Before Chrlfl; 524. 49 



524 The conquefls of Cyrus having reduced Tyre and the neigh- 

 bouring Phoenician communities to a ftate of vaflalage, the whole of 

 their fhipping was thenceforth hable to be preffedintQ the fervice of the 

 Perfians, who had no naval force, but what they obtained from thfeir 

 vaffals and allies, Cambyfes, the fon and fucceflbr of Cyrus, having 

 conquered Egypt, and thinking himfelf capable of governing the whole 

 world, ordered the Phoenicians to proceed to Carthage, and to reduce it 

 under his obedience. But they, though his vaflals and tributaries, had 

 the courage to refufe obedience to his order, alleging how impious it 

 would be in them to attack their own colony : and Cambyfes did not 

 venture to provoke the refentment of thofe in whofe hands his only na- 

 val ftrength lay, by infixing upon their compliance. Thus were the 

 Carthaginians refcued from the calamities of war, perhaps from ruin, by 

 the only confiderable naval force in the world, befides their own, being 

 in the hands of their friends. Happy would it have been for thePerfian 

 land forces, if they alfo had been incapacitated from undertaking the ex- 

 peditions commanded by their frantic fovereign. The main divifion of his 

 army, with a mofl aftonifliing perfeverance of obedience, attended him 

 in an expedition againft Ethiopia, till they were driven to the dreadful 

 necelTity of devouring a tenth part of their own number. The other 

 part of the army, being ordered to deftroy the temple of Jupiter Am- 

 mon, penetrated into the defert on the weft fide of Egypt, and were 

 never more heard of; the probable fuppofition being, that they were 

 all, to the number of fifty thouiand men, buried alive under the drifting 

 fands. 



The Carthaginians, happily fituated beyond the reach of the defolat- 

 ihg fwords of the conquerors, who fuccellively overturned the empires 

 ofAfia, had probably, during fome ages, enjoyed a ftate of general 

 tranquillity and commercial profperity *. Here, therefor, I propofe to 

 colled fuch notices of their manufa6lures, commerce, and nautical dif- 

 coveries, as I have been able to glean from the authors of antiquity, 

 though I cannot pretend to place them in chronological order. 



It is reafonable to believe, that moft, if not all, of the manufactures 

 of Sidon and Tyre were tranfplanted to Carthage : and even the fcanty 

 and malicious notices of their eiiemies univerfally acknowlege the fuper- 

 iority of the Carthaginians in works of tafte and elegance. Their coins, 

 fome of vv^hich are preferved in cabinets and copied in engravings, are 

 the only fpecimens of their workmanfliip, which the preient age can 



a difagrecment between them and the particulars, civil wars, and that, to appeafe tlie offended deities, 



which has puzzled the commentators. Some of they had lecourfe to the abominable wickednefsof 



the ftages are evidently omitted. odering human facrjtices, not Iparing even their 



* At lead fo we may infer from the filence of own children. But all Roman caluir.nics upon 



the Greek and Roman authors, who thought no- Carthage mull be read uith dillruli : and Jiiftin's 



thing worthy of being recorded but war and ilaugh- civil wars are apparently c<;atradii"ted by ihe fu- 



ter. Jullin, indeed, fays [i. xviii, r, 7] that the perior authority of Arillotle. {_De repub. L, ii, 



Carthaginians were afflitled with the pcltilence and c. 1 1.] 



Vol. I. G 



