^6 Before Chrift 524. 



authenticity and impartiality to any of the Roman writers, may ferve as 

 an antidote againft their wretched cakimnies of Carthaginian perfidy, 

 Carthaginian falfehood, treachery, &c. continually repeated by them, 

 and inconfiderately echoed by many modern writers. 



The trade carried on upon the weft coafl of Africa, of which we can 

 only glean thefe few hints, was undoubtedly the fruit of Hanno's difco- 

 very. We muft regret, that the intercourfe with the countries dif- 

 covered by Himilco, with which the moft antient hiftory of our own 

 ifland is apparently very clofely connected, is buried in ftill deeper ob- 

 fcurity. But it is very evident, that thefe two voyages on the Atlantic 

 ocean added almoft a new world to the commerce of the Carthaginians, 

 which was the more lucrative, that they had the trade almoft free from 

 foreign competition : and the fouthern branch of it, which may be pre- 

 fumed to have been entirely without a rival, appears to have been affi- 

 duoufly cultivated, and long perfevered in *. 



Such is the poor account, which I have been able to collefk from an- 

 tient authors of the greateft commerce, that ever was carried on by any 

 nation of the weftern world from the dawn of hiftory till times com- 

 paratively modern ; a commerce, which, by the unrivaled extent, and 

 the judicious management, of it, relieved all nations of their fuperflui- 

 ties, fupplied all their wants, and everywhere difpenfed plenty and com- 

 fort ; whereby, through the good oi^ices of thofe univerfal agents and 

 carriers, the Indian, the Ethiopian, the Negro, the Briton, and the Scy- 

 thian, living in the extremities of the world, and ignorant of each-other's 

 exiftence, contributed to each-other's felicity by increafmg their own f . 



524 — At this time commerce with its ufual fupporters, the arts and 

 fciences, appears to have made confiderable progreis among the Greeks, 

 and particularly among thofe of Afia and the iflands, who were in ge- 

 neral opulent and powerful at fea ; at leaft, we may confider them as 

 fuch, if compared with their anceftors. Polycrates, who, from a private 

 ftation, had raifed himfclf, by means of the wealth inherited from his 

 father, to the fovereignty of Samos, a confiderable ifland near the coaft 

 of Afia, pofil-fted luch a naval force, that, befides his ufual fleet of one 

 hundred vcflels of fifty oars each, he fitted out forty triremes, which he 

 fent to aflift Cambyfes in his expedition againft Egypt, not as a vafllil, 



of tlitfe authors afford a noble confirmation of the ticnt authors have written upon Carthage, has next 



veracity of IL-rodotus and his Carthaginian in- to nothing upon the moll important fuLjcds of the 



formers. Another fimilar trade carried on in nianufafturcs and commerce of the Carthaginians ; 



Ethiopia is mentioned by Cofmas Indicopleudcs. and nothing upon their navigation and colonics, 



• It is remarkable that Ptolemy's latitudes of except a ptomife (not performed) of proving, that 



places on that part of the weft eoad of Africa, to Amcrua was mojlly peopL-d from Carl/jai;c. Hanno 



which the Carthagiin'ans traded, are more correCl is only named ; Himilco not at all ; and not a word 



than in moll other parts of his work ; a proof, of the trade at Kerne. — Campomancs, a Spanidj 



among others,' of the fuperiority of the nautical writer, has colledcd feveral detached incidental no- 



fcicncc of the Carthaginians. ticcs of particular articles of the Carthaginian com- 



t Chriftniihcr Hcudreich, in a work entitled merce in a work entitled Aiiliguidad marilima ile 



Ciirthai^o, wherein he profed'es to collcft what an- Carla^o, p. 40. ct fcqq. 



