The Historians' History of the World 03

A wider compass of geographical knowledge, and more enlarged views of nature, would scarcely have been consistent with the state of navigation and commerce which the Homeric poems represent. The poet expresses the common feelings of an age when the voyages of the Greeks were mostly confined to the Ægean. The vessels of the heroes, and probably of the poet’s contemporaries, were slender half-decked boats: according to the calculation of Thucydides, who seems to suspect exaggeration, the largest contained one hundred and twenty men, the greatest number of rowers mentioned in the catalogue: but we find twenty rowers spoken of as a usual complement of a good ship. The mast was movable, and was only hoisted to take advantage of a fair wind, and at the end of a day’s voyage was again deposited in its appropriate receptacle. In the day-time, the Greek mariner commonly followed the windings of the coasts, or shot across from headland to headland, or from isle to isle: at night his vessel was usually put into port, or hauled up on the beach; for though on clear nights he might prosecute his voyage as well as by day, yet should the sky be overcast his course was inevitably lost. Engagements at sea are never mentioned by Homer, though he so frequently alludes to piratical excursions. They were probably of rare occurrence: but as they must sometimes have been inevitable, the galleys were provided with long poles for such occasions. The approach of winter put a stop to all ordinary navigation. Hesiod fixes the time for laying up the merchant ship, covering it with stones, taking out the rigging, and hanging the rudder up by the fire. According to him, the fair season lasts only fifty days: some indeed venture earlier to sea, but a prudent man will not then trust his substance to the waves.

The practical astronomy of the early Greeks consisted of a few observations on the heavenly bodies, the appearances of which were most conspicuously connected with the common occupations of life. The succession of light and darkness, the recurring phases of the moon, and the vicissitude of the seasons, presented three regular periods of time, which, though all equally forced on the attention, were not all marked with equal distinctness by sensible limits. From the first, and down to the age of Solon, the Greeks seem to have measured their months in the natural way, by the interval between one appearance of the new moon and the next. Hence, their months were of unequal duration; yet they might be described in round numbers as consisting of thirty days. It was soon observed that the revolutions of the moon were far from affording an exact measure of the apparent annual revolution of the sun, and that if this were taken to be equal to twelve of the former, the seasons would pass in succession through all the months of the year. This in itself would have been no evil, and would have occasioned no disturbance in the business of life. Seen under the Greek sky, the stars were scarcely less conspicuous objects than the moon itself: some of the most striking groups were early observed and named, and served, by their risings and settings, to regulate the labours of the husbandman and the adventures of the seaman.

COMMERCE AND THE ARTS

Commerce appears in Homer’s descriptions to be familiar enough to the Greeks of the heroic age, but not to be held in great esteem. Yet in the Odyssey we find the goddess, who assumes the person of a Taphian chief, professing that she is on her way to Temesa with a cargo of iron to be exchanged for copper: and in the Iliad, Jason’s son, the prince of Lemnos, appears to carry on an active traffic with the Greeks before Troy. He sends a number of ships freighted with wine, for which the purchasers pay, some in copper, some in iron, some in hides, some in cattle, some in slaves. Of the use of money the poet gives no hint, either in this description or elsewhere. He speaks of the precious metals only as commodities, the value of which was in all cases determined by weight. The Odyssey represents Phœnician traders as regularly frequenting the Greek ports; but as Phœnician slaves are sometimes brought to Greece, so the Phœnicians do not scruple, even where they are received as friendly merchants, to carry away Greek children into slavery.