Although the port of Amalfi, from which the republic derived its name, is now an obscure place, no western harbour then contained a more enterprising maritime population. Its position, not unlike that of Tyre, afforded great facilities for carrying on an extensive sea-borne commerce. Hence it was that Amalfi, in its day, had a very extensive intercourse with all parts of the then known world, and was among the earliest of the Italian republics to hold in its hands the trade of the Mediterranean. Long before the Venetians and Genoese had become famous, this small but indefatigable republic assumed the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures and productions of the East, and that trade proved then, as has been the case in all ages, a source of immense profit. Though the city contained only fifty thousand inhabitants, its wealth was enormous, and its merchants, who had correspondence with all parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean, dealt largely in the commodities of both Arabia and India. Their settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, acquired the privileges of independent colonies. No city or seaport of those days contained more mariners who excelled in the theory or practice of navigation and astronomy than Amalfi; indeed, it was long supposed, that to the skill of one of the seamen of this city, the world owed the discovery of the mariner’s compass.[358] [Sidenote: A.D. 1137.] But, after three hundred years of great prosperity, arising entirely from the energetic, and, at the same time, honest pursuit of commerce, Amalfi, oppressed by the arms of the Normans, was at last brought under their rule. Shorn of its independence, and depressed in spirit, the city was soon after attacked by the jealousy of Pisa, one of its commercial rivals; but the ruined palaces of its merchants, and the remains of an arsenal and cathedral, still attest its former splendour and importance.[359] Not satisfied with the possessions they had already secured in Italy and with their conquest of Sicily, the Normans next resolved on the conquest of Constantinople itself. [Sidenote: Futile attempts of the Normans to take Constantinople, A.D. 1081-1084.]