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ritime pursuits of their ancestors, and permit ted to partake of their commerce, are known early to have vifited the Phoenician fettlements in Europe. Carthage, fituated upon an extenfive peninsula of the African continent, and in about thirty-fix degrees of northern latitude, was well calculated to be, what it was firft intended for, the emporium of the vaft commerce carried on with the internal pro◄ vinces of Africa for gold, both in folid masses and in duft, for ivory, Æthiopian gems, and many other coftly articles of traffic, in which that continent abounded. But gradually extending its views and its dominions, that city, in time, united to the African trade that of Afia and Europe, and not lefs in the magnitude of its marine, as well thofe veffels intended for military as thofe appointed for commercial fervice, than in the splendor of its achievements by land, far furpaffed the renown of its parent. In fact, its views of commerce were only bounded by the limits of the world, while its dominions, in Africa alone, at the breaking out of the third Punic war, according to Strabo,* extended over three hundred cities, ftretching eaftward to Cyrenaica, and weftward quite to the Pillars of Strabonis Geograph. lib. xvii. p. 793. Hercules.

Hercules. This great extent of territory gave them a decided advantage over their Phoenician progenitors, fince their own ample domains afforded them moft of the productions which they fent in exchange for the commodities of other countries. These were principally grain, in which Africa was always rich, and fruits of various kinds; honey, palmwine, olive-oil, and the valuable fkins of the favages that roam the deferts of Afric: add to thefe, that particular fpecies of commodity. which might be called the staple manufacture both of Tyre and Carthage, confifting of cables, anchors, and all forts of naval ftores, together with the colour called powinov, or Punic, peculiar to themselves and the country from which they migrated.

Although it is impoffible, as was before observed, to fix the precife æra in which Carthage was founded, by a band of emigrated Phoenicians, with Dido, the injured fister of Pygmalion, one of the most celebrated monarchs of Tyre, at their head, yet we know that event muft have taken place at a very early period of the parent-empire, fince Herodotus* records a celebrated naval engage

* Herodoti Hift. lib. i. p. 77.

ment,

ment, as having happened between the Car thaginians and the Phocæans, in the reign of Cyrus, about five hundred years before Chrift; and farther from the fame writer we learn, that, in the time of Cambyfes, his fon and fucceffor, they must have had a confiderable marine, fince that monarch, in a meditated expedition against Carthage, confidering the whole naval power of Perfia as too weak to contend with that of the former ftate, folicited the aid of the Phoenicians against them, which that nation generously declined, urging in excufe, that they were their defcendants.* The Carthaginians were not ungrateful; for, of the produce of their foil, and of the spoils taken in battle, Polybius informs us, a tenth was, in the infancy of that republic, conftantly transmitted to the parent-state. as offerings to be depofited in the fhrine of the Tyrian Hercules, alike the guardian-deity of either city. Another proof of their earlymigration arifes from the very circumftance, which was the occafion of first introducing them to a knowledge of the coaft beyond the Straits of Gades, which, being of importance in this hiftorical detail, fhall now be fuc-.

*Herodotus, lib. iii. p. 191.

+ Polybii Hift. p. 341.

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cinctly related from the two authors, who have dwelt more particularly on their affairs, Justin and Diodorus Siculus.

The former exprefsly afferts that circumstance to be the violent oppofition which the Spaniards gave to the Phoenicians, when erecting the city of Gades; fo violent, that they were compelled to call in the affiftance of the rifing colony of Carthage, who, fending thither a numerous fleet and army, not only effectually feconded their operations, but also seCured for themselves a confiderable territory of the rich adjoining province of Bætica.* According to a paffage which occurs in Sir Ifaac Newton, who has entered into extenfive chronological difcuffions relative to these two. nations, it fhould feem that the temple at Gades must have been erected long antecedent to that city; for the gift of Pygmalion, which he mentions, must have been conferred many ages before the Carthaginians could have been in a fituation to afford any fuch powerful fuccours to the Tyrians, as described by Juftin. Poffibly a temple facred to the manes of that conductor, who affumed the name of Hercules, and a few buildings on

* Juftio,lib. xliv. p. 574

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