COMMERCE. The term C. in its general acceptation means international traffic in goods, or what constitutes the foreign trade of all countries as distinguished from domestic trade. The first foreign merchants of whom we lead, carrying goods and bags of silver from one region to another, were the Arabs, the reputed descendants of Ishmael and Esau. Their trade was by laud. The first maritime carriers of goods were the Phenicians, who dwelt in a narrow strip of land on the e. shore of the Mediterra nean. They founded Tyre and Sidon, of whose opulence there arc abundant proofs both in sacred and profane history. Launching their oared barks on the waves, and steering close along the shore so as to be able to take shelter in the nearest harbor on the approach of a storm, they established an easier and securer passage between Egypt and Syria than had before been known. The corn and wine of the Nile, and the oil, silk, dyes, and spices of western Asia, flowed through their hands. From carriers they became merchants, and to merchandise they added manufactures. In the days of Solo mon their vessels penetrated the Red sea, and brought to that king the wealth of Ophir. They traversed the shores of the Mediterranean, established colonies in the Greek islands, and founded Carthage, one of the most noted commercial cities of the ancient world. The Phenicians flourished greatly until the capture of Tyre by Alexander, 332 B.C. Then the inhabitants who survived a long siege were killed or sold into slavery, and the very name Phenician disappears from history, absorbed, doubtless, in the rising glory of the cities of Greece—Athens, Corinth, Argo, and their colonies; of Carthage, then in full fame; and of Alexandria, the great seaport founded by the conqueror.
While Rome was giving laws and order to the half-civilized tribes of Italy, Carthage, operating on a different base and by other methods, was opening trade with less acces sible parts of Europe. The strength of Rome was in her legions, but that of Carthage in her ships; and her ships could reach realms where legions were powerless. Her mariners had passed the mysterious strait into the Atlantic and established the port of Cadiz. They founded Carthagena and Barcelona, and had depots and traders on the shores of Gaul. This prosperity of their C. led to wars with martial Rome, and, 146 B.C., the great city of Carthage, more than 20 m. in circumference, and containing a million of inhabitants, was utterly destroyed. In the same year the Romans captured and burnt Corinth, which was then an important commercial city; and 60 years later, Athens met a similar fate. These disasters almost annihilated sea commerce. Land C. also suffered
a disastrous blow soon after the fall of Athens, in the capture by the Romans of the important city of Palmyra, when the walls were razed, the people killed or dispersed, and the famous queen Zenobia taken to Rome a prisoner.
The repeated invasions of Italy by the Goths and Huns gave rise to the founding, for defense and for trade, of the city of Venice, about the middle of the 5th c.; a city that for more than a thousand years stood foremost in the trade of the world. The Vene tians traded with Constantinople, Greece, Syria, Egypt, India, and _Arabia. They became rulers in the Morea, in Candia, and in Cyprus. It was in Venice that the first public bank was organized; that bills of exchange were first negotiated, and funded debt became transferable ; that finance became a science, and book-keeping an art. We cannot trace the steps of C. during the middle ages; nor is it important; in fact, international trade to any considerable extent was unknown. But the 15th c. showed a wonderful expansion of discovery, and consequently of trade. The mariner's compass made distant voyages possible on the open sea. In 1418, the islands were colonized by the Portuguese; in 1431, the Azores were discovered; in 1486, the Guinea coast of Africa was made known; and in 1407, Vasco da Gama passed round the cape of Good Hope to Zanzibar. Before the end of the century, Columbus had thrice crossed the Atlantic, touched at San Salvador, discovered Jamaica, Porto Rico, and the isthmus of Darien, and had seen the waters of the Orinoco in South America. Meanwhile, Cabot, sent out by England, had discovered Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Virginia. Nearly all this daring enterprise had for its prime object the finding of some easy route to the fabulously wealthy cast, to India and China. But a century elapsed before the English fixed their first establishment or factory in India. The discovery of the new World, however, while so diligently searching for a sea route to the old one, was destined to change the course and the nature of trade. The Spaniards overran South and Central America, eager above all things for conquest and for gold; the French opened Canada and the great Mississippi; in 1621, the Dutch were fairly established in what is now the foremost commercial city of the two continents, and second to but one in the world in trade and importance—New York. About the same time the English colonized Virginia and New England.