With an ALTAR erected in BRITAIN to the TYRIAN HERCULES. To John Coakley Lettsom,M.D. FR.S. and F.S.A.this Plate, emblematical of the most ancient superstition of Aniais gratefully inscribed by inscribed by J.M.

the fhore, for the purpofe of mutual traffic and fhelter from the weather, might have formed the whole of the fettlement; but when, in process of time, thofe foreigners began to erect spacious buildings, and fortify the ifland, the jealoufy, not lefs than the avarice, of the Spaniards, might be awakened, and the affault as powerful as the motives that produced it. The paffage alluded to in Newton is as follows: "The Phoenicians," fays that writer, "after the death of Melcartus, built a temple to him in the ifland Gades, and adorned it with the fculptures of the labours of Hércules, and of his hydra, and the horses, to whom he threw Diomedes, king of the Bistones, in Thrace, to be devoured. In this temple was the golden belt of Teucer, and the golden olive of Pygmalion, bearing fmaragdine fruit; and, by thefe confecrated gifts of Teucer and Pygmalion, you may know that it was built in their days."*. The account of this fplendid gift of Pygmalion is in Philoftratus, and exhibits a curious proof of the early skill of the Phoenicians in working in metals and gems. Pygmalion fent to the temple of Hercules, ftanding in the island of Gadés, a rich do

native,

native, being the figure of an olive-tree, of maffive gold, and of most exquisite and curious workmanship; its berries, which were of emerald, bearing a wonderful resemblance to the fruit of that tree.*

The Carthaginians, having once penetrated into Spain, found it too important an acquifition to be relinquished, and therefore followed up the victory they had gained, to the complete fubjection of the maritime provinces on either fide of the Straits. In the course of no very extended period, they erected, in a part of the province of Tarraconenfis, now Valentia, on the Mediterranean coaft, and on a pe-: ninfula jutting far out into the ocean, like that on which old Carthage itself stood, a most noble city, with a spacious port, long the emporium of their wealth in this quarter, which they denominated New Carthage; on the ruins of which ftands the modern town of Carthagena. In addition to these valuable conquefts by land, their active fleets fcowered the ocean in the fame line, and obtained poffeffion of all the adjacent islands, on which they built forts and established factories; particularly of thofe celebrated iflands lying

* Philoftrat. in Vita Apollonii, lib. v. c. x.

nearly

nearly oppofite the coaft of Valentia, in the Mediterranean-Sea, called, by the ancients, Baleares; but, by the moderns, from their comparative magnitude, Majorca and Miporca, the greater and the lefs. Their con tinental poffeffions produced inmenfe quantities of those precious metals, in which their commerce principally confifted, as well as fupplied their army with brave and able recruits for fresh conquefts: the islands yielded abundance of honey, corn, and wine, and afforded convenient harbours for the numerous Carthaginian fhips which navigated that fea.

The Carthaginians being of the same race, manners, and religion, as the Phoenicians, there are no particular data by which we can ascertain the time of their first trading to the British coaft for the commodity in fuch great requeft among the traders of the Eaft; we only know from Feftus Avienus, an author cited by Bochart, that Himilco, a Carthaginian general, the first of that name, was fent, about the time of Darius Nothus, by the fenate of Carthage, to discover the western fhores and ports of Europe; that he fuccefs fully accomplished that voyage, of which he wrote a journal, which was inferted in the Punic annals, and which the faid Feftus Avienus

T 2

Avienus had seen; and that, in that journal, the Britannic iflands are mentioned by the name of Æftrymnides;* iflands infefted by the aftrum, or gad-fly. At the fame time that Himilco was' fent weftward, another general, of the name of Hanno, (of which, probably, there were feveral, fince we meet with one of confiderable note at a much later period,) was fent to explore the fouthern coaft of Africa; but he, after making fome important difcoveries, was compelled to return, from the failure of his provifions. He also wrote an account of his voyage, and a tract, bearing the name of the Periplus of Hanno, is yet extant, though of dubious authority. The circumftance of provifions failing him, during this intended circumnavigation of Africa, forms, in my opinion, a very ftrong objection against the poflibility of the voyage round the African coaft, faid to have been undertaken and accomplished near 600 years before Chrift, at the command of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, fince the fhips used by the Phoenicians were not of magnitude fufficient to hold the quantity of provifions- neceffary for the fupport of a fhip's crew during a three

*Bocharti Canaan, lib. i. cap. 35, 39.

years