A Historical Summary Of The Ancient Commerce In Precious Stones

(via Roman Book On Precious Stones: 1950) Sydney H Ball writes:

The center of world trade in Pliny’s time, Rome was the emporium to which the products of the whole world flowed. Aelius Aristides, who lived in the 2nd century A.D wrote: ‘The stuffs of Babylonia and the jewels from the barbarous region of interior Asia reach Rome in much larger quantities, and far more easily, than the products of Naxos and Cynthus reach Athens. In fact, whatever commerce can lay hold and ships can carry, whatever agriculture and the mines produce, whatever industry and the arts create, whatever exists in the earth, and whatever grows upon it, all this is gathered together in the market of Rome.’

In ancient times precious stones were a much more important article of commerce than today. In those days the capacity factor per carrier—were it man, ass, camel, or boat—was small and of necessity the commodities carried, particularly between distant points, must needs be of high value, spices, fine fabrics and, to a lesser degree in total volume and value, precious stones. Important international trade in gems was inaugurated by the amber traders of the Baltic Sea at least 9000 years ago, to be followed about 3000 years later by the Babylonian merchants in lapis lazuli and the Egyptian purveyors of turquoise.

War, to the Romans, was a business, often with plunder as a side line. We find Augustus sending a military expedition against the Nabataeans and the Sabaeans, rich Arabian merchants of spices and precious stones, and Caesar, before he invaded Britain, assembling from all parts of Gaul merchants who had traded in Britain and questioning them as to Britain’s natural resources.

The Roman gem lover was not as particular as to the quality of his gem as is his American counterpart of today and many Roman gems are of so poor a quality that we wonder that the lapidary waster his time upon them. Highly evolved commercial facilities and the expansion of gem mining furnish the modern purchaser a perfection in gems never available to the Roman. At that, the color contrast of Roman gems made effective jewelry, even though the quality of many of the gems was mediocre.

Amber, the desire for which in the early days was a great stimulus of international trade, was used by the Aurignacian and later Paleolithic men of northern Europe from between 50000 and 25000 B.C onward: the source, presumably the Baltic coast of the North Sea. Its beauty of color, its transparency and, above all, its electrical properties—black magic to primitive man—made its ownership imperative. Later Baltic amber reached the Mediterranean, following river valleys south to the mouth of the Po or to that of the Rhone or to the Black Sea, following the Vistula and Dneiper to the southeast. About 1200 B.C Phoenician merchants bartered for amber, particularly that arriving at the head of the Adriatic, and distributed it to the earliest of Greek cities and to many other Mediterranean people. The Greek name electrum evidently is of Phoenician origin (elek, resin). Indeed, the Greeks had more amber in the early days than they had until Rome became a great commercial power centuries later. So outstanding was this trade to the head of the Adriatic that Greek legend located the Electrides Insulae (Amber Islands) at the head of the Adriatic. Later, instead of getting amber at the head of the Adriatic, Phoenician ships sailed to Britain, obtaining tin there and perhaps amber of local origin, or amber obtained by the Britons from nearby parts of the mainland. The Phoenicians themselves may even have reached the Baltic amber fields. These same traders also probably obtained a little amber from pits along the Syrian Coast, but their main source of supply was doubtless the Baltic.

About 600 B.C Phocaea founded Massalia (Marseilles) to control the trade in British tin and Baltic amber which came down the Rhone. Eventually Greeks, through this and other Greek colonial cities (including those on the Black Sea), became an important factor in the amber trade. The increased use of amber beads among the Etruscans soon thereafter indicates how large was the trade. About 340 B.C. Phytheas, a Massalian Greek astronomer and explorer, apparently sailed to the Baltic amber region, and he mentions that amber is cast upon the shores of the Isle Abalus by the high spring tides and tells us that the Guttones of East Prussia traded it to the neighboring tribes. Herodotus, a century earlier, although he recognized that amber came ‘from the remotest parts,’ was not willing to admit that it came from the river Eridanus (our Po) in western Europe. Timaeus (about 260 B.C) gave the source as the island Basilia or Raunonia, and not Abalus; Diodorus Siculus merely mentions the first name. Xenophon of Lampsacus calls it Baltia.

The Etruscans and Romans had Baltic amber in the early days of their civilization, and by Pliny’s time it was a common but precious commodity, arriving largely by the land routes. The Germans brought it as far as Pannonia and from there it was transported to the mouth of the Po. Nero even had Julianus Carnunturm, his gladiatorial fight manager, send a knight to Prussia to obtain, by trade,a store of amber. Tacitus gives details as to the trade of his time (born 55 A.D), stating that the Suebi collect it either from shallow parts of the sea or on the seashore, and were inclined to pay no attention to it until ‘our luxury made it esteemed’. Indeed, the barbaric tribe was a bit baffled by the ‘price they receive for it.’ We are ignorant as to whether the Romans of Pliny’s time obtained amber from the Sicilian mines (artifacts of this amber are found in the ruins of the Swiss Lake Dwellers). W. Arnold Buffum knows of no reference to this source prior to 1639 A.D. Buffum, however, believes some of the amber from Italo-Greek and Etruscan tombs is of Sicilian origin. Nor do we know that the Romans were familiar with the mines of Scythia mentioned by Philemon (amber occurs in several places in Russia), the Syrian mines once worked by the Phoenicians, the Italian deposits of Liguria (operated in the time of Theophrastus), nor those near Bologna. Strabo, Pliny’s predecessor by a generation, mentions them. Amber is still found at Scanello, Castel S Pietro, and in the Cesenate, Italy. We may add that amber was in the past from time found on the shores of England and Scotland. Pliny, quoting Nicias and Ctesias (about 398 B.C), says that amber occurs in India. Archelaus reports that amber from India still has the bark sticking to it! Possibly some other less aged resin is referred to or this may be a reference to the Burmese mines, before World War II relatively important. That the latter inference is not impossible is indicated by the fact that the Burmese mines were known to the Chinese in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C – 220 A.D). Normally, however, Rome exported amber to India and part of this apparently reached even China.

A Historical Summary Of The Ancient Commerce In Precious Stones (continued)