The Money Thus Collected Was Given To The Captains Of The Galleys, To Be Expended In The Maintenance Of The Crew.

The republic furnished the rigging and sailors:

Two captains were appointed to each galley, who served six months each.

Although the vessels employed by the Athenians both for war and commerce were small compared with those of modern days, and their merchant ships even much smaller than those of the Phoenicians, if we may judge by the description given by Xenophon of a Phoenician merchant vessel in the Piraeus, yet the expence attending their equipment was very great. We learn from Demosthenes, that the light vessels could not be kept in commission, even if the utmost attention was paid to economy, and no extraordinary damage befel them, for a smaller sum than about 8000_l_. annually; of course, such vessels as from their size, strength, and manning, were capable of standing the brunt of an engagement, must have cost more than double that sum.

In the time of Demosthenes, the trade of Athens seems to have been carried on with considerable spirit and activity; the greater part of the money of the Athenians having been employed in it. From one of his orations we learn, that in the contract executed when money was lent for this purpose, the period when the vessel was to sail, the nature and value of the goods with which she was loaded, the port to which she was to carry them, the manner in which they were to be sold there, and the goods with which she was to return to Athens, were all specifically and formally noticed. In other particulars the contracts varied: the money, lent was either not to be repaid till the return of the vessel, or it was to be repaid as soon as the outward goods were sold at the place to which she was bound, either to the agent of the lender, or to himself, he going there for that express purpose. The interest of money so lent varied: sometimes it rose as high as 30 per cent: it seems to have depended principally on the risks of the voyage.

In another oration of Demosthenes we discover glimpses of what by many has been deemed maritime insurance, or rather of the fraud at present called barratry, which is practised to defraud the insurer: but, as Park in his learned Treatise on Marine Insurance has satisfactorily proved, the ancients were certainly ignorant of maritime insurance; though there can be no doubt frauds similar to those practised at present were practised. According to Demosthenes, masters of vessels were in the habit of borrowing considerable sums, which they professed to invest in a cargo of value, but instead of such a cargo, they took on board sand and stones, and when out at sea, sunk the vessel. As the money was lent on the security either of the cargo or ship, or both, of course the creditors were defrauded: but it does not appear how they could, without detection, substitute sand or stones for the cargo.

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