The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.Prescott, Thomas H.
History
The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel: Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.
Prescott, Thomas H.
Biography; World history
settlements were required for the collection of the produce which was
to be taken back to Phœnicia. Accordingly, in process of time,
Phœnician colonies were established at all available points of the
Mediterranean――on the coasts of Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain,
and in the Balearic Islands; the rising maritime spirit of the Greeks
excluding the Phœnicians from the Ægean and the coasts of Asia Minor.
Among the most ancient of the colonies from Tyre were Carthage and
Utica on the African coast, and Gades (Cadiz) in Spain; all of which
were founded before the first of the Greek Olympiads (B. C. 884). From
these afterwards arose smaller settlements, which diffused the
Phœnician agency still more extensively among the uncivilized nations
of Africa and western Europe. Gades in Spain, situated, according to
the ancient mode of navigation, at a distance of seventy-five days’
sail from Tyre and Sidon――a distance larger than that which now
divides Liverpool from Bombay――was a colony of special importance;
first, as commanding the inland Spanish trade, particularly valuable
at that time, inasmuch as the gold and silver mines of Spain caused it
to be regarded as the Mexico or Peru of the ancient world; and
secondly, as forming a point from which the Phœnician commerce could
be still farther extended along the extra-Mediterranean shores. From
this point, we are told, the Phœnician ships extended their voyages
southward for thirty days’ sail along the coast of Africa, and
northwards as far as Britain, where they took in tin from Cornwall,
and even as far as the Baltic, where they collected amber. Upon what a
scale of profit must these expeditions have been conducted, when, from
Tyre to Cornwall, not a merchant ship besides those of the Phœnicians
was to be seen! And who can tell what influence these Phœnician visits
may have had on the then rude nations bordering the Atlantic?――or how
far these ante-historic Phœnician impulses may have stimulated the
subsequent career of these nations? Like the visit of an English
merchantman now to a South Sea Island, so must have been the visit of
a Phœnician trading vessel 3000 years ago to the Britons of Cornwall.
As might be expected, this great merchant people were among the most
cultured of antiquity, and especially skilled in all the arts of
luxurious living. The 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel presents a
most striking picture of the pride and magnificence of the Tyrians,
and embodies many minute particulars relative to Phœnician customs and
mode of life. Indeed it has been pronounced the most early and most
authentic record extant relative to the commerce of the ancients.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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