these shipments in the last decades of the empire. Large numbers of
livestock including cattle, sheep, horses, mules and asses made up
part of the consignments whose despatch to the Hittite homeland
or other parts of the Hittite realm was undertaken by‘merchants’.
As was the conveyance there of valuable metals and other precious
wares such as gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, and
commodity metals like copper, bronze, and tin. Slaves and high
quality horses, linen garments and dyed wool alsofigure among the
items transported to various destinations in the Hittite world.
Trading links via intermediaries extended as far afield as Babylon,
and Assyria in the southeast, and Egypt in the south. But we have
very little evidence for trading links with the western Mycenaean
world.
So the Hittites were certainly enmeshed in the world of
international Late Bronze Age trade, but to judge from the rarity of
references in the texts to merchants or traders of their own, they
seem to have left trading enterprises mainly in the hands of others.
Indeed the large scale of many of the attested enterprises very likely
indicates that the‘merchants’who engaged in them were royal
agents hired by the king to escort the goods to their destinations, no
doubt with substantial armed backup, rather than private
entrepreneurs. Of course there must have been plenty of small-
time operators. But our texts appear not to deal with them.
Whether acting in a private capacity or as royal agents, those
involved in the transportation of goods often ran considerable risks
of robbery and death in the course of their expeditions. On land
they were vulnerable to brigands and rapacious local rulers through
whose territories they passed. By sea they risked both attack by
pirates, who infested the eastern Mediterranean and its coastlands,
and sudden storms to which their ships and cargoes often fell
victim.
This brings us to the reason I’ve included merchants and traders
in this chapter. Hittite kings attached considerable importance to
the protection of merchants, given the vital role they played in
supplying the Hittite world with a wide range of goods often
originating from distant locations. Severe penalties were imposed
on anyone who stole from them. Sometimes the thieves were of
JUSTICE AND THE COMMONER 133