Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/352

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30 HISTORY OF GREECE. largement of their privileges. Besides granting permission to various Grecian towns, to erect religious establishments for such of their citizens as visited the place, he also sanctioned the con- stitution of a formal and organized emporium or factory, invest- ed with commercial privileges, and armed with authority exer- cised by presiding officers regularly chosen. This factory was connected with, and probably grew out of, a large religious edi- fice and precinct, built at the joint cost of nine Grecian cities : four of them Ionic, Chios, Teos, Phoksca, and Klazomense ; four Doric, Rhodes, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Phaselis ; and one JEolic, Mitylene. By these nine cities the joint temple and factory was kept up and its presiding magistrates chosen; but its destination, for the convenience of Grecian commerce gen- erally, seems revealed by the imposing title of The Hellenion. Samos, Miletus, and -ZEgina had each founded a separate temple at Naukratis, for the worship of such of their citizens as went there ; probably connected as the Hellenion was with protection and facilities for commercial purposes. But though these three powerful cities had thus constituted each a factory for itself, as guarantee to the merchandise, and as responsible for the conduct, of its own citizens separately, the corporation of the Helleni- on served both as protection and control to all other Greek mer- chants. And such was the usefulness, the celebrity, and proba- bly the pecuniary profit, of the corporation, that other Grecian cities set up claims to a share in it, and falsely pretended to have contributed to the original foundation. 1 Naukratis was for a long time the privileged port for Grecian commerce with Egypt. No Greek merchant was permitted to deliver goods in any other part, or to enter any other of the 1 Herodot. ii, 178. The few words of the historian about these Greek es- tablishments at Naukratis are highly valuable, and we can only wish that ho had told us more : he speaks of them in the present tense, from personal knowledge rb fj.lv vvv fieyiarov avrcuv Tffievof KO.I ovvo/iaaTdTarov Lbv KOI xpnoiftuTarov, KO^EV^EVOV 6e 'E/lA^vtov, aide Tro/ltf elalv al irapexovaai ~ TOVTEUV fiEV sari TOVTO rd refievof, K.OL irpoaTura^ TOV efnropiov aiiral a] foAtf Etaiv al Trape^ovaai. "Oaai rfe u.7Jiai ?ro/Uf per airot eiivra i, oidev aQi (J.ETEOV fieraTroiEvvrai We arc here let into a vein of commercial jealousy between the Grcrk cities about which we should have been glad to be farther informed.