11-15-2003, 05:07 PM
Mediterranean to North Sea trade was probably mostly through Gaul rather than round Spain. Gaul's convenient river network was praised by ancient authors (for example Strabo). There were well-organized corporations of nautae on the Rhone, Saone, Loire, Seine and Mosel, whose prime role seems to have been transferring goods from one waterway to another. Towns often sprang up at convenient points for such transfers: Lugdunum (Lyon), for example, lay at the centre of Agrippa’s road network and at the confluence of Rhone and Saone, whilst Colonia Agrippina (Koln) combined a river-port with routes to the Channel and by road to Lugdunum. Chalon-sur-Saone was another such transfer point.<br>
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Dressel I amphorae occur in prodigious quantities in Gaul, an estimated 200,000-500,000 on the river bed at Chalon-sur-Saone, for example, and a similar number at Toulouse. And presumably these are the ones which were lost or broken when being transferred from one form of transport to another, so the actual number getting through must have been greater: if only one hundred shiploads like the Albenga wreck got through each year, that would be one million amphorae annually.<br>
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The Albenga wreck – at 450 tonnes not atypical in size – contained some 10,000 amphorae, or 250,000 litres of wine: that at Madrague de Giens (off Toulon) of 60 BC was similar in size and carried something between 5800 and 7800 amphorae. At the time that this trade was taking place one amphora of wine was allegedly worth one slave to the Gauls: so the Albenga wreck had a cargo worth ten thousand slaves... I wonder what the insurance premiums were on that!<br>
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Water transport was by far the cheapest bulk method in the ancient world. One historian (AHM Jones, I think) calculated, from Diocletian’s price edict, that it would be cheaper to ship grain from one end of the empire to the other than to haul it seventy-five miles by land. He calculated that the price differential was anything between 1:28 to 1:62 in water transport’s favour.<br>
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Attempts were often made to bypass those places where land transport had to be used to bridge the gap between waterways. These included projects to build canals in order to connect one waterway with another; for example, the fossa Corbulonis joining the Meuse and Rhine, to make it unnecessary to unload goods for a 23 mile journey to the next waterway, and an ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to link the Saone and Mosel so as to create a direct water route from Mediterranean to North Sea. You've also got Nero's attempt to build a canal in Italy from Puteoli to Rome, and many early imperial canals in north-east Italy.<br>
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Shaun <p></p><i></i>
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Dressel I amphorae occur in prodigious quantities in Gaul, an estimated 200,000-500,000 on the river bed at Chalon-sur-Saone, for example, and a similar number at Toulouse. And presumably these are the ones which were lost or broken when being transferred from one form of transport to another, so the actual number getting through must have been greater: if only one hundred shiploads like the Albenga wreck got through each year, that would be one million amphorae annually.<br>
<br>
The Albenga wreck – at 450 tonnes not atypical in size – contained some 10,000 amphorae, or 250,000 litres of wine: that at Madrague de Giens (off Toulon) of 60 BC was similar in size and carried something between 5800 and 7800 amphorae. At the time that this trade was taking place one amphora of wine was allegedly worth one slave to the Gauls: so the Albenga wreck had a cargo worth ten thousand slaves... I wonder what the insurance premiums were on that!<br>
<br>
Water transport was by far the cheapest bulk method in the ancient world. One historian (AHM Jones, I think) calculated, from Diocletian’s price edict, that it would be cheaper to ship grain from one end of the empire to the other than to haul it seventy-five miles by land. He calculated that the price differential was anything between 1:28 to 1:62 in water transport’s favour.<br>
<br>
Attempts were often made to bypass those places where land transport had to be used to bridge the gap between waterways. These included projects to build canals in order to connect one waterway with another; for example, the fossa Corbulonis joining the Meuse and Rhine, to make it unnecessary to unload goods for a 23 mile journey to the next waterway, and an ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to link the Saone and Mosel so as to create a direct water route from Mediterranean to North Sea. You've also got Nero's attempt to build a canal in Italy from Puteoli to Rome, and many early imperial canals in north-east Italy.<br>
<br>
Shaun <p></p><i></i>
