In the seventh century B.C., Gaddir, or Cadiz, was a flourishing city, as also was another Phœnician settlement on the northeast coast, Tartessus, or Tarracco, the modern Tarragona, since famous for its wines and Roman ruins. During the first centuries of Phœnician commerce with Spain, traditions tell us, silver was so abundant that the Tyrians not only loaded their vessels with the ore, but hammered it into anchors and ballast for their ships. Gold, silver, and copper coins were minted and ornaments wrought; and these, together with other objects of antiquity, are frequently found to–day—relics of the ancient Gaddir, or of Phœnician “Cadiz under the Sea.” Some have held that, while the first city was founded here, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, yet the mines of gold, silver, and copper were those we find to–day more northerly, in the province of Huelva. From the port of Huelva, at the mouth of the Rio Tinto, vast amounts of copper have been exported in modern times; and, moreover, this same river, down which the caravels of Columbus sailed at the very beginning of their first voyage to America, derived its ancient name from the copper colour of its waters. The Phœnicians came here as merchant rovers; perhaps at times they had acted as pirates of the sea, but had carried on no war of conquest. At the most, they colonized a few seacoast cities, and in exchange for the natural products of Spain they bestowed upon the natives the benefits of their civilization, including, it is thought, the alphabet and the art of writing. It was left for the Phœnician colony of Carthage to bring the Iberians directly tributary to another people, soon after the close of the first Punic war. Though, according to tradition, an embassy of Gauls and Iberians was sent to Alexander the Great, in the fourth century B.C., yet they still existed in obscurity when the great Hamilcar Barca turned his attention to Spain as a possible recruiting ground for his depleted armies. Rome had conquered him in Sardinia and Sicily, which provinces he had lost to Carthage, and he had been compelled to sue for peace. But his hatred of Rome was implacable, and, foreseeing the futility of waging further war from Africa direct, he passed over into Spain, and there again built up his forces with recruits from the wild but fearless Celtiberians. Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s son–in–law, who founded the city of New Carthage, or Cartagena, in Spain, after Hamilcar was killed, in the year 228 B.C., carried on the conquest of Spain until himself assassinated seven years later.