It May Indeed Be Remarked, That The Very Few Good Or Tolerable Princes Who, At This Period, Filled The Government Of Rome, Displayed Their Wisdom As Well As Their Goodness By Encouraging Trade.

Alexander Severus granted peculiar privileges and immunities to foreign merchants who settled in Rome:

He lowered the duties on merchandises; and divided all who followed trade, either on a large or small scale, into different companies, each of which seems to have preserved the liberty of choosing their own governor, and over each of whom persons were appointed, conversant in each particular branch of trade, whose duty it was to settle all disputes that might arise.

Soon after this period the commerce of Rome in one particular direction, and that a most important one, received a severe blow. The Goths, who had emigrated from the north of Germany to the banks of the Euxine, were allured to the "soft and wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which produced all that could attract, and nothing that could resist a barbarian conqueror." It is on the occasion of this enterprise, that we first became acquainted with the maritime usages and practices of the Goths; a branch of whom, under the name of Scandinavians, we shall afterwards find contributed so much to the extension of geography and commerce. In order to transport their armies across the Euxine, they employed "slight flat-bottomed barks, framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and occasionally covered with a shelving roof on the appearance of a tempest." Their first object of importance was the reduction of Pityus, which was provided with a commodious harbour, and was situated at the utmost limits of the Roman provinces. After the reduction of this place, they sailed round the eastern extremity of the Euxine, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, to the important commercial city of Trebizond. This they also reduced; and in it they found an immense booty, with which they filled a great fleet of ships, that were lying in the port at the time of the capture. Their success encouraged and stimulated them to further enterprises against such of the commercial cities or rich coasts of the Roman empire, as lay within their grasp. In their second expedition, having increased their fleet by the capture of a number of fishing vessels, near the mouths of the Borysthenes, the Niester, and the Danube, they plundered the cities of Bithynia. And in a third expedition, in which their force consisted of five hundred sail of ships, each of which might contain from twenty-five to thirty men, they passed the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and ravaged Greece, and threatened Italy itself.

The extent to which some branches of trade were carried by the Romans about this time, may be deduced from what is related of Firmus, whose ruin was occasioned by endeavouring to exchange the security of a prosperous merchant for the imminent dangers of a Roman emperor. The commerce of Firmus seems principally to have been directed to the east; and for carrying on this commerce, he settled himself at Alexandria in Egypt. Boasting that he could maintain an army with the produce of paper and glue, both of which articles he manufactured very extensively, he persuaded the people of Egypt that he was able to deliver them from the Roman yoke, and actually had influence sufficient to prevent the usual supplies of corn from being shipped from Alexandria to Rome. His destruction was the consequence. As an instance of his wealth and luxury, Vopiscus relates that he had squares of glass fixed with bitumen in his house. The Roman commerce suffered considerably during the reign of Dioclesian by the revolt of Britain, under Carausius, who, by his skill and superiority, especially in naval affairs, which enabled him to defeat a powerful Roman fleet fitted out against him, obtained and secured his independence. Carausius was murdered by Alectus: against the latter the emperor Constantine sailed with a powerful fleet, and having effected a landing in Britain, Alectus was defeated and slain. This fleet requires to be particularly noticed from two considerations. In the first place, it sailed with a side wind, and when the weather was rather rough, - circumstances so unusual, if not unprecedented, that they were deemed worthy of an express and peculiar panegyric: and, secondly, this fleet was not equipped and ready for sea till after four years' preparation, whereas, in the first Punic war, "within sixty days after the first stroke of the axe had been given in the forest, a fleet of 160 galleys proudly rode at anchor in the sea."

Soon after this event, we are furnished with materials, from which we may judge of the comparative opulence, commerce, and shipping of the several countries which bordered on the Mediterranean. Constantine and Licinius were contending for the Roman empire; and as the contest mainly depended on superiority at sea, each exerted himself to the utmost to fit out a formidable and numerous fleet. Licinius was emperor of the east: his fleet consisted of 380 gallies, of three ranks of oars; eighty were furnished by Egypt, eighty by Phoenicia, sixty by Ionia and Doria, thirty by Cyprus, twenty by Caria, thirty by Bithynia, and fifty by Africa. At this period there seems to have been no vessels larger than triremes. The naval preparations of Constantine were in every respect inferior to those of his rival: he seems to have got no ships from Italy: indeed, the fleets which Augustus had ordered to be permanently kept up at Misenum and Ravenna, were no longer in existence. Greece supplied the most if not all Constantine's vessels: the maritime cities of this country sent their respective quotas to the Piraeus; and their united forces only amounted to 200 small vessels. This was a feeble armament compared with the numerous and powerful fleets that Athens equipped and maintained during the Peloponnesian war. While this republic was mistress of the sea, her fleet consisted of 300, and afterwards of 400 gallies, of three ranks of oars, all ready, in every respect, for immediate service.

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