Like the undertaking against the Ammonians, the intention of Cambyses to send the fleet against Carthage was evidence of his plan of extending his power to the west, and achieving in Africa what his father had done in Asia. Herodotus gives the account of the order commanding the fleet to sail, of the refusal of the Phenicians, and the abandonment of the project by Cambyses, according to the tradition of the Greeks, who together with the Phenicians made up the fleet of Cambyses and the Greeks in Egypt. There is no reason to doubt the statement. By the submission of the Cyrenaeans and Barcaeans Cambyses became the neighbour of Carthage, which had lately united the Phenician colonies of West Africa under her leadership and was eager to oppose the advance of the Greeks in the west of the Mediterranean, the settlement of their colonies to the west of the great Syrtis, and their progress in Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. If the attempt to advance to the desert to the west of El Charigeh were already wrecked, if Cambyses had already returned from Napata when he commanded the fleet to sail against Carthage, new successes covered that disaster as well as the calamity of Premnis, and the gain of Carthage was of more importance than that of the oasis of Sivah. The old Phenicians of the East, in union with the navy of the Anatolian cities, was to conquer the new Phoenicia of the West. The Greeks no doubt were ready, but the Phenicians refused. By injuring their colonies in the West they would have rendered the greatest service to the rival naval power and trade of the Greeks; in Anatolia and on the coasts of Sicily they would probably have given a fatal blow to their own power by sea. Whether Cambyses saw this connection of affairs, and felt that the subjection of Carthage would liberate the independent Greeks from a dangerous neighbour, and the dependent Greeks from a rival in trade, or whether he simply gave way to the refusal of the Phenicians, we cannot decide: we only know that "as the fleet of the Phenicians refused,"--and it formed the preponderating part of the naval force,--it was impossible to compel it to go. FOOTNOTES: [155] Herod. 3, 13. [156] Diod. "Exc. de legat." p. 619 = 10, 14. [157] Herod. 7, 69. Cf. Strabo, p. 802. [158] Herod. 3, 30. [159] Herod. 3, 17-26; Diod. 3, 1. [160] Vol. III. 63 ff. 159. [161] The name Miluhhi is nevertheless used so often in the inscription of the kings, and in such close connection with Egypt, that the kingdom of Napata may merely be meant. Assurbanipal tells us that his brother seduced into rebellion "the princes of Miluhhi whom he subjugated." Vol. III. 170.