Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/353

 COMMERCE AND FACTORIES AT NAUKRATIS. 337 mouths of the Nile except the Kanopic. If forced into any of them by stress of weather, he was compelled to make oath that his arrival was a matter of necessity, and to convey his goods round by sea into the Kanopic branch to Naukratis ; and if the weather still forbade such a proceeding, the merchandise was put into barges and conveyed round to Naukratis by the internal ca- nals of the delta. Such a monopoly, which made Naukratis in Egypt, something like Canton in China, or Nangasaki in Japan, no longer subsisted in the time of Herodotus. 1 But the factory of the Ilellenion was in full operation and dignity, and very probably he himself, as a native of one of the contributing cities, Ilalikarnassus, may have profited by its advantages. At what precise time Naukratis first became licensed for Grecian trade, we cannot directly make out ; but there seems reason to believe that it was the port to which the Greek merchants first went, so soon as the gt-neral liberty of trading with the country was con- ceded to them ; and this would put it at least as far back as the foundation of Kyrene, and the voyage of the fortunate Kolrcus, who was on his way with a cargo to Egypt, when the storms overtook him, about 630 B. c., during the reign of Psamnieti- chus. And in the time of the poetess Sappho, and her brother Charaxus, it seems evident that Greeks had been some time es- tablished at Naukratis. 9 But Amasis, though his predecessors 1 Ilerodot. ii, 179. 'Hi; <5e T07ca?.aibv poivj] j/ Nawcportf sfnropiov, nal I'L'/.'/.O ov6ev AlyGirrav. . . .Ovru r5^ NaJMtpartf iTeTifjLrjTO. 2 The beautiful Thracian courtezan, Rhodopis, was purchased by a Samian merchant named Xanthes, and conveyed to Naukratis, in order that he might make money by her (/car' epyaaitjv). The speculation proved a successful one, for Charaxus, brother of Sappho, going to Naukratis with a cargo of wine, became so captivated with Rhodopis, that he purchased her for a very large sum of money, and gave her her freedom. She then carried on her profes- sion at Naukratis on her own account, realized a handsome fortune, the titho nf which she employed in a votive offering at Delphi, and acquired so much renown, that the Egyptian Greeks ascribed to her the building of one of the pyramids, a supposition, on the absurdity of which Herodotus makei proper comments, but which proves the great celebrity of the name of Rho- dopis (Ilerodot. ii, 134). Athcna;us calls her Doriche, and distinguishes her from Rhocldpis (xiii, p. 596, compare Suidas. v, 'Poduiridof uvudqfia). When V'haraxus returned to Mitylene, his sister Sappho composed a song, in which VOL. HI. 15 22oc.