By 1255 Venice had its maritime law, though it was the old so-called Rhodian sea-law,[2] which inspired the regulating of the mediæval merchant ships all the time. The size of a ship was reckoned not in tons, but in _amphoræ_ or else in _modii_. An amphora represented about six gallons, a modios was the equivalent of about two gallons. Thus a ship with all her tackle was valued at fifty pieces of gold for every thousand modii of her capacity, though this was further varied according to her age. Port dues at Ancona, for instance, were calculated on the valuation of the ship. Now it is necessary once more to think of the conditions of service afloat in those days as something quite different from those in our modern Mercantile Marines, where, in spite of trades unions, the captain is supreme and the crew simply carry out his orders, and the passengers have to go wherever he takes them. In those days there was, comparatively speaking, little knowledge of the sea except what was obtained by personal experience. Thus a much-travelled merchant who went backwards and forwards each year to the East would be almost as competent as the master of the ship. Similarly the crew. The result was—and it seems very strange to us moderns—that the ship was run not on a well-disciplined principle, as every one obeying blindly the master’s orders, but on a communal basis, backed up by the maritime law. Sometimes, it is true, the sailors were paid fixed wages, in which case they were also given their food; but frequently they undertook the voyage on a profit-sharing basis. Thus the master received two shares, the steersman one and a half, the master’s mate one and a half, the boatswain one and a half, while each sailor got a whole share, and the cook half a share. It was therefore to the interest of all to do everything to get the ship safely from port to port. The little difference which existed between master, officers, men and merchants enabled them all in an emergency to offer their opinions as to weather, pilotage and so on, a decision being arrived at by the vote of the majority. All this sounds thoroughly unseamanlike to us, but that is because the seafaring art has long since become so perfect and systematised, and the division of labour recognised as a root essential. It was perfectly legal for the merchants, with their valuable goods on board, to insist on the ship being taken into a harbour, or to prevent her putting to sea notwithstanding all the protests of the _naukleros_ or shipmaster. The identity of ignorance among all on board, with the casting vote in favour of finance, bred chaos and ill-discipline, that had to be put down with a firm hand later on, as soon there arose competent navigators and specialists in seamanship; but the time had not yet come.