statements bearing on this point; but their interpretation is a matter of mere conjecture. Avienus, a Latin poet of the fourth century of our era, in his work on the shores of the Mediterranean, compiled from Phoenician authorities, quotes from the Carthaginian Himilco, who had made a voyage of nearly four months westward, the assertion that the Atlantic could be crossed. From what follows, it seems that Himilco had sailed as far as what the ancients called the "Sargasso Sea," from the shoals of sargassus or floating sea-weed, which abound off the Azores; and it is not even suggested that he had reached the opposite shore. Other stories might be cited; but the most remarkable of all is the legend related by Plato about Atlantis, an island larger than Asia and Libya together, in the sea west of Gades and the Straits. A powerful dynasty of kings reigned over this and the smaller islands between it and the continent, and conquered Libya up to Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. They had gathered their forces for the subjugation of the remaining countries round the Mediterranean, when the Athenians, though deserted by all their allies, repulsed them in a decisive battle, and restored the freedom of all the countries within the Straits. The victory was followed by great earthquakes and floods, which swallowed up the combatants on both sides; and the island of Atlantis, engulfed beneath the waters, left only shoals of mud which rendered that sea unnavigable. All this happened 9000 years before the time of Solon, to whom it was related by the Egyptian priests of Saïs, as an instance of the ignorance of the Athenians respecting their forefathers' exploits. It is superfluous to observe that such a legend, coming from such a source, can have no historical value. But may its existence be taken as any argument, when confirmed by other evidence, for the knowledge of lands beyond the Atlantic? The safest reply is a candid confession of our ignorance. Who shall venture to draw the line between truth and fiction in the travellers' tales of those remote ages? Even after making the most liberal allowance for their good faith, all that is credible in their statements may be accounted for on the supposition that, after long beating about in the storms of the Atlantic, they reached some of the nearer islands, or some unknown parts of the shores of Europe or Africa, which they mistook for lands beyond the Ocean. The utmost that can be affirmed is the possibility of the discovery.*

* A fuller discussion of the question will be found in the articles "Atlantis" and "Atlanticum Mare" in the Dictionary of Greck and Roman Geography.

COLONIES IN NORTH AFRICA.

Returning through the Straits, we come to those famous settlements of the Phoenicians on the northern coast of Africa, which

Besides exhibiting the colonies now spoken of and the whole neighbourhood of Carthage, this map will serve to illustrate the Roman campaigns in Africa, and those of Agathocles, which have been related towards the end of Chapter XVIII.

we have reserved till the last on account of their connection with Carthage. They extended all along the shores of Barbary, from the Straits to the Greater Syrtis; but they were naturally the most numerous in that part which has formed successively the territory of Carthage, the Roman province of Africa, and the Regency of Tunis. Stretching out from the line of the coast towards Sicily, and with its eastern front looking in the direction of Phoenicia, this region invited colonization by its splendid harbours and unsurpassed fertility; and we can scarcely doubt that Tyre drew supplies of corn from its abundance, though not to the same extent as the Carthaginians and Romans, who afterwards had more complete possession of the country. The most favourable district for colonization was the great bay between Cape Farina and Cape Bon (the ancient promontories of Apollo and Mercury), the shores of which, abounding in natural harbours, are adjacent to the fertile plains watered by the Bagradas and some smaller rivers, forming the ancient Zeugitana, or the northern division of Africa, in the original sense of the word, which corresponds nearly to the modern Regency of Tunis. Nearly all the cities on this coast were colonies of Tyre. The most ancient was Utica (or Itacé), near the mouth of the western arm of the Bagradas and close under the promontory of Apollo.* Next in importance was Tunes (Tunis), at the bottom of the lagoon at the mouth of which Carthage stood. It is needless to enumerate the other settlements, some of which are exhibited on the annexed map, while others lay to the west along the coast of Numidia, as far as the Straits, and to the east round the shores of the Lesser Syrtis; but we must not omit to name Hippo Zaritus (Biserta), celebrated in the annals of chivalry, and Hippo Regius (Bonah), less famous as the residence of the Numidian kings than as the bishopric of St. Augustine. On the coast between the two Syrtes, Leptis Magna (Lebdah) was an emporium for the caravan trade across the desert. The eastern limit of the Phoenician settlements is not accurately known. How the boundary was afterwards fixed between the Carthaginians and the Greeks of Cyrene at the bottom of the Great Syrtis, has been previously related. Before proceeding to speak of Carthage, the last and greatest fruit of Phoenician colonization, it is important to enquire

*Its ruins are seen near the holy tomb of Bou-shater. here, once for all, that the existing surface ruins of all these those of Carthage itself, are chiefly of the Roman period. nician cities have to be sought underground.

It may be mentioned African cities, including The remains of the Phoe+ See Vol. I., p. 366.

PHOENICIAN CIVILIZATION.

361

what lasting gain the nation derived from this vast system of commerce and colonization, and what was her influence upon human civilization?

This question cannot be better answered than in the words of Dr. Mommsen :-"The Phoenicians are entitled to be commemorated in history by the side of the Hellenic and Latin nations; but their case affords a fresh proof, and perhaps the strongest proof of all, that the development of national energies in antiquity was of a one-sided character. Those noble and enduring creations in the field of intellect, which owe their origin to the Aramæan race, did not emanate from the Phoenicians. While faith and knowledge, in a certain sense, were the especial property of the Aramæan nations, and reached the Indo-Germans only from the East, neither the Phoenician religion nor Phoenician science and art ever, so far as we can see, held an independent rank among those of the Aramæan family. The religious conceptions of the Phoenicians were rude and uncouth, and it seemed as if their worship was meant to foster lust and cruelty rather than to subdue them. No trace is discernible, at least in times of clear historical light, of any special influence exercised by their religion over other nations. As little do we find any Phoenician architecture or plastic art at all comparable even to those of Italy, to say nothing of the lands where art was native. The most ancient seat of scientific observation and of its application to practical purposes was Babylon, or at any rate the region of the Euphrates. ** *The Phoenicians no doubt availed themselves of the artistic and highly developed manufactures of Babylon for their industry, of the observation of the stars for their navigation, of the writing of sounds and the adjustment of measures for their commerce, and distributed many an important germ of civilization along with their wares; but it cannot be demonstrated that the alphabet, or any other ingenious product of the human mind, belonged peculiarly to them, and such religious and scientific ideas as they were the means of conveying to the Hellenes, were scattered by them more after the fashion of a bird dropping grains than of the husbandman sowing his seed. The power which the Hellenes and the Italians possessed, of civilizing and assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with whom they came into contact, was wholly wanting in the Phonicians. In the field of Roman conquest, the Iberian and the Celtic languages have disappeared before the Romanic tongue; the Berbers of Africa speak at this present day the same language

as they spoke in the times of the Hannos and the Barcides. Above all, the Phoenicians, like the rest of the Aramæan nations as compared with the Indo-Germans, lacked the instinct of political life, the noble idea of self-governed freedom. During the most flourishing times of Sidon and Tyre, the land of the Phoenicians was a perpetual apple of contention between the powers that ruled on the Euphrates and on the Nile, and was subject sometimes to the Assyrians, sometimes to the Egyptians. With half the power, Hellenic cities had achieved their independence; but the prudent Sidonians calculated that the closing of the caravan routes to the east, or of the ports of Egypt, would affect them more than the heaviest tribute; and so they punctually paid their taxes, as it might happen, to Nineveh or to Memphis, and even gave their ships, when they could not avoid it, to help to fight the battles of the kings. And as at home the Phoenicians patiently submitted to the oppression of their masters, so also abroad they were by no means inclined to change the peaceful career of commerce for a policy of conquest. Their colonies were factories. It was of more moment, in their view, to traffic in buying and selling with the natives, than to acquire extensive territories in distant lands, and to carry out the slow and difficult work of colonization. They avoided war, even with their rivals; they allowed themselves to be supplanted in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and the east of Sicily, almost without resistance, and in the great naval battles, which were fought in early times for the supremacy of the western Mediterranean at Alalia and at Cumæ, it was the Etruscans and not the Phoenicians that bore the brunt of the struggle with the Greeks. If rivalry could not be avoided, they compromised the matter as best they could; no attempt was ever made by the Phoenicians to conquer Care or Massilia. Still less, of course, were the Phoenicians disposed to enter on aggressive war. On the only occasion, in earlier times, when they took the field on the offensive, namely, in the great Sicilian expedition of the African Phoenicians, which terminated in their defeat at Himera by Gelo of Syracuse,† it was simply as dutiful subjects of the Great King, and in order to avoid taking part in the campaign against the Hellenes of the east, that they entered the lists against the Hellenes of the west; just as their Syrian kinsmen were, in fact, obliged in that same year to share the defeat of the Persians at Salamis. This was not the result of cowardice; navi*B.C. 538-474. See Vol. I., p. 276, and Vol. II., p. 143. + B. C. 480. See Vol. I. p. 433.

*