44 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Constantinople did not pay much attention to commerce. Its policy was that of extortion. It never cared to achieve to the full the gains due to its situation on the Bosphorus. There was very little trade between the West and Constantinople military operation constituted the only stimulus to trade activities.
(Space left blank-ed.)
Nay the rule of the Saracens in Syria and Egypt was far more enlightened than that of the contemporary rulers of the Byzantine Empire.
But amidst all this ruin Italy conserved the merchantile and intellectual forces of the middle ages. The 9th century A.D. marks the rise of real merchantile activity in the North-East and South-West of Italy. It was the Era of the rise of the Italian City-Republic and Eastern commerce was the thing upon which they fed themselves fat. Each city-state rose to hold “The Gorgeous East in fee.”
First and foremost is Amalfi. It wrested its independence from the Eastern Empire by 820. Her maritime activity grew so rapidly that within 20 years their navy was powerful enough to fight the Saracens in their naval attacks on Rome. Her factories (agencies of modern days) were scattered in Palermo, Syracuse, Messina, Durazzo and Constantinople and her reputation as a commercial state grew so wide-spread that, “The maritime laws of Tabula Amalfitana were current among traders on every coast of the Inland Sea and the coinage of the Republic was the chief medium of exchange between Latin Europe and the Levout.” [1]
The smallness of the harbour prevented Amalfi from being a great emporium. She therefore had to give way to her rivals. She fell prey to the land powers of the Normans who had subdued Naples, Salerno or Brindisi while the sea power was immeasurably outdone by other and better situated city states.
Venice rose as Amalfi went down. “From the time of Charlemagne the Queen of the Adriatic began to take a place in the politics as well as in the commerce of the Latine world. Its
1 Reymond Beazlcy—“ The Dawn of Modern Geography,” Vol. II .