416 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



gatherings of pilgrim Mahommedans at Mecca, which result 

 in extensive commercial intercourse. According to Alcock it 

 is the same in Japan, where &quot; festivals are high days for the 

 temples, and they seem to take it in rotation to hold a sort 

 of fair/ 7 From ancient Greece and Rome like evidence has 

 been handed down. Curtius describes how in early Greece 



&quot; The holy places of the land were centres of an extensive commer 

 cial intercourse, which found peace and security in the sacred ports, on 

 the sacred roads, and in the vicinity of the temples, whilst in the rest of 

 the world a wild law of force prevailed. With the festive assemblies 

 . . . were combined the first trading fairs ; at these men first became 

 acquainted with the multiplicity of natural products, and the most 

 remunerative methods of mercantile exchange ; at these the relations 

 were opened which united different commercial towns in uninterrupted 

 intercourse, and thus first occasioned the establishment of depots of 

 goods beyond the sea, and afterwards the foundation of towns.&quot; 

 At the same time, as a collateral result, banking was initiated 

 under ecclesiastical auspices. 



&quot; The gods were the first capitalists in the land, the temples the first 

 financial institutions, and the priest the first to understand the power 

 of capital. . . . The merchants entrust the money to the care of the 

 priests because they can nowhere find a securer place for it ; and the 

 priests are sagacious enough not to let the money lie idle.&quot; 

 Xor did ecclesiastical regulation end here; for if not by 

 injunction, still by usage, the seasons for certain agricultural 

 operations were determined by the recurrence of religious 

 observances. Parallel effects were produced in Rome. Fairs 

 &quot; were associated with the celebration of the festival at the 

 federal temple on the Aventine,&quot; says Mommsen, who 

 adds: 



&quot; A similar and perhaps still greater importance attached in the case 

 of Etruria to the annual general assembly at the temple of Voltumna 

 (perhaps near Montefiascone) in the territory of Volsinii an assembly 

 which served at the same time as a fair, and was regularly frequented 

 by Roman as well as native traders. &quot; 



Beyond this incidental regulation of commercial intercourse, 

 there was a more direct regulation. Work on festival days 

 was interdicted. Mommsen writes : 



