Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/277

 Constantinople in the twelfth century, for the statement that the taxes fell very heavily on the ordinary shopkeepers, and on the merchants of foreign countries who frequented the capital. Nor, indeed, could this have been otherwise, where a system of pomp and luxury was promoted by the imperial rulers, scarcely less than that which had mainly caused the ruin of Rome.

But, besides this, vast sums of money were required to maintain the army and navy, as the command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don) to the Columns of Hercules, was always claimed and often possessed by the successors of Constantine. To secure an adequate fleet, the capital was filled with naval stores and skilled artificers; the native Greeks, from long practice among their own bays and islands, formed excellent sailors; while the trade of Venice and Amalfi also supplied an excellent nursery of seamen for the imperial squadrons.

"Some estimate," remarks Gibbon, "may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors by the curious and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys, and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in the capital, the islands of the Ægean Sea, and the seaports of Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four thousand mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers, seven hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites, whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of Libanus. Their pay, most probably of a month, was computed