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Reading "Constantine Porphyrogenitus and his World" by Arnold Toynbee as a attempt to understand more about Byzantine society, how it changed, and how it could have been and I have come upon a interesting section. Here the author compare the Byzantine Emperors to those of China in their concern of "Conquest and Agriculture" and contrasts with Islamic Caliphs who praised the merchant class. Attached is a story of a Emperor burning a gilded merchant ship his wife owned after finding out about it.
The reasoning being that given the less then divine nature of the background of many Emperors they cultivated themselves a air of pomp and aloofness. Going on about how the merchant classes in Constantinople were restricted and looked down upon and characterizing the economic development of the Byzantines was sluggish and stagnant. The Emperor took steps to nationalize local industries and refused to sell them to domestic and foreign individuals.Thereupon the author makes the distinction that the information of this is from a ledger from The Capital. That Constantinople as a capital city was by nature parasitic and that economic activities elsewhere were less restrictive to an extent.
Especially in comparison to the activity and energy of Greek merchants of other periods. Imperial restrictions on (at least) Constantinoplian merchants caused them to lose out to Arab and Iranian merchants who were going everywhere and became bankers of the world.