354 economy: The Middle East there was little arable land for agriculture Importing food became a top priority of the Phoenicians in order to sustain the populations of their cities With several natural ports, which became the sites of their cities, and an abundance of cedar and other trees for lumber, the Phoenicians began seafaring early With their freedom from Egyptian rule in the 12th century, they built one of the largest trading empires in history over the next five centuries Their goods were shipped all over the Mediterranean and even into the Atlantic to the Canary Islands and Britain To what extent these commercial ventures were private enterprises and or were state-financed is unknown Luxury items, such as jewelry, fine cloth, and perfumes, were among their trade items, but the most highly prized were metals Thus they brought copper from Cyprus, iron from Crete, gold and lead from Morocco, and possibly tin from Britain All of these imports were used in trade for food and other goods, many of which were traded in their turn Around 950 b.c.e Tyre bought a large agricultural area from Israel, freeing the Phoenician city from having to import food As a result, Tyre could use its full range of trading stock to enrich itself It quickly became the wealthiest of the Phoenician city-states and, indeed, one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient Near East The collapse of the Assyrian state around 600 b.c.e freed the Phoenician city-states from having to pay tribute The respite was temporary, for within a century the Phoenicians found themselves paying tribute to a new state, Persia THE PERSIANS In the early sixth century b.c.e., under the Achaemenid Dynasty, Persia subjugated an even larger area than the Assyrians, ruling over the region from Asia Minor and the Mediterranean to India Initially, as with the Assyrians, local economic institutions of the Persian Near East remained unchanged Indeed, in Mesopotamia, for example, the distributive economy remained unchanged, and the labor tax remained in force; likewise, the Phoenician city-states continued their profitable trading Throughout the entire Persian domain, payment in kind for taxes continued, even though currency in the form of coinage began to appear The Achaemenids divided their empire into provinces, called satrapies The governor (satrap) of each was responsible for collecting taxes, some of which were sent to the Achaemenid capitals (Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis) as tribute The tribute payment was partially in silver and partially in kind and was calculated on the basis of the affluence of the people and the agricultural yield of each satrapy During the reign of Xerxes I (519–465 b.c.e.), for instance, the eastern satrapy of Media was assessed a tribute of 100,000 sheep in addition to a large sum of silver The province also had to provide enough pasture for 50,000 royal horses The king exempted the Persian heartland from this taxation, although Persians, like residents in the satrapies, were subject to a military corvée Trade was also an important part of the Persian economy, and since the state contained many important trade routes, the Persians controlled much of Near Eastern trade To make it easier for traders and their goods to move along these routes, the Persian king Darius I (r 522–486 b.c.e.) improved the roads by straightening and maintaining them, thus increasing the amount of trade traffic He also posted soldiers along the roads to deter bandits who preyed on trade caravans Agriculture saw innovations that increased productivity and thus brought in more taxes to the royal treasury The construction of underground channels brought water from the mountains to dry regions, thus enlarging the amount of arable land Rice, imported from India, was planted in wet areas that previously had not been usable for agriculture Another important economic innovation during the sixth and fift h centuries b.c.e was banking, which now appeared for the first time in the Near East Two banking houses, Egibi and Sons and Murashu and Sons, operated in Babylonia at this time These and other banks extended credit in the form of loans to individuals and to businesses that needed capital to pay taxes or to finance new commercial enterprises Loans per se were nothing new In both northern and southern Mesopotamia, oikoi, particularly temples, had always loaned barley, dates, or other food to their own members when necessary The borrower would then repay the loan in kind at the next harvest Most of these loans had no interest, though if a borrower failed to repay a loan, the lender might add a penalty of up to 25 percent to the loan The banks that appeared in the Persian-controlled Near East were private organizations that operated as profit-making businesses They not only issued loans but also engaged in real estate transactions and underwrote promising business ventures Still, loans were at the heart of this banking business, and these loans often carried high interest rates, sometimes 20 percent a month With such high interest, the amount of a debt could rise quickly beyond an individual’s ability to repay When a borrower defaulted on a loan, a lender could take possession of the person’s property The banker could also seize the borrower and sometimes his or her family and sell them into slavery to help recoup the loan Loans became a necessity for many under Xerxes I, who raised taxes steeply The Persian king also demanded that more of each year’s tribute be paid not in kind but in gold and silver The result of these royal measures was that merchants and landowners had to take out loans to pay their taxes Often, in order to pay the exorbitant interest rates, borrowers had to allow lenders the right to work their land or run their businesses It was then the lenders who reaped the profits and often gained possession of their clients’ assets With the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great (356– 323 b.c.e.), Near Eastern economies, especially those along the Mediterranean coast, came increasingly under the influence of first the Greeks and eventually the Romans But through the last centuries b.c.e and the first centuries c.e ancient Near