Down the Red Sea to Adule resorted the Byzantine merchants, engaged in the home trade, in great numbers.[783] After loading their vessels they again sailed northward, a proportion of them to the small island of Jotabe,[784] situated near the apex of the peninsula of Mount Sinai, which separated the Elanitic from the Heroopolitan gulf. At a station there they were awaited by the officials of the excise, who collected from them a tenth part of the value of their merchandise.[785] Some of these ships proceeded up the eastern arm of the sea to Elath; the rest of them chose the western inlet and cast anchor at Clysma.[786] The wares landed at these ports were intended chiefly for the markets of Palestine and Syria.[787] By far the greater portion of the fleet, however, terminated their northward voyage at Berenice,[788] the last port of Egypt, on the same parallel with Syene. Here they discharged their cargoes and transferred the goods to the backs of camels, who bore them swiftly to the emporium of Coptos on the Nile.[789] A crowd of small boats then received the merchandise and made a rapid transit down stream to the Canopic arm of the river, from which by canal they emerged on lake Mareotis,[790] the inland and busiest harbour of Alexandria. The maritime traffic between the Egyptian capital and all other parts of the Empire, Constantinople especially, was constant and extensive, so that commodities could be dispersed from thence in every direction with the greatest facility.
Within the Eastern Empire itself there were manufactories for the fabrication of everything essential to the requirements of civilized life, but production was much restricted by the establishment universally of a system of monopolies. Several of these were held by the government, who employed both men and women in the manufacture of whatever was necessary to the Court and the army.[791] At Adrianople, Thessalonica, Antioch, Damascus, and other towns, arms and armour were forged, inlaid with gold when for the use of officers of rank; the costly purple robes of the Imperial household emanated from Tyre,[792] where dye-works and a fleet of fishing-boats for collecting the murex were maintained; these industries were strictly forbidden to the subject. There were, besides, at Cyzicus[793] and Scythopolis,[794] official factories for the weaving of cloth and linen. The military workshops were under the direction of the Master of the Offices, the arts of peace under that of the Count of the Sacred Largesses. Public manufacturers or traders were incorporated in a college or guild controlled by the latter Count, the privileges of which were limited to some five or six hundred members.[795] Among the staple productions of the Empire we find that Miletus[796] and Laodicea[797] were famous for woollen fabrics, Sardes[798] especially for carpets, Cos[799] for cotton materials, Tyre[800] and Berytus[801] for silks, Attica[802] and Samos[803] for pottery, Sidon[804] for glass, Cibyra[805] for chased iron, Thessaly[806] for cabinet furniture, Pergamus[807] for parchment, and Alexandria[808] for paper. The fields of Elis were given over to the cultivation of flax, and all the women at Patrae were engaged in spinning and weaving it.[809] Hierapolis[810] in Phrygia was noted for its vegetable dyes; and Hierapolis[811] in Syria was the great rendezvous for the hunters of the desert, who captured wild animals for the man and beast fights of the public shows. Slave dealers, held to be an infamous class, infested the verge of the Empire along the Danube, but at this date Romans and barbarians mutually enslaved each other.[812] On this frontier, also, consignments of amber and furs were received from the shores of the Baltic and the Far North.[813] With respect to articles of diet, almost every district produced wine, but Lesbian and Pramnian were most esteemed.[814] A wide tract at Cyrene was reserved for the growth of a savoury pot-herb, hence called the Land of Silphium.[815] Egypt was the granary of the whole Orient.[816] Dardania and Dalmatia were rich in cheese,[817] Rhodes[818] exported raisins and figs, Phoenicia[819] dates, and the capital itself had a large trade in preserved tunnies.[820]