Legal power
to put a stop to traffic by which they were greatly injured, as the
inhabitants of Corydale, as well as the inhabitants of every other state,
however small, were sovereigns within their own territory.
In an oration of Isocrates an operation is described which bears some
resemblance to that performed by modern bills of exchange. A stranger who
brought grain to Athens, and who, we may suppose, wished to purchase goods
to a greater amount than the sale of his grain would produce, drew on a
person living in some town on the Euxine, to which the Athenians were in
the habit of trading. The Athenian merchant took this draft; but not till a
banker in Athens had become responsible for its due payment.
The Athenian merchants were obliged, from the nature of trade in those
ancient times, to be constantly travelling from one spot to another; either
to visit celebrated fairs, or places where they hoped to carry on an
advantageous speculation. We shall afterwards notice more particularly the
Macedonian merchant mentioned by Ptolemy the Geographer, who sent his
clerks to the very borders of China; and from other authorities we learn
that the Greek merchants were accurately informed respecting the interior
parts of Germany, and the course of most of the principal rivers in that
country.
