Thus far, all access to Spain had been by land; for, in the earliest periods of the world’s history, no other mode of emigration or invasion was known. But the Phœnicians, the oldest commercial people of classical antiquity, soon afterwards found their way thither over the waters of the Mediterranean. At what time they arrived in Spain, or where they made their first establishment, is not known. A mystery hangs over this remarkable people, darker than belongs to the age in which they lived, and connected, no doubt, with the wary spirit in which they pursued their commercial adventures. Their position at home made colonization the obvious and almost the only means of commercial wealth among them, and Spain proved the most tempting of the countries to which their power could reach. Their chief Spanish colonies were near the Pillars of Hercules, in the neighbourhood of our present Cadiz, which they probably founded, and about the mouth and on the banks of the Guadalquivir. Their great object was the mines of precious metals with which ancient Spain abounded. For Spain, from the earliest notices of its history till the fall of the Roman Empire, was the El Dorado of the rest of the world, and furnished a large proportion of the materials for its circulating wealth.[398] During a long period, too, these mines seem to have been known only to the Phœnicians, who thus reserved to themselves the secret of a great power and influence over the nations near them, while, at the same time,--establishing colonies, as was their custom, to secure the sources of their wealth,--they carried their language and manners through a considerable part of the South of Spain, and even far round on the shores of the Atlantic.[399] [398] The general statement may, perhaps, be taken from Mariana, (Lib. I. c. 15,) who gives the story as it has come down through tradition, fable, and history, with no more critical acumen than is common with the Spanish historians. But such separate facts as are mentioned by Livy (Lib. XXXIV. c. 10, 46, Lib. XL. c. 43, with the notes in Drakenborch) bring with them a more distinct impression of the immense wealth obtained anciently from Spain than any general statements whatever; even more than those of Strabo, Diodorus, etc. It has been supposed by Heeren, and by others before and since, (Ideen, 1824, Band I. Theil ii. p. 68,) that the Tarshish of the Prophets Ezekiel (xxvii. 12) and Isaiah (lx. 8, 9) was in Spain, and was, in fact, the ancient Tartessus; but this is denied, (Memorias de la Academia de la Historia, Tom. III. p. 320,) and, no doubt, if the Tarshish of the Prophets were in Spain, there must have been another Tarshish in Cilicia, that is mentioned in other parts of Scripture. [399] See Heeren’s Ideen, Band I. Theil ii. pp. 24-71, 4th edit., 1824, where the whole subject is discussed.