ABSTRACT
This chapter looks precisely at an instance of ‘tax morphology’ to explore how these ties might be presented. By investigating a prominent aspect of the tax morphology of several different periods of Mediterranean history in widely scattered places, the chapter shows just how interesting and useful differentiation using this tool may actually be; and to suggest how certain basic conditions of human life in the pre-modern Mediterranean do underlie not just the day-to-day realities of life terre-a-terre, or the experience of caboteurs, but major features of the organisation of entire societies. It should be said at the outset that the English term ‘customs’ is very ill-suited to the analysis of the complex of practices that make up this tax morphology. The minimalist view that harbour taxes are another reason for playing down the overall significance of ancient commerce has been prominent in their discussion: ‘one should not underestimate the ubiquitous harbour taxes’, and so on.
