charge. Punishments were likewise enforced for plundering wrecks, and a compensation allotted to the heirs of seamen who lost their lives in the service of the ship. The Rhodians were also the first to make regulations affecting charterparties and bills of lading, as well as contracts of partnership or joint adventures. They laid down rules for bottomry, for average and salvage, specifying a scale of rates for recovering goods from the bottom, in one and a half, twelve, and twenty-two feet and a half water; and also for the payment of demurrage.[1] The whole of these rules were copied by the Roman legislators and incorporated with the Roman laws; and having been thus handed down to the States of Europe, they constituted the main features of the laws known as the "Rôles d'Oleron," and the "Hanse Town Ordinances of 1614 and 1681," besides forming the basis of that English system of maritime law, which was brought to almost human perfection by the wisdom of Lord Mansfield.
System of accounts in use at Rome. While the Romans were indebted to the Rhodians for their maritime laws, it seems likely that they gained their knowledge of accounts and book-keeping from the Greeks of Crete, who had themselves acquired the elements of this knowledge from the Phœnicians. It is, however, more than questionable whether the Romans improved upon the art. The private arrangements of the Roman merchants and ship-owners respecting the systematic practice of book-keeping were exemplary. Accounts were not actually enforced, as in
- ↑ One Rhodian Law quoted in the Digests decreed that silk, if saved, when shipwrecked, from wetting, should pay a salvage of ten per cent. as being equal in value to gold. Cf. Vopisc. in Aurel. c. xlv.
