The Only Other Routes By Land, By Which Silk Was Brought From China Into
Europe, Seem To Have Corresponded, In The Latter Part Of Their Direction,
With The Land Routes From India, Already Described.
Indeed, it may
naturally be supposed, that the Indian merchants, as soon as they learned
the high prices of silk at Rome, would purchase it, and send it along with
the produce and manufactures of their own country, by the caravans to
Palmyra, and by river navigation to the Euxine:
And we have seen, that on
the capture of Palmyra, by Aurelian, silk was one of the articles of
plunder.
We are now to take notice of the laws which were passed by the Romans for
the improvement of navigation and commerce; and in this part of our subject
we shall follow the same plan and arrangement which we have adopted in
treating of the commerce itself; that is, we shall give a connected view of
these laws, or at least the most important of them, from the period when
the Romans began to interest themselves in commerce, till the decline of
the empire.
These laws may be divided into three heads: first, laws relating to the
protection and privileges allowed to mariners by the Roman emperors;
secondly, laws relating to particular fleets; and lastly, laws relating to
particular branches of trade.
1. The fifth title of the thirteenth book of the Theodosian code of laws
entirely relates to the privileges of mariners. It appears, from this, that
by a law made by the Emperor Constans, and confirmed by Julian, protection
was granted to them from all personal injuries; and it was expressly
ordered, that they should enjoy perfect security, and be defended from all
sort of violence and injustice. The emperor Justinian considered this law
so indispensably necessary to secure the object which it had in view, that
he not only adopted it into his famous code, but decreed that whoever
should seize and apply the ships of mariners, against their wishes, to any
other purpose than that for which they were designed, should be punished
with death. In the same part of his code, he repeats and confirms a law of
the emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, inflicting death on any one
who should insult seafaring men. In another law, adopted into the same code
from the statutes of former emperors, judges and magistrates are forbidden,
on pain of death, to give them any manner of trouble. They were also
exempted from paying tribute, though the same law which exempts them, taxes
merchants. No person who had exercised any mean or dishonourable employment
was allowed to become a mariner; and the emperors Constantine and Julian
raised them to the dignity of knights, and, shortly afterwards, they were
declared capable of being admitted into the senate.
As a counterbalance to those privileges and honours, it appears, that
mariners, at least such of them as might be required for the protection of
the state, were obliged to conform themselves to certain rules and
conditions, otherwise the laws already quoted did not benefit them.
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