In other parts of the Mediterranean coasts the Greek settlements lay further apart from each other. But we may say that they were spread here and there over the whole coast, except where there was some special hindrance to keep the Greeks from settling. ♦Phœnician colonies.♦ Thus, in a great part of the Mediterranean the Phœnicians had got the start of the Greeks, both in their own country on the coast of Syria, and in the colonies sent forth by their great cities of Tyre and Sidon. The Phœnician colonists occupied a large part of the western half of the southern coast of the Mediterranean, where lay the great Phœnician cities of _Carthage_, _Utica_, and others. They had also settlements in Southern Spain, and one at least outside the straits on the Ocean. This is _Gades_ or _Cadiz_, which has kept its name and its unbroken position as a great city from an earlier time than any other city in Europe. The Greeks therefore could not colonize in these parts. In the great islands of Sicily and Cyprus there were both Phœnician and Greek colonies, and there was a long struggle between the settlers of the two nations. In Egypt again, though there were some Greek settlers, yet there were no Greek colonies in the strict sense. That is, there were no independent Greek commonwealths. Thus the only part of the southern coast of the Mediterranean which was open to Greek colonization was the land between Egypt and the dominions of Carthage. ♦Greek colonies in Africa, Gaul, and Spain.♦ In that land accordingly several Greek cities were planted, of which the chief was the famous _Kyrênê_. On the southern coast of Gaul arose the great Ionian city of _Massalia_ or _Marseilles_, which also, like the Phœnician Gades, has kept its name and its prosperity down to our own time. Massalia became the centre of a group of Greek cities on the south coast of Gaul and the east coast of Spain, which were the means of spreading a certain amount of Greek civilization in those parts. ♦Colonies on the Euxine.♦