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Products traded, slaves
In Byzantium
The transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium and the foundation of Constantinople had a tremendous impact on the establishment of trade networks in the eastern Mediterranean. The new capital had an increased need for foodstuffs. There is evidence—on a regional and interregional level—of trade between the cities and the rural areas and the various geographical areas of the Empire. An inscription uncovered in Anazarbus in Cilicia, dating from the fifth to sixth centuries, provides some particularly interesting clues about the trade that may have existed in an eastern Mediterranean city during Late Antiquity. It mentions a series of goods imported to Anazarbus and the customs duty collected for the importation. The goods included foodstuffs, such as wine, spices, condiments (garum, saffron, and garlic), and raw materials, such as silk, tin, and lead.
Archaeology provides us with information about the trade networks, as the ceramics have remained relatively well preserved compared to products from other industries (textiles etc.). Ceramic excavations attest to a trade in luxury ceramics between North Africa and the eastern part of the Empire, and particularly the south-western part of the Aegean basin (e.g. Argos). Importations of these ceramics reached their height in the fourth century, dropped in the fifth century—a similar type of ceramics, produced in the vicinity of Phocaea (on the west coast of Asia Minor), appeared during this period—and resumed in the sixth century. This is a typical example of the way in which trade networks were established. Conversely, Constantinople exported construction materials, such as Proconnesian marble, to North Africa.
A trade in foodstuffs developed in Byzantium in the fifth century. This was largely due to the rapid expansion of Constantinople. The large number of amphorae attributed to workshops in Asia Minor, Cilicia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt attest to this trade. It is significant that the same types of amphorae were discovered in the eastern and western parts of the Empire. The annona grain constituted a considerable portion of the importation of foodstuffs to Constantinople, as suggests the famous decree of Abydos (c.492). Recent research has shown, however, that the trade was largely conducted by private individuals.
Luxury products from the East (silks, spices, and a series of perfumes) arrived in Byzantium by land—frontier cities, such as Nisibis, Callinicum, and Artaxata served as customs posts and trade centres—and by sea. Ships from the Indian Ocean transported goods to the ports in the Red Sea. Byzantine merchants travelled as far as the south of India and Ceylon. This trade, which was controlled by the Sassanids of Persia—the principle rivals of the Byzantine Empire during this period—was subjected to all the ups and downs of the relations between these two states.
The demographic crisis that hit Byzantium in the second part of the sixth century, and particularly in the seventh century, led to reduced production and a decline in transactions. However, in the middle of the seventh century, Byzantine merchants continued to travel to the north-western Mediterranean coasts. During this period, the loss of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt deprived Byzantium of some of its richest provinces. The large urban centres of Late Antiquity underwent a period of major change. The dramatic drop in monetary circulation is interpreted as a sign of a decline in monetary transactions, particularly in rural areas. Nevertheless, a degree of trade probably remained and trade was conducted in temporary markets (fairs), possibly in the form of barter transactions. It is possible, however, that the perception of Byzantine trade during the Dark Ages will change as new archaeological evidence emerges.
In terms of international trade, there is substantial evidence that Byzantium conducted regular trade with the Muslims, which is curious given the general perception of the Byzantine economy during this period. The first signs of a revival appeared in the ninth century and were accompanied by a substantial increase in monetary circulation, in the South Balkans and then in Asia Minor. From the ninth to the twelfth century, Byzantium underwent a period of demographic growth, which obviously had a favourable impact on trade. A series of frontier markets in Asia Minor (Trebizond and Antalyia) and in the Balkans (Debeltus and Thessalonica) encouraged trade with Islamic territories and Bulgaria.
Constantinople became an attractive trading centre for foreign merchants (Muslims, Bulgarians, the Rus, Westerners, and Turks) who travelled to the city regularly to acquire the goods they required, particularly the famous silks. Muslims imported perfumes, spices, and silks, the Bulgarians imported raw materials, such as linen, and the Rus furs, animal skins, wax, honey, and slaves. Trade also picked up again in areas of the Empire where important markets emerged, such as Corinth, Thebes, and Halmyros. This period of development reached its zenith in the twelfth century. Western accounts full of admiration described the wealth of goods in Constantinople and the large number of foreigners who flocked to the city. This period was marked by the rising influence of Italian merchants in Byzantine trade; they were granted a number of privileges, including the reduction—and in the case of the Venetians the abolition—of the 10% tax levied on the importation and sale of goods.
The fall of Constantinople and disintegration of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade (1204) ended this period of prosperity. Latin Constantinople was no longer the big trading centre it had been in the preceding centuries. After the reconquest of the city in 1261, the emperor was obliged to grant privileges to the Genoese and Venetians, who established colonies with their own administration in Constantinople and Galata/Pera, and in several provincial areas to exploit primary products that were particularly sought after in the East and West. The Genoese thus monopolized the trade in mastic in Chios and alum from Phocaea, and the Venetians exploited the rich natural resources on the island of Crete. The period coincided with the development of the economy in Western Europe, which led to an increase in demand and the need to open new markets for products from the West. The Italians dominated international Byzantine trade and domestic trade. Although they were enterprising, Byzantine merchants couldn’t compete with the Venetians and Genoese who benefited from an exemption from any commercial taxes. Ragusans, Provençals, Florentines, and Anconitans also enjoyed various reductions that enabled them to conduct a profitable trade. Byzantium came to depend on the West for manufactured products, particularly textiles, and foodstuffs (cereals and wine). The foundations for Western control in the eastern Mediterranean had been laid.
M. G.
In Islam
There were two legitimate sources for slaves in the Muslim world: those born in servitude and those captured in the spoils of war. To supplement demand, however, slaves were brought in from neighbouring or distant countries, from Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, following diverse routes to their destination, sometimes from the Muslim East via central Asia, Persia and Mesopotamia and sometimes from the Christian West, shipped from Narbonne or Venice to Egypt and Syria, others exported to al-Andalus and the Maghreb. Along the way, prisoners of war passed through castration centres, the most famous being that of Verdun where Jewish merchants would transform them into eunuchs to sell them in the kingdom of Córdoba. These slaves were sometimes sold again, over seas in different Islamic countries. From Eastern Europe, as from the steppes of central Asia, reaching all the way to China, the Turks mostly took the routes passing through Persia and Mesopotamia to attain Syria and Egypt where they founded the Mamluk dynasty that reigned from 1250 to 1517. The black slaves from Africa were taken in caravans towards the Maghreb and Egypt or in ships to Asia via the Red Sea and the Persian golf. Some of them would be led to the Coptic monasteries in the Assouan region where they were brutally castrated. In addition to these often massive importations, the Muslim world was supplied with slaves from among prisoners in the spoils of war or with travellers captured at sea by pirates, who put them on the slave markets. The men were chained, their hands clasped behind their backs to stop them from escaping, and some had their hair removed, leaving one lock that hung over their cheek.
Treated as pure merchandise on par with animals, slaves were ordered by species. Their origin not only determined how much they were worth but also which type of employment they would be assigned to. Among the women, Berbers were reserved for procuring pleasure, Persians for childbirth, Byzantines for guarding private possessions and Zanjs from the east coast of Africa for breastfeeding, just as women from Mecca and Medina were selected for singing. For their part, Nubian and Indian men were taken as bodyguards or guardians of possessions, Turks and Slavs as soldiers. Some species were looked down upon with disdain, if not disgust, and relegated to abominable labours—the Armenians in particular who were considered the worst whites; even their wives were deemed unworthy of serving for pleasure.
The clients generally came to look at and feel the human merchandise directly. Raising the upper lip, they would stick their fingers in the slave’s mouth to make sure the teeth were real and not rotten or loose and to count any missing teeth. They would brutally spit on the women’s faces and then rub the skin to make sure no thick coat of make-up had been applied to hide imperfections.
Despite the judges’ moral codes that limited the clients’ view of the slave to their face and hands, the clients would slip their hands under their clothes and grope around, fondling their private parts. The most audacious would simply remove the slave’s wrap that they sometimes wore to hide their genitals or demand the slave undress. This display of flesh offered up to the view and the occasion for fondling the merchandise at will attracted voyeurs and groping hands to satisfy their desire free of cost.
But sight alone was far from satisfactory in judging the venal value of the merchandise. Not to fall victim to potential fraud, the experienced client would opt for a more in-depth examination, far from the market crowd and take the slave to a room or a neighbour’s house, if not to their own house. For virgins, they checked for the presence of the hymen with their fingers or by entrusting the examination to a trusted woman who would carry it out in private, either on site or under a sheet, or a calm place. The most suspecting clients would go as far as to squeeze the girl’s vulva to make sure there was no cover up in the form of pomegranate pulp and gall nuts macerated in bovine gall—a poultice that gave the deflowered girl the semblance of an ephemeral virginity. Lastly, expensive slaves were brought to a house or a bedroom in the neighbourhood, or sometimes to the client’s house who then undressed them, but in the presence of a woman as this was obligatory, a woman who was neither the client’s wife nor the wife of the trader or the matron who worked with him. Otherwise prudence was likely to turn into imprudence. The girl had to succumb to giving pleasure, sometimes with the complicity of the merchant but unbeknownst to the trader and thus his goods ran the risk of losing their value with a future pregnancy or simply of not finding a buyer at all.
Clients had to learn to mistrust the often deceiving signs of a slave’s purported trade, such as soiled clothes and blackened nails of a would-be blacksmith or scribe; a slave had to be tested out before being bought. Numerous and varied trials awaited them: tailors had to sew, bakers bake, musicians play melodies on their instrument, dancers dazzle in choreographed, light steps and the cooks turn out an array of dishes. Men had to demonstrate their strength by lifting heavy burdens or by wrestling and future soldiers had to show their bravery when up against danger and, hence, snakes were thrown at them or their bodies stunned.
Frauds were so common in the market that the term “trader” for designating the slave merchants eventually became an insult and term for liars, so often did traders attribute a fake origin to the merchandise to fatten the price. In Egypt they would slip locals into the slave troops that came in from in Asia via Tripoli; in al-Andalus, they produced beautiful local girls and passed them off for foreigners who spoke a foreign tongue. And thus many naïve slave owners were cheated on their merchandise, a famous case being that of an inhabitant of Elvira who had been promised a slave in Córdoba for his bed who could only be understood with the aid of an interpreter. But as soon as they entered the town, the beautiful new acquisition betrayed herself when, recognising an old libertine, she threw out an insult in the local tongue: she was nothing but a local girl!
Clients were often sorely swindled. They might discover that their newly acquired boy was in fact a girl and vice versa. And yet employment was distinctly divided between the sexes: women would do domestic chores (housecleaning, cooking and sometimes provide pleasure) and men would work outside. Sometimes a client would discover that a slave was too free or was afflicted with an unacceptable vice. In such cases, the client would return the slave or demand that the price be lowered. If an arrangement could not be found, the case would go to court. But the cadi could, for any number of reasons, dismiss the plaintiff, which brings us to the famous case of the Malikite Sahnûn who refused to annul the sale of a blind person to an unsuspecting Bedouin who discovered his slave was blind after the sale. The trader had described the slave as having “immobilised eyes”. Still unwilling to go back on his judgement, he argued that the Arab nomad of the desert should have asked the merchant to clarify his obscure description and that he should have examined the slave beforehand, such an impediment being hard to hide. After all, only a blind man could acquire a blind slave without noticing he was blind.
Y. R.
In Byzantium
‘Céramique et commerce dans le bassin égéen du IVe au VIIe siècle’, C. Abadie-Reynal, in: Hommes et richesses, vol. 2, Paris 1989, pp.143–159
La Romanie génoise (XIIe-début du XVe siècle), M. Balard, vols. 1–2, Rome-Gênes, 1978
Inscriptions de Cilicie, G. Dagron, D. Feissel, Paris 1987
Markets, Merchants and Trade in Byzantium (9th–12th c.), M. Gerolymatou, (Institute for Byzantine Research. Monographies 9), Athens 2008 (in Greek)
‘Trade during the Dark Ages’, M. Gerolymatou, in: The Dark Centuries of Byzantium (7th–9th c.), Athens 2001, pp. 347–364 (in Greek)
‘Economic and Noneconomic Exchange, Seventh–Twelfth Centuries’, A. Laiou, in: The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. A. Laiou, vol. 2, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 2002, pp. 681–770
‘Commerce, Trade, Markets and Money, Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries’, K.-P. Matschke, in: The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. A. Laiou, vol. 2, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 2002, pp. 771–806
‘The Sixth-Century Economy’, C. Morrisson, J.-P. Sodini, in: The Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. A. Laiou, vol. 1, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 2002, pp. 171–220
Hommes d'affaires grecs et latins à Constantinople (XIIIe-XVe siècle), N. Oikonomidès, Montreal - Paris 1979
‘Ceramic Production and Trade in the proto-Byzantine World (4th–7th c.)’, J.-P. Sodini, in: Byzanz als Raum. Zu Methoden und Inhalten der historischen Geographie des ostlichen Mittelmeerraumes, ed. K. Belke – F. Hild – J. Koder – P. Soustal, Vienna 2000, pp. 181–208
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