i6 Before Chrift 1280 — 1234. 



> 



L. i, p. 65 ; L. xvii, p. 1 156] the plan was pretty certainly his ; and to 

 this royal father of geography the commercial world is alfo indebted 

 for the firfl idea of inland navigation, which is now fo highly im- 

 proved by the great abilities of our engineers, that not only level coun- 

 tries like Egypt, but even fuch as have great declivities, and other ob- 

 flacles, which not long ago were thought infuperable, are now traverfed 

 from fea to fea by veffels of confiderable burthen. 



1280 — There is reafon to believe, that about this time the fpirit of 

 trade had fpread itfelf over the greatefl part of Afia proper, now called 

 the LelTer Afia. It has already been obferved, that Pelops carried great 

 riches with him into Greece from Phrygia. Another part of that coun- 

 try was governed by Midas, who is faid by the poets to have turned 

 every thing he touched into gold. The moil rational explanation of 

 this fable feems to be, that he encouraged his fubjeds to convert the 

 produce of their agriculture, and other branches of induftry, into money 

 by commerce, whence confiderable wealth flowed into his own treafury. 

 [Plin. Hijl. nat. L. xxxiii, c. 3.] This explanation will appear the more 

 probable, when it is remembered, that the invention of anchors for ftiips 

 is afcribed to this prince by Paufanias, and the invention of coining 

 money to his queen, by Julius Pollux ; though it is more likely, that 

 what the Greeks called the invention, was rather the introduction of 

 the knowlege of them from countries more advanced in civilization. 

 Strabo, however, afcribes the great wealth of Midas to mines *. 



1234 — According to the authors followed by Appian, the firft found- 

 ation of Carthage by the Tyrians was fifty years before the defi;ruc- 

 tion of Troy. It is probable that it was for feveral ages a place of little 

 note f . 



The extenfive and fertile ifland of Crete, centrically fituated between 

 Europe, Afia, and Africa, and called by Arifl;otle the emprefs of the fea, 

 was undoubtedly capable of commanding the commerce of the Mediter- 

 ranean, and of courfe j^olFefllng the naval empire of that fea, had it been 

 fully poflefled by the Phoenicians, who lecm not to have been very nu- 

 merous in it. Of the commercial efforts of the Cretans little or nothing 

 is known. Caflor Rhodius, as copied by Kufebius, has afcribed to them 

 the honour of being the firfl, who held the dominion of the fea. But 

 we mufl be careful not to affix modern ideas to antient terms. This 

 boafled dominion of the fea extended only to the fupprellion of the Ca- 

 rians and fome other pirates, who infefted the coafts, by a naval force 

 fitted out by Minos, the fecond king of that name in Crete; an expedi- 

 tion made by him to Athens in revenge for the murder of his fon, on 



• Mida? appears to liavc been a family name certain if this one is placed in liis proper time ; 

 common to many of the Phrygian kings. There nor is it of much confcqucncc. 

 was one contemporary with Homer. I am not f Sec the year 868 before Chrift. 



