Before Chrift 1179. 21 



long before Greece or any other part of Europe emerged from bar- 

 barifm *. 



About 1 1 00 — While the naval hiftory of Greece, if it may be fo 

 called, prefents nothing but petty piratical cruifes, and innumerable 

 emigrations and remigrations, occafioned partly by domeftic commo- 

 tions in the families of the chiefs, and partly by the hitherto-unfettled 

 condition and reftlefs difpofition of the people, the Phoenicians, infpir- 

 ed by the adive fpirit of commerce, and that thirft of knowlege which 

 diftinguiflies a cultivated people from a nation of favages, were extend- 

 ing their difcoveries along the whole of the north coaft of Africa and 

 the oppofite fh(jre of Spain ; and, no longer willing to let the inland or 

 Mediterranean fea fet bounds to their enterprifing difpofition, they 

 launched into the vafl Atlantic ocean, paffmg thofe fxmous head-lands, 

 which the Greeks for many ages afterwards efteemed the utmofl bound- 

 ary of the world, and celebrated under the poetical name of the TUlars 

 of Hercules \. Wherever they went, they appear to have eftablifhed 

 peaceful commercial fettlements, mutually beneficial to themfelves and 

 the natives of the country. The inhabitants of Baetica (now Anda- 

 lufia), when firfl vifited by the Phoenicians, poflefled abundance of gold, 

 filver, iron, copper, lead, tin, honey, wax, pitch, &c. Like the Ame- 

 ricans, when firft difcovered by the European adventurers, they made 

 their mofl common utenfils of the pretious metals, which they efteem- 

 ed fo little, that they gave in exchange for fome articles, of which no- 

 velty confiituted the principal value, fuch a quantity of filver, that there 

 is a fl;ory of one of the fhips being abfolutely fo overburthened with it, 

 that the Phoenicians were obliged to throw away the lead, with which 

 their zvooden anchors were loaded, to make room for a part of their fil- 

 ver, which they could not poflibly carry in any other manner. Befides 

 the abundance of metals of every kind, this highly-favoured region was 

 blefled with a fertile foil, producing all the neceflaries and comforts of 

 life in abundance, a delicious climate, and ferene air. In fiiort, it was 

 a country fo delightful in every refpeft, that the accounts given of it 

 by the Phoenician feamen are with good reafon believed to have fur- 

 niflied Homer with his defcription of the Elyfian fields. The Phoeni- 



* Mazocchi makes the Etrurians, or Tyn-he- ment to co-operate with him, (which no man can 



nians, of Phoenician origin. [_Symmach. DiJJ. V. ii] pretend to fay he did or did not) is of no weight. 



And Mr. Bourget, {Sa^gi d'l D'ljfert. accadem. Neither is his proof from the dillimilariry of a few 



Dijf. i] on comparing the Etrurian and Phoeni- vocables very llrong. In the courfe ot io many 



cian alphabets, finds them nearly the fame. {Orlis ages the knowlege of a common origin would have 



erudhi literatura a charadere Samarit. deduHa'] On little influence in oppofition to political interells ; 



the other hand, Bochart,' the great inveftigator of and every one knows that language is continually 



Phccnician colonization, denies that the Etrurians changing. 



had any conneftion with the Phoenicians. But his f It is not certain whether the head-lands, fome 



argument drawn from their not joining the Car- fmall iflands, two mountains, or the brafs columns 



thaginians againft the Romans, and from Hanni- in the temple of Hercules at Gadir (Cadiz), were 



bal not alleging their common origin as an induce- the columns of Hercules. [_Slrabo, L. iii, p. 258.] 



