. Given that 4 R. Duncan-Jones, The Economic History of the Roman Empire, (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 366- 369, Appendix 17: “Diocletian's price Edict and the cost of Transport”. 5 M.-H. Crawford et J.-M. Reynolds, “The Aezani Copy of the Prices Edict”, ZPE, 34. (1979), pp. 185-189; Ch. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, ( Journal of Roman Studies Monographs, 5, London 1989), pp. 303-311. 6 R. Duncan-Jones, “The size of the modius kastrensis”, ZPE, 21 (1996), pp. 53-62. The modius kastrensis is equal to 1.5 Italic modius. 7 The article adds that feeding the sailors is charged in addition to the cost of transportation itself. It is not clear whether it was also charged in the case of downstream traffic. 174 BEIRUT: COMMERCE AND TRADE (200 BC - AD 400) prices listed in the Edict are somewhat artificial, one must remain very cau- tious when using evidence from the Edict. Nevertheless, taking ratios alone into consideration, the feature suggested seems in itself wholly valid and acceptable. One understands better in such conditions, why seaborne traffic was the ba- sic pattern of Ancient commerce in trade. It is, obviously, closely linked with natural conditions, I mean not only winds and currents, which actually draw the map of possible sea-routes, given that ancient ships are generally supposed by ancient writers to go in the same direction as the wind, but also timber-re- sources necessary for the building of any kind of fleet, either military or commercial. We know that mount Lebanon and Lebanese cedars provided huge quantities of what used to be considered as the best building material for naval archi- tecture. For that reason, the political control of Lebanon was a key to political and economic leadership in the eastern Mediterranean. Who ever seized Leba- non was able to build a military fleet. Part of the Lagids' interest in Lebanon was clearly related to such preoccupations. Ancient writers appear to have considered the sea between Alexandria, Creta, Rhodes and the Phoenician coast as an entity, but divided it in two dis- tinct ensembles: the so-called Egyptian and Pamphylian Seas.8 The former was limited west by the line drawn southwards from eastern Crete, north by the line drawn eastwards from the surroundings of the island of Scarpanto (Karpathos, between Crete and Rhodes) straight to the south coast of Cyprus and Seleucia Pierias, and whence, east by the Phoenician and Palestinian coast, and finally, by Egypt itself.

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