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lic arbiters were in a similar situation; but, like them, they might be found guilty of having failed in the discharge of their duties. The day fixed for the decision having arrived, and the preliminary formalities having been gone through, if one of the parties did not appear, and if the other declined a remit, the arbiters, after having waited till the close of the day, gave a decision by default against the party not appearing, which, however, might be afterwards opened up.

Such seems to be the substance of what we know of the commercial and maritime usages and regulations of the Athenians. And we have detailed them at such length, as recently elucidated by M. Pardessus, because the collection thus exhibited, although it cannot be viewed as a bequest to posterity of a systematic code of maritime laws, constitutes the earliest monument of maritime jurisprudence which the ancients have transmitted to us, and the only ancient monument of the kind which has reached us, except those parts of the maritime laws of the Rhodians which the Romans adopted and have preserved, as incorporated in the writings of their classical lawyers, and in the Digest of Justinian.

For, upon inquiry, we shall find reason to believe that the maritime laws of the Rhodians, so celebrated in antiquity, were not collected, compiled, or enacted by that people till after the Republic of Greece had yielded to the arms of Philip and Alexander; and that the Greek work published in modern times, under the title of "Jus Navale Rhodiorum," is not a true record of the maritime laws of the ancient Rhodians, but a crude compilation made during the less enlightened ages of the decline of the Roman Empire in the East.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE MARITIME AND COMMERCIAL LAW OF THE

RHODIANS.

No writer of antiquity treats expressly of the Rhodians. What we know of them must be collected in fragments, or detached articles, from various different sources. But, owing to their extensive connections, and the active part which, for so long a period, they took in the affairs of the Greeks and Romans, our information respecting them is by no means so scanty as might otherwise have been expected. Some authors, such as Selden,* Fournier,† and even M. de Pastoret,‡ apparently influenced by the desire of shewing the high antiquity of the object of their admiration, rather than guided by historical evidence, place the existence of the maritime laws of the Rhodians so far back as about 900 years before the Christian era, and thus make them contemporary with Homer, and scarcely 150 years posterior to the Trojan war. But these writers do not adduce any proof of this, or any presumption deduced from the testimony of ancient authors. On the contrary, there are opposed to their opinions the testimonies of the historians Diodorus Siculus§ and Strabo,|| who fix the foundation of the city of Rhodes in the year 408 before the Christian era.

* Mare Clausum, lib. i., cap. v., § 5.

+ Hydrographie, lib. v., chap. iv.

Des Lois Maritimes des Rhodiens, p. 59.

§ Lib. xiii., § 75.

|| Lib. xiv., cap. ii., § 4.

The island bearing this name, indeed, was known. much more anciently. Homer and Pindar speak of it as a flourishing community; and Strabo informs us that, before the institution of the Olympic games, the Rhodians had undertaken long voyages, and founded colonies on the distant coasts of the Mediterranean, even at the foot of the Pyrenees. It is, therefore, not improbable that, in such a position, experience, the frequent recurrence of similar cases, the necessity of determining disputes, resolving difficulties, and of repressing hurtful practices, might have taught the Rhodians the expediency of having fixed laws. But, on the other hand, it is still more probable that the building of the city of Rhodes by the inhabitants of the ancient towns or villages, who abandoned their former homes to unite themselves in one great metropolis, was the principal cause of the Rhodians acquiring that high degree of commercial power which placed them among the rulers of the sea; and that it was about or after this period, also, they compiled or digested their maritime laws. And this probability is greatly increased by the fact that the historical testimonies relative to their laws, namely, the writings of Livy, Cicero, Strabo, Aulus Gellius, are all posterior to that epoch; while the authors who have mentioned the Rhodians before the foundation of the city of Rhodes, have said nothing of their maritime legislation.

The Rhodians appear to have enjoyed from nature a fertile territory, combined with the maritime and commercial advantages of insular situation and safe harbours. And, at a very early period, they seem to have applied themselves to navigation and merchandise, and to have been an industrious and enterprising people. But the period of their greatest maritime and mercantile power and prosperity appears to have been the fourth and third centuries before the Christian era, after they had built their metropolitan city, after continental

Greece, fallen from its ancient greatness, had sunk under the dominion of the successors of Alexander. Indeed, the great maritime power of the Rhodians appears to have succeeded that of the Athenians; and the decline of the latter may be dated from the time of their disputes with Philip of Macedon.

During these ages, the magnificence of their chief city, its harbours, its arsenals, its massy walls, and towers, its store-houses, its temples, its theatres; and their colossus-one of the wonders of the world;-all announce them a people who had a taste for the arts, and opulence adequate to the execution of great designs. Their island was a kind of road-stead and place of anchorage, and an intermediate port for the vessels trading between Egypt and continental Greece. The celerity of their vessels, their naval discipline, and the skill of their commanders and pilots, were unrivalled. They navigated, without fear, to all the coasts of the Mediterranean; and they established colonies in many of the countries to which commerce attracted them. In the midst of their national opulence, however, they retained the simple manners of their forefathers. Their general deportment was grave; and they were extremely observant of external order and decorum. Their sailors were distinguished for courage and intrepidity, and their government for its consummate prudence. Their alliance was courted by other states; but, as long as they could, they maintained an armed neutrality. And their greatest national objects are stated to have been, to have fleets always prepared for the protection of their commerce; to have commerce sufficiently extensive for amassing wealth; and to have wealth sufficient to enable them to maintain their fleets.

By pursuing this prudent line of policy, the Rhodians arrived at such a degree of wealth and naval power, as to have had great influence, for a long period,

among the different states of antiquity. Their alliance was held in high estimation by the Athenians; and they afforded assistance, in time of need, to Greece itself. They were able successfully to resist the different attacks of the powerful and ambitious princes of the continents of Asia and Europe. They materially aided the Romans, by harassing and checking the naval armaments of the Carthaginians; and, by their prudence, and the essential services they rendered, they succeeded in maintaining a long friendly alliance and intercourse with that all-conquering people; which lasted, with little interruption, until their island, along with the different countries bordering on the Mediterranean, became a part of the Roman Empire.

The conclusion to which we are thus historically led is, that the Rhodian laws were not compiled and digested till a period after Athens had enjoyed its greatest prosperity, and after the very extent and the wants and necessities of her commerce had required and given birth to the laws, of which a pretty detailed account has been given. And the great similarity to the latter of those parts of the Rhodian laws which have been preserved to us by the Romans, affords reason to believe that the Rhodians were indebted for part, at least, of the excellence of their system to the Greeks of the continent. But, from whatever sources derived, there seems to be sufficient reason for holding that the maritime laws of the Rhodians were not mere vague, indefinite, variable, unwritten, and unauthoritative customs and usages, as appears to have been the opinion not only of M. Boucher, the editor of the Consulat de la Mer, but also of those able jurists, Dr Gildemeister (1803) and Dr Meyer, (1824,) both of Bremen, but were compiled, digested, recorded in writing, and enacted by the supreme power of the state, so as to form a body of positive and authoritative law, so far as regarded the citizens or subjects of that state and its colonies.

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