kommerkiarios (plural kommerkiarioi)

Civilization

Byzantium

Period

968 AD

The kommerkiarioi were the Byzantine Empire's fiscal officials for trade: the men at the ports, toll stations and provincial depots who inspected goods, collected duties and sealed legal cargo in lead. Hundreds of their personal seals survive, each naming the man and his station, which makes the trade unusually well documented for the medieval world.

The title changed meaning across the empire's long life. From the seventh century, general kommerkiarioi were tied to imperial warehouses. From the 830s onward, imperial kommerkiarioi were attached to specific provinces and ports. The great toll stations show how physical the work was: Abydos guarded the narrows toward the Sea of Marmara, Hieron the Black Sea mouth of the Bosporus, and a ship passing either paid at the window.

Their most famous customer was an angry one. In 968 the officials of Constantinople opened the baggage of Liutprand of Cremona, ambassador of the western emperor, and confiscated five purple silks as kolyomena, goods forbidden to leave the empire. His furious report of the inspection survives, and it is the closest thing the trade has to a customer review.

See the job lived

Byzantium · 968 AD

Five Most Costly Purples

In the palace of Nikephoros Phokas, an ambassador's luggage is opened, an emperor's promise is weighed against an emperor's ban, and five purple silks cross the table into imperial custody. The victim's furious report survives.

Sources

1. Nicolas Oikonomides, 'Silk Trade and Production in Byzantium from the Sixth to the Ninth Century: The Seals of Kommerkiarioi', Dumbarton Oaks Papers 40 (1986)
2. Archibald Dunn, 'The Kommerkiarios, the Apotheke, the Dromos, the Vardarios, and the West', Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 17 (1993), pp. 3-24
3. Paolo Squatriti (trans.), The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona (CUA Press, 2007)