EMPŎRĬUM

( τὸ ἐμπόριον ), a place for wholesale trade in commodities carried by sea. The name is sometimes applied to a sea-port town, but it properly signifies only a particular place in such a town. The word is derived from ἔμπορος , which signifies in Homer a person who sails as a pa enger in a ship belonging to another person; but in later writers it signifies the merchant or wholesale dealer, and differs from κάπηλος , the retail dealer. The emporium at Athens was under the inspection of certain officers, who were elected annually ( ἐπιμεληταὶ τοῦ ἐμπορίου ).